Not a Friend ✔│short story

t w o

A steady beat of the rain makes Allie's thundering heart a little calm, but dread still seeps through her skin. A building with stark white walls surrounds her, the halo of the light prickling her eyes. She finds herself sitting on a hard chair at the corner of the hall with a lump rising in her throat. A sense of something awful, morbid and depressing mingles in the air. 
After a few minutes of silence, she cries, albeit she can't exactly pinpoint what is making her feel this way. Is it her surrounding, or is it something that she's anticipating?
After a few minutes of confusion, a blood-curdling scream tears through the air and Allie can recognize that voice, her mother's. 
With shaking legs and a thundering heart, she runs without knowing where she is going. 
"Mom?" 
"Mom?!" she shrieks, her frantic eyes searching everywhere, but her mom is nowhere, only her screams growing louder and louder. 
Helpless, Allie bends down, crying and shouting at her mom, telling her she's here for her, telling her that everything will be okay, but the hall is empty, except for her mom's painful screams that are fading away.

Allie jerks up, shivering, as her fingers clutch on the sheets beneath her. Tears stream down, fear gripping her as she hugs herself, rocking back and forth. 

It takes her a minute to remind herself that what she saw wasn't real, that it was just a dream, that her mother isn't... she isn't dying, that her mother is okay.

But deep down she knows that that's a lie. Her mother is not fine, and she is not with her mother. Instead, she's stuck on a school trip, a thousand miles away and she hates herself for not being with her mom, she hates her mom for pushing her away and she hates everyone and everything because her mother doesn't deserve this.

As Allie sits there, the darkness surrounding her, questions begin to form in her mind. The questions that she keeps dodging.

What would happen to her if her... when her mom passes away? How is she going to get past that? How can she live without her mom? And, what about college? It's just starting after a few months and Allie has no idea what to do? Her heart yearns to go out, see the world, learn and read, but...

She shakes her head, hating herself for even thinking about college. Her mother is sick and she is thinking about college.

What the fuck is wrong with me? She presses her hand on her lips to muffle her cries and swallows the painful lump rising in her throat.
This is exactly why she doesn't like to be alone with her thoughts. It's too scary. Rubbing her eyes, she hastily looks around for anything to keep her distracted. 

Her hands, out of habit grip the familiar edge of the book. But as she flips it open, Allie realizes that there's no source of light in her tent. Sighing, she crawls out of the tent, hoping she would skim through the pages in the moonlight. The light breeze wraps around her in a gentle caress. She exhales, her breaths gradually becoming steady, her heartbeat slowing down again. And yet, the dread still lingers under her skin like a dull throb on her chest.

She walks away from her tent, those light blue eyes flecked in silver roaming everywhere. The smell of wet soil and green leaves hangs in the cool air, while the night sky spreads out from horizon to horizon, lit with the golden glow of the stars.

Allie wishes that everything was a tad bit easier, just a little simpler, so that she could just sit here and gaze at the stars without guilt or worry gnawing her down...

"Hello, Allie!" A voice reaches her from nowhere and with a startled yelp, she flings her book, hard.

"Ouch!"

Whipping her head back, she finds the guy from the bus, who's now clutching his eyes, swearing about how vicious and heartless human beings have become. 
"Holy mother of pearl! What have I ever done to you?" he says, staggering beside her.