Paper Flowers (Pretty Plastic People) ★

040. Her Final Sacrifice

040. Her Final Sacrifice

At Aquino High, people's expectations always have a way of ruining my reality.

I don't sleep at all Sunday night.

Brianna's words keep throwing themselves around in my head, interrupting one another as they vy for my attention.  It's a miracle that I manage to get about an hour of sleep, and even then my thoughts are plagued with nightmares of catastrophes.  At three thirty, I wake up and decide to stay up since I'll never be able to fall back asleep.

The house is so silent it's eerie as I creep downstairs and into the kitchen.  The only sound is the faint hum of the refrigerator, and even that seems like a gunshot.  Carefully passing the door to Dad's bedroom, I reach into the fridge and grab an apple.  Then I sit on a barstool in the dark and eat, watching the clock above the stove tick in predictable time.  It's, surprisingly, the most at peace I've felt all week.

I hear footsteps in the hallway and the kitchen lights flick on.  Dad is standing next to the counter in pajamas, his hair ruffled from, I assume, tossing and turning.  "Couldn't sleep?" he asks.

I shake my head and he takes a seat at the barstool next to me.  "I'm just really stressed right now."

"Oh."  He knows not to ask questions.  After years of him asking about my tears, worry, and anger, I've always told him it was either homework or stress about school, not the Aquino High social system crushing me.  He eventually stopped asking.

We sit without saying anything, and all I hear is the clock continuing to tick and my apple crunching as I bite into it.  After a few minutes he turns to me and says, "If you ever need to talk to me I'm here.  I know you're probably really anxious about school and college, especially with this valedictorian thing."

I just nod.

"You should try to get some sleep, okay?  You'll want to be refreshed for your speech tomorrow."

My stomach flips but I stand.  I know Dad's trying to help me, but talking about it only makes it worse.  "Thanks," I say, forcing a smile.  "I think I'll head back to bed."

I toss my apple in the trash can as I leave the kitchen.  Once I'm back in my room, though, I don't go back to bed.  I sit on top of my sheets for a while, staring into the darkness and letting my nerves catch up with me.

I know, rationally, that my blinds are shut and nobody can see in.  But Taylor's video was recorded from the inside, which means someone got in his house and set up the camera.  Is it too far of a stretch to think that they'd do the same for me?

Now I can't even sit in the dark, much less sleep.  I stand and flick on my light, then begin a thorough search for a hidden camera.  I don't see anything at first glance but I force myself to look deeper, remembering horror stories I've read about people finding phones taped to walls in their rooms.  With shaking hands, I pull every book on my bookshelf off and toss them on the bed, running my hands along the wood where I can't see it to feel for a camera.

"Erika?"

Allison looks half-asleep, and she's rubbing her unusually make-up free eyes as she studies me from the doorway.  I realize I probably look weird, up at four in the morning with all of my books off the shelf, standing on my stepstool as if I'm looking for something.  Which I am, but I realize the importance of Allison not knowing—at least for twenty-four more hours.

My stomach flips.  I just mended my relationship with my sister.  How will she treat me if I tell the whole school that Taylor's her brother, even if it is in some twisted, not-blood-related way?