don't you go // lrh

/nineteen/

/shades of blue/

/amara/

I've never been tortured before but I'm sure waking up in my own bed is pretty close.

My bed. In my own room. And the grating sound of the alarm just made it worse.

I stared at the familiar ceiling, a dull ache entering my chest when I remember Cat isn't here to cuddle me.

And it worsens when I remember I stayed up all night watching the sunrise in New York with a boy I like yesterday and now I have to go to school?

The two instances seem to exist on different planets.

We got back to Boston fairly early yesterday. We slept some more after the boys left for the airport. Got some breakfast and got on the next train to Boston.

I didn't have to force myself to get to sleep, I was catching up on all my hours I happily lost in New York.

Any other night, I would've hung out with Jesse and Maddie for as long as I can. Spend the night or something actually enjoyable.

But because of how we left the Hampton's we're probably gonna be in trouble for a bit. We didn't want to risk making it worse and missing the first day of senior year.

Barf.

On the bright side we're never in trouble long. And I know it sounds bad, but we all know it's true.

All our parents will soon forget why they were mad in the first place. Either enough time will pass, or we'll do something else that will piss them off.

I think I'm too scared to call it neglect. We've got massive roofs over our heads, expensive clothes on our backs, an excess of food in our stomachs. It'd be stupid to call it neglect.

But it's more like a symptom.

Yeah, a symptom of having parents who do the work they all do. They're way too busy to notice, I guess. Whatever punishment they're getting will soon be lifted and we'll be together again.

It still sucks though. I can't even drive over to pick them up for school like last year.

Our schools are not that far apart. We go to the three major private schools in the area. The only difference between our schools is our parents pay an extra fee at tuition. Tuition that prohibits paparazzi from entering the premises, or anywhere near the premises. That and you need a certain grade point average to qualify. And trust me the only thing worse than spoiled rich kids are smart spoiled rich kids.

As far as paparazzi goes, it was a precaution my parents took when I was a kid, and first started kindergarten. The media attention on me has completely dwindled as I've gotten older thankfully.

I put on my uniform for my last first day of school, and hated how it looked on me. The skirt's still too big, and it hangs loose at my waist despite the fact that my mom got all my uniform tailored weeks ago. The itchy fabric is swallowing me whole and there's no point in fixing it now.

I grabbed my headphones, a book, and my cigarettes before locking up and getting in the car.

And on the drive, I let the Spotify recommendations playlist play a 5SOS song. Usually it's a hard skip, but today I figured why not let it play?

And it's a nice little reminder to myself, what just happened to me. To us.

I try to give myself a pep talk before I get out of the car. That's it's just three weeks I have to get through and it'll finally be over. I desperately needed that extra motivation just to get out of the car.