The storm. It's harder than it's ever been. The winds are tearing at my skin. Everything is so loud. And then the pain. The pain. It isn't physical. It's mental, emotional. Everything but physical. If it were physical, it would go away as soon as I wake up. But it doesn't. The cause of pain changes every night. I started keeping track of what it was every time it happened. I just hope these never actually happen.
"Lily, breakfast is ready."
"Lily?"
"Oh my gosh. Daren get in here! Something is happening! She's bleeding!"
And with those words I wake up. Actually I sit straight up in bed trying to fight something that I have no recollection of. Yet I fight. I'm clawing at the air and I feel arms wrap around me from behind and then they grab for my arms.
I give in to them. But all I see is black. No there are shades of red too. It's the blood that stained the awful picture my mind created. But then I leap. I leap and open my eyes to find my mother looking at me frantically. I lean into the figure behind me. He holds me a little tighter, knowing it will help calm me down.
"What's wrong with me?" I ask in a raspy voice towards my mother. She looks at me with the most sincerity I have ever seen. She holds my face in her hands and wipes the blood from my nose.
"I don't know what is wrong. But it isn't your fault. Don't blame yourself because it will only make it worse." She says soothingly.
I don't know how but my eyes are dry. I'm not crying. And for some reason it worries me. Every other girl, in fact person would cry or show some kind of emotion after seeing that, but I'm numb. I'm always numb. I never cry, or at least not in front of people. I just hold it all in. So why hasn't this triggered something? Why am I feeling to lost to myself?
"Do you want to go to school?" Dad asks softly in my ear as he still holds me like the 5-year-old girl he wishes I still were.
"Yes. I need to be there." I say going to get up.
---
"You look like death." Sam analyzes me. He's right. I don't have on any makeup. I'm wearing a hoodie and I never wear hoodies.
"It's like she dug herself up from her casket." Olivia says, poking me in the arm. I don't react. It's as if the numbness I felt earlier.
"Is she even in there?" Ashton asks as I keep walking towards my locker.
"To answer all of your lovely remarks, I do feel like death, I feel like I did dig myself out of my own grave, and I definitely don't feel like I'm here." I say looking around at them.
"Wait a minute. What day is it?" Riley asks. I can see it in her eyes that she knows something they don't, and I'm not sure I know either.
"August 13th. Why?" Preston responds, speaking for the first time today.
"Guys, its the one year mark. Sebastian left a year ago today. And Eric left 2 months after he did." Riley says, pointing out something I had completely forgotten. Sebastian and Eric are my older brothers. One is in the Marines and the other is in the Air Force. We are all really close and it is really hard to not see them for a year. But we still keep in touch the best we can.
I turn around to grab my stuff for chemistry and head in that direction. The entire day has been a blur up until now. I don't know why, but I can't shake what happened this morning. They have never been violent before but when I woke up my face was covered in blood. I had a nose bleed, I had bit my lip so hard it bled and I had scratched my eyebrow. It was really bad.
Unlike yesterday, Alex is already sitting at our lab table. He is sitting there with a black leather jacket, blue jeans, and a white t-shirt underneath. The thing that takes me back the most is the fact that his sunglasses are gone.
His eyes are a sapphire blue so piercing that I could just get lost in. They are the type of eyes that you could stare at for hours and never get tired. They are the eyes that could tell you an entire story should the owner let down the walls.
"What are you staring at today?" He startles me. He gives me that same grin as I take my seat.
"Shut up." I say and take out my things to begin taking notes.
"What happened to you? I don't even know you and I can tell something is off." He says turning towards me. I almost see a hint of concern behind his perfectly help mask.
"Nothing you should concern yourself with." I reply, my voice betraying me slightly. I write down my notes as the teacher talks and do the best I can. I can't think straight. All I can think about is the way he looked at me. He keeps such a hard persona and yet I saw a glimpse of something. I know I did.