Ashes, Ashes (READ THIS ONE)

Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

On sleepless roads the sleepless go. May angels lead you in.

Jimmy Eat World, 'Hear You Me'

"What was so important that I had to leave?" Addison asks once I'm in hearing zone. "Oh, it was normal Cupitor to Cupitor talk."

"Normal? None of this is normal, Abbi. None of it."

"That was what she said." I say. I try to hold eye contact with Addison, to show that I'm not lying. Well, I am, but that's beside the point. "You can tell the truth now. Lying isn't your strong point, Abbi."

"It was the truth," I tell her. I hope she gives up and changes the subject soon. She looks at me, glaring. I can see the gears turning and turning around in her head. "Fine," she says. She picks up all of her supplies and walks away. Wonderful.

I stand there for a few minutes but then I turn around and look at the forest; I freak myself out looking for something, anything, but I find nothing and hurriedly grab all of my stuff and run inside to the house.

Once inside, I kick off my sneakers and walk upstairs to the kitchen. I walk around aimlessly for a few minutes, buying myself time until I'm sure I'll have to walk past Addison. I grab my stuff and walk upstairs to my room. I can feel myself starting to panic instantly; I panic far too often.

Luckily for me, Addison's door is shut -probably locked- and I can hear the loud music coming out from underneath the door. I run into my room and hurriedly shut the door.

My orange bedspread -the one from the hospital- is crumpled and wrinkly, but neat on the mattress. I sit all my books on my desk, neatly organized as usual. I open up my algebra book to the page we were last one, neatly marked with a sticky note, and start to work on my problems.

About 20 minutes later, I'm only on problem 15 of 30, so I'm getting distracted fairly easily. I stare out the window, trying to make up constellations with the few stars I can see.

That's when I notice Addison outside in her thin pajamas, staring at a cluster of what looks like low hanging stars. Then she's gone. Like, there one second, gone the next. Gone.

I almost don't believe my eyes. I hurry to find the first pair of shoes I can find, not caring if they match, and I race down the stairs. I probably shouldn't be making this much noise, since it's around 11 o'clock, but, hey, my sister disappeared. Cut me some slack.

I make it outside and find myself standing exactly where she was. There's no evidence of her, or even that low hanging cluster of stars. Those couldn't have actually been stars, but what were they? Weird looking, very late lightning bugs who can make people disappear? I've got to be going crazy.

Tomorrow I'm going to wake up, and Addison's going to be in her room and everything will be normal, other than the fact that I could be -no am- going crazy.