After his parents' sudden death, Chester Covington leaves everything behind and moves in with his aunt.
But nobody knows what is going on behind the facadé of a traumatized boy who has watched his parents die that he puts up ever single day of his...
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"Be back at ten!" I hear my aunt yell, just as I shut the front door behind me. I walk up to the group of people, that is sitting on one of the benches right outside our house, yawning at the lack of sleep that I got the last few nights. When a few leaves crunch under the heel of my sneakers, their heads whip around.
"There you are! Wassup, dude," Kai greets and stretches out his fist, whereupon I bump mine against it. He sends me a big smile as he stands up, which I try to return but the heavy corners of my lips make it hard.
Another few days have passed and it's Sunday again. But lately my condition worsened, since that one incident in school. The nightmares got more intense, more terrifying and more frequent; thus my nights got shorter. The lack of sleep is clearly visible due to the dark bags that are resting under my eyes, which I had unsuccessfully tried to get rid of with some skincare product cream thing or whatever from Chloe.
My aunt noticed it this morning. She treated me differently today. As if I would break apart had she made one wrong movement, as if a waterfall of tears would cascade down my cheeks had she said something wrong.
And honestly, I hate it. Being treated like a fragile doll. Do people think I would feel better if they treated me with so much care and caution? Do they think that I would be grateful when they talk to me as if I was a child?
I just want to be treated like every other day. I don't want to be reminded of how much parental care I have missed out on, how much love I never got to feel. It doesn't help me one bit.
But if they treated me normally, argued with me, cracked super unfunny and awkward jokes, maybe even slapped me on the back of my head if I said something ridiculous, that is, what would really help me. However, unfortunately there is no human being out there who would get that.
"Chase, come on!" Gwen calls out, breaking me out of my daze. I run up to the others, who are already walking through the forest into the direction of the nearest bus station, and fall into step with them. Kai and Gwen had taken the bus this morning to come by for a visit, but in the end they decided to drag Chloe and me out to have some 'fun'.
As far as I know, we're gonna spend the afternoon and evening in some trampoline hall. I've never been on a trampoline before and honestly I'm not really fond of jumping on one, fearing that I might bruise my shoulder even more than it already is.
Anyway, after a good 15 minutes we're at the end of the forest and the bus station comes into view.
"Hey, Chase," someone suddenly says, making me jump. I turn my head and see Cooper flashing a big grin at me, whereupon I scrunch up my eyebrows in confusion. I didn't even notice that he also came along. He wasn't here when Gwen and Kai arrived. . . I think. Or was he?
"Mom threw me out in front of your house. She didn't want me to sit in front of my computer all day long, since it's apparently bad for my back and my education. As if I cared about my education," he explains, mumbling the last part to himself.
