Leaving Laurabelle Falls

Chapter 11

 Back home, I was told that I was quieter than I had been.

This is because many of my attempts to speak were likely to backfire.

Very likely.

"Honey," My mom shouted, from where I lay in the living room. My wheelchair couldn't make it up the stairs, so my mother had gone and bought a pull-out mattress from ikea.

I could feel the springs pushing into my back.

"Yeah?" I questioned, staring blankly up at the ceiling.

"Your brother is bringing Velma and Therese." She responded. "Both of them wanted to see you, make sure you were doing okay."

I felt an immediate, rising sense of claustrophobia. My nausea seemed to spread to my limbs as I forced myself into an upright position.

"I'd like to see them too." I shouted back, like I had been programmed.

"That's what I like to hear." My mom said, walking into the room. She smiled when she saw me already sitting up. She had a bowl of cereal in her hand, almost overflowing. She carefully walked towards me, the milk sloshing precariously to either side as she made her way over.

"They've been worried sick since the accident." She said, shaking her head. "Poor things have practically lost their minds."

"Maybe if they do, they'll find mine." I responded.

She handed me the bowl, which I accepted. I put it down into my lap and sat up, leaning over the setting. Milk dripped down my chin as I shoveled the cereal down.

Food didn't taste like it used to. I would gulp it down, hating every bite, wishing intensely to be back in Laurabelle Falls.

"Slow down, honey," My mom said, exasperation and disgust fighting the fake-sweetness she coated her voice with. "I don't want to have to change the sheets."

"Wouldn't it be easier if we could just make a new one?" I asked, once I had swallowed. "Like, if we could just wave... I don't know, a spectacularly carved wand, and they'd be just like new?"

She looked uncomfortable, and shifted. "I... Think I know what you're going for?"

"Yeah." I responded. I took another bite, grateful that she must have let it sit in there. The sogginess made it easy to slide down my throat. "It would rock if I could do that for you. Too bad I can't."

She gave me a long look. Her eyes were focussing hard on the sheets themselves, then hard on me. I met hers and held her gaze, unmoving, unflinching. I saw her tense, and sigh, and finally, head back into the kitchen.

The moment passed, and I sat the empty bowl on the side table.

I felt an odd guilt replacing my former hunger.

There were three loud raps on the door. My brother barged in, dragging his visitors with him.

Velma looked like she would be named Velma. Always did. Had soft, fluffy brown hair that was prone to frizz with glasses we weren't sure she actually needed. I called her a hipster behind her back to my brother, knowing she would have been offended if I said it to her face. Not that I meant anything mean by it; actually, I thought that Velma was super cool.

"Hey there!" Therese exclaimed. She pushed her way past Velma, her tight blonde curls pushing their way out of the beanie she was wearing. She was objectively a beautiful girl, but had never gotten out of the raccoon eyeliner phase that she had started in middle school. "How are you trucking?"

I smiled up at them.

I still felt an uncomfortable ich under my skin, still wanted to crawl under the blankets and disappear. But the happiness of seeing my brother's friends was still there, underneath that indescribable urge to be alone.