No matter how much she runs, Laura is stuck in an endless loop of her past. With a transfer of school and a curly-haired boy who seems to be wherever she goes, it's a matter of time she realizes that her universe ceases at the sight of him-and runni...
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WITH THE MIDTERMS OVER, things perused as a dramatic standstill. School became a monotony, homework piled up again, and coffee re-entered my life as a drug. Evan and I didn't meet nearly enough, but called every other day. Winter was creeping in, camouflaging into evening gusts and morning chillness.
The dullness of routine was alarming, letting my mind wary astray. One thought spiraled into chains until the thoughts spread like a fire that couldn't be put out—a hurt that unfurled in form of a token of reminder from the past. Things were so different last year. Not reliving memories I had once cherished twisted my stomach into heinous knots until my chest had congested with the taste of char, dark and noxious and crushing.
It was Sebastian and Elizabeth and I until it wasn't, and the lone remembrance of it all sent the earth slipping beneath my feet. As if someone had yanked the safety-net I had managed to stick to place.
I was terrified of it, of the vice-like grip it had. Of the impending hurt I was yet to expose all of myself to, simply because I had trapped myself in a bubble and refused to get out.
I'd lost myself over losing one person. If the wave rolled back and knocked me off my feet, I would lose everyone I had started to love.
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STELLA REYES ROLLED HER EYES. Her little lavender blouse was snug at the waist, letting the black skirt flow past her knees and accentuate her build. Her hair was pushed back, tied with a ribbon, and her lips were tinged berry-pink.
Chloe took a step back before a carboard box definitely holding something fragile hit the floor. My quick reflexes knew the situation before it could happen, hands cradling the recipient of ill-treatment.
"C'mon," Stella whined. "I'm starving. I feel faint. I might just die."
I dropped a desperate glance to Chloe. She always had something—a chocolate bar, candy, gum—anything with herself which she would offer politely to anyone like the angel she was. But now, in a moment of distress, when Stella's hunger was causing a ruckus, the world seemed against us.
"Let's take a break," I finally breathed out, trying to focus on today and the task at hand. If I did not take one day at a time, I would jam my limbs and forget how to move. Or breathe, for that matter.
We had been looking through what to buy for Evan for the past three hours. That could be an over exaggeration if we excluded the time period we got distracted and started looking through pretty dresses, but the repercussions of shopping without a single thing in the bag was hitting us square in the gut. Especially to Stella, who to my surprise, was bothered by hunger more than I was.
She was only here because I had managed to drag her along. I'm going to the celebration empty-handed, she'd said. Mr. celebrity isn't getting any gifts from me. Their jabbing comments at each other throughout school hadn't lessened a fraction.
