Kid in a Locker (REWRITING)

24. Two Sentence Horror Stories

The clock has been ticking on the wall all day, synchronizing with the beats of my hearts. It sits somewhere in Nick's house on the wall, the only sound in the whole living room. Nick sits across from me on the couch staring at me with concern while I lay across from him on the love seat. When we arrived here this morning I grabbed a blanket from his room, wrapped myself up in it, and layed on the couch like a tortilla. I haven't moved from this spot all day. Nick has tried to get me to move, to get me to talk to him, but nothing sticks. I can only stare at the place where the front left leg of big couch meets the carpet and dips it into a crater.

I have less than an hour until Romul and Peter are picking me up. From here we head on to the airport, the station wagon packed with all of our boxes for the next house we'll be moving in.

We've already looked into the new town. Camp Darby is nestled right between Pisa and a other town I've never heard of. We could go to a high school in Pisa or go to the one on base. Romul, Peter, and I all agreed that it would be best for us to stay on base for a while, or at least until we felt comfortable with Italian costoms.

Our house was going to be different this time as well, which was to be expected. This one seemed to look like a refurbished fire house, though I could only think that their fire houses wouldn't look like the ones in America. Also, while our current one was tiny and homely and spoke of log cabins hidden in the woods, this one spoke of spring and open spaces and adventure. Looking at the pictures of the place, I wanted nothing more than to go with Peter to discover everything Pisa had to offer.

This was crushed when I start to think about everything that I'm going to be leaving. One if the main things was the boy sitting across the room from me, but there were others.

Like Mr. Varshavski, my pre-cal teacher who congratulated us when we beat the crap out of Carson, or that hockey game we went to where the walls shook as people cheered on the Baker Street boys as they raced across the ice. From walking across the parking lot and having Troy land on my feet to dancing horribly to Spanish music with Nick during on of our study breaks. Lunch, the bachelorette party, meeting the principal and the guidance counselor for the first time. There was so much here that I hadn't meant to enjoy, but found myself missing deeply even if I'm not gone yet.

I had told Nick about Troy right after the party. He had been mad, rightfully so, and I couldn't tell if they had made up yet or not. Confrontations had been made and Nick was the madest I've ever seen him be before. His rage was on the same level as Romul's when he thought Nick had taken advantage of me. It was terrifying to watch him get into it with Troy, and I was suddenly very glad that when he said he was mad at me, he wasn't furious.

"Ophelia?" Nick asks. He is no longer on the couch and is now crouching down in front of me.

I blink at him to let him know I'm listening, but other than that I don't speak. I am so tired and it takes too much energy to talk to him right now.

After the Christmas party, the nightmares came back. This time is was staring Troy, Madison, and Nick. They would all be sitting in a drug den with needles sticking out if their arms and white powder lining the ground beside them. I was standing in the middle of the room frozen, watching them all as they die slowly over and over again. They would plead with me to save them with monotone voices and I would try, but every time I would be stuck in the same place.

At least this time it wasn't about Ben or Hanna, but that didn't make it any easier. As if this move wasn't stressful enough. The last thing I needed was to add exhaustion on top of all of this.

"Ophelia." He repeats again. When I don't reply, he sighs. "You've got to talk to me sometime. Don't make this be what our last time together is remembered as. Please."