Chapter 5 - Carly's Plan

I settled on the edge of my bed with my bag's strap falling off my arm feeling its rough texture lightly touch my knuckles. I shrugged my shoulders with the aid my hands pulled off the bag off my shoulders. The hotly explosive joy that burned my heart seeing him again cooled into a shallow smile.

My memories of my young adult self were populated with images of my older brother that thinned through a few years of a blurry capture muddied with time. After those short years, she can see herself standing by her mother without her brother, but she can hear a few voicemails lingering behind the picture. That voice was scratched with digital fissures, and from came hollow crackles which made my heart ache. Just the bare interaction ignited by the celebration of a reunion was just held within her.

She fell back onto her bed feeling the edge of her bag digging into her lower back, reaching with her forearm below her to push away the bag, and then her mind would attend to her predicament. Seeing the face of the fire queen who spoke with cold intentions was a girl that she can remember clearly from a past that she may be rewriting at the moment due to a chance encounter that was in the history books.

Gig was an uncontested warrior in the schoolyard regarding the art of gossip, mind games and mental games to lure her victims into a pit. She was there at my last moment before I gave up and spent a few years lost in my misery. I could pin every event on her, but this isn't a story about heroes or villains but also a comedy of well-meaning fools who create those moments that made or broke me. I should begin reintroducing myself to a boy whom I once fell in love with but came to a finality of a moment in my memories. I raised my hand to place it on my forehead feeling the small thread press onto my skin, 'Calling them moments feels weird and strange.' I thought seeing the film of images whirr before my eyes only to be met with a white ceiling above.

I feel myself in my pit of thoughts mingled with negative emotions and harmful self-reflection brought by the resurfacing of his name and the bond felt with him. Andrew would sport short thick curls with his blonde hair slowing darkening in her memories, but his early look of his teen felt strangely nostalgic. She wouldn't know him, and he is beyond the place and time to bump into her to begin a short friendship that leads to a stunted young love. I could forget when I felt my heart cringe at the mere flash of her name in mind that rose feelings of sisterly love that felt lost beneath layers of time and memories.

Chiara was a girl who would talk to her and greet her with a face that lacked all the charm of a stranger attempting to establish a familiarity with a stranger. Her nature felt quiet and sincere which can be mistaken for disinterest or narcissism that barely existed with her. Strangely, I yearned to meet her again though the last time I saw her face was exposed with mask fallen into pieces. My head rose from the bed with my neck craned looking at my closed bedroom door. 'I could reach out to her… I don't…' my thoughts flattened my chest feeling my gasp escape my lips in frustration. I shouldn't be acting like this, but I placed a few years in the past where anything can happen.

I already broke my timeline due to a minor panic attack and any small movement or words shared out loud can shift the timeline into a different future. I can lay on my bed knowing I'm just making a mess with my mere existence that sends out vibrations into a universe that creates a hurricane on the other side of the world. Chaos incarnate, I am, laying on my bed staring up to the ceiling where my thoughts project from my eyes. The thoughts mingled in a flush of images and words floating within my vision would fade into the toilet. I can remember walking into the stall to pee and noticing the words on the wall before I experienced a blackout.

My body rose from the bed with my hand rubbing my neck I felt a minor pain. I know that I need to visit the public toilet at the park to find anything to help and maybe I can return to the future. I smirked a little at the idea of Marty returning to his timeline but sadly I was alone. Marty had a time machine and I needed to find my time machine, priceless. I can notice ambient light dim, I turn to look out the window to notice the streetlights glow weakly before the sky darkens to dark azure with splinters of stars. I draw my curtains and walk across my room to reach for the bedroom light. I took a few steps back to flop on my bed but immediately heard my bedroom door fly open. "Yo, Mom served dinner," he stood in the doorway with a can of Coke.

"Okay, just go downstairs," I tossed about in mild irritation.

"Alright…" he mumbled stepping back.

My irritation grew with the door still left open, I reached to slam it but held myself standing in the doorway watching him walk downstairs. "ah, he's still my brother, I muttered before falling behind with my bedroom door dragged behind too close.