Whispers In The Dark

Robin

Robin

I was doing well, according to my parents and my doctor. The numbness had worn off within a month and I wasn't seeing things. The voices spoke up occasionally, but it was bearable. And then the puking started.

Constant vomiting was a late-blooming side effect that I had had before, and absolutely hated. The last time it happened, they told me that it would fade away in two or three weeks, but I couldn't wait that long. Vomiting was awful. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't sleep, and my appetite decreased to nothing.

So, I just stopped taking it, again. It was the fastest way to make the vomiting stop; it only took a few days, a week at the most.

I was able to hide it from my family well enough. I used common sense. People who were on the TV couldn‘t actually speak to me, I knew that. I also knew that anything I saw floating, was probably not real.

The voices were the hardest to hide. It was hard to focus on what people were saying when I had something else talking to me at the same time, yelling at me and whispering things that my therapist had told me were bullshit, but honestly, I wasn't so sure.

School was going to be the hardest, and I knew it. So, when Victoria came up to me on Monday and started chatting away, I did my best to listen, but mostly just nodded my head and smiled when she laughed, cringing internally at the words they were saying.

She's only being friends with you out of pity. She has no chance with anyone else, though. I'm surprised even you would hang out with her, that odd pink hair and stupid piercings.

"Leave her alone," I mumbled.

"What?" Victoria asked.

My heart beat faster. She probably thought I was even more of a lunatic than before.

Of course she does!

"Nothing," I said, rubbing my sneakers across a scuff mark on the floor.

Reximus materialized behind me. "Hey, guys," he said.

I swiveled around, desperate to escape the matter of speaking my thoughts out loud. "Hey, Rex!" I nearly yelled; my head was still buzzing softly and hearing hardly came easy.

He was smiling and his eyes were bright, but it was hard for me to return the glee when my eyes were immediately drawn to the bruise spotting the left corner of his lip and a portion of his cheek.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one whose attention was immediately drawn to it. "What the hell happened!?" Victoria exclaimed.

Reximus visibly did his best not to let his smile falter, tightening the muscles around his mouth and laughing sheepishly. "Same old, same old..." He looked around. "Where's everyone else?"

"What do you mean, 'same old, same old'?" The voices were still talking, words jumbled together and forming incoherent strings of mumblings. "I thought we were done with this shit! Who was it this time?" I growled. "I'll kick their ass."

"And I'll help," Victoria seethed.

Reximus laughed again. "Seriously, guys, it's fine. He doesn't even go here. He's just some dick who went to my middle school and used to pick on me for being short and wimpy. I saw him with some of his friends and tried to say something back to them, and one of them didn't like it and hit me. No big deal."

Neither Victoria nor I wholly believed that, but we let it drop for the moment. I was nervous and shaky and the voices wouldn't shut up. Reximus was so, so far from okay, and he was trying to hide it by lying through his teeth and laughing.

It was all too forced. The smiles he bore were too tight, too big. His eyes were slightly squinting because of his repetitive smiling. The expression was surely exhausting his face. The bruise was dark, yet florid at the edges.

"Are you sure you're okay?" I said, though I was almost certain I already knew the answer.

"Yeah!" he chirped. "Of course!"

I stared at him uncertainly.

Reximus's eyes moved from mine to the area behind me. "Hey!"

Pushing away the worry of his over-perkiness, I turned around. Anna, Jessiah, and Riley had shown up, mere minutes before the first bell.

"Sorry we're late," Jessiah apologized. "We had to drop off a project for Chemistry."

Throughout the day, Reximus was more animated than I had ever seen him before. He spoke up the most in conversations, surpassing even Victoria in his speed. There was never a moment where he wasn't laughing or smiling, and yet there was also never a moment when he seemed genuine, at least to me.

No one else seemed to be too speculative about him, though Riley and Victoria asked him if he was okay a few times as well, seemingly unsure.

I couldn't focus on anything except for Reximus and the voices in my head. I didn't see anything, at least I thought I didn't, but the voices never ceased. They kept repeating the same things over and over.

Worthless. Shit. Unlovable. They don't even want to be friends with you. Stupid. Ugly. Disgusting. Whore.

I debated going to the nurse for some of my medication, but remembering the vomiting and the threat of weekly therapy brought me to dismiss the idea every time.

Reximus talked to me the most, including me in the most random and debatable of conversations. He was way too happy, it almost made me want to be generically happy.

I learned a few things. Mainly, Reximus was sadder than I had originally thought, and sad people notice sad people.