Whispers In The Dark

Jessiah

Jessiah

"Whoo-hoo!" Victoria screamed, arms flailing as she ran towards the store.

"Why has she been so damn hyper lately?" Riley groaned, locking the car doors.

It had taken two weeks for Victoria to convince everyone that Black Friday would be a fun experience and blah, blah, blah. But when she did, she went crazy.

She demanded that we all brought whatever money we could, claiming that we would want to buy everything we saw, and it was the perfect time to buy Christmas presents. She also made a list of stores that we had to go to and what time they opened, all at or after midnight, and said that we were on a top priority mission to "find the best sales before everyone else”.

The only one who couldn't go was Reximus, much to everyone's dismay. His mom wouldn't let him stay out that late with friends, especially people that she had yet to meet.

Overall, everyone was fairly excited, and Victoria was much more than "fairly" excited.

We had stopped at the mall, Toy's R Us (Victoria's idea, obviously), and Wal-Mart, before we went to Target and all hell just seemed to break loose.

It started out fine. The trunk of the car was quickly filling up with shopping bags and receipts. It was only two in the morning. Anna was dozing off between stores, and I was pretty sure that I saw Robin swallowing pills after the second store, but we were doing well and I didn't say anything. For a group that was usually like a time bomb if we were together for more than a class period, especially outside of school, we were golden.

Then I grabbed Victoria's sleeve and pulled on it to stop her from running off and to get her attention. I just needed to know what she thought would be a good gift for Anna, as I was absolutely clueless.

But I saw the criss-crossing lines across her skin and I froze.

She turned to me, oblivious to the fact that I had found out something that she had probably never wanted anyone to know. "Yeah?"

"Are you okay?" Stupid question...

"Yeah, I--" Her eyes flickered downwards to my fingers that were still grasping her sleeve, exposing the underside of her wrist and a small portion of her forearm, both showcasing scattered scratches, scabbed over and angry-looking.

She jerked her arm away from me and pulled her sleeve down over her wrist. She clutched her sleeves to her palms, her fingers white from the stress.

"Don't tell anyone," she hissed, eyes wide and scared. "Please, Jessiah?"

I shook my head frantically. "I won't." What the hell? It was the only thing I could think to say. I couldn't just say that it was best to seek help, right?

Victoria exhaled, the panic seemingly flooding from her body in that one breath. "Thank you," she breathed.

"No problem," I whispered, but she was already gone. She headed toward Anna and Riley to look through the women's clothing.

"You alright?" Robin came up beside me.

I jumped a bit, but smiled at him. "Yeah, I'm fine." I noticed that his breathing was shallow and he was looking everywhere but at me. "Are you?"

His eyes turned to me, just for a moment. "Of course." He attempted a smile. "C'mon, let's go wait for the girls."