Shells

Chapter 3

After the party, Samantha and I started home. I was busy gushing about how amazing it was meeting Shane and how he gave me his number, but Samantha was just quiet. Her eyes stared longingly into nothing and she did not seem to notice when I looked at her with concern.

“Are you okay?” I asked, “You seem sad or something.”

“It’s just that I sometimes get tired of being surrounded by morons, especially fat morons.” Her ice-blue eyes pierced my soul and she smirked when I flinched. “He probably won’t call you; he just was too high to realize how ugly and pathetic you are.”

Shock flooded over my body and I felt my eyes sting again. We walked in silence for the long way back to her house, I was sleeping over. We got through the large doors and I made an excuse to go to the bathroom. The toilet sat there, gleaming, mocking me. As if it was saying: you know how disgusting you are, why don’t you just die? A swell of depression took over my body and before I knew it, I was on my knees and my fingers were down my throat. The alcohol and chips from the party came back up and I wiped the tears out of my eyes. There was no way that Samantha would see me crying, she would never let me hear the end of it.

I walked out of the bathroom into the remarkably clean hallway and towards Samantha’s room. She was angelic, in her white silk pajamas and laying in the white cloud of her bed. Samantha was just being honest, she was just being a good friend. Of course she was right, I was pathetic and fat, Shane does not want to be with anyone remotely like me.

When I walked towards her, Samantha looked up, her eyes were shiny and red but other than that, she looked normal. I wanted to ask what was wrong, but saying the wrong thing at the wrong time could result in me not having a place to sleep that night.

Later that night, I woke up to a completely dark room. I sat up and felt the warm duvet slip off of me. Walking towards the door, I heard Samantha whispering. Slowly turning the doorknob, I peeked around the door to the hall which lead to the living room. The soft carpet muffled my footsteps and I took tentative steps towards the living room and Sam’s voice. The only light came from the television and I saw Samantha sitting in the corner of the room, on the window seat with the thin, white curtains billowing around her. Her gaze was fixed on the night sky, her perfect skin was almost glowing from the moonlight. Her sleeves were rolled up and I could see something on her wrists. No, it was impossible, I must be seeing things.

I walked back to bed and crawled in. It cannot be possible that Samantha… No, that’s not even something that is remotely possible. Still, almost the entire night, I lay awake staring up at the ceiling. Around eight, Samantha crawled in next to me and quickly fell asleep, or at least pretended to. In the morning, I woke up to the sound of a blow-dryer. Samantha walked out of her bathroom in a towel and looked at me.

“Did you sleep well last night?” She asked, “Because I slept like a baby.”

I raised my eyebrows at the obvious lie but she didn’t notice. “I slept okay, it was kind of cold though, was a window open?”

Her eyes darted around the room, never meeting mine. “Maybe, I can go check.”

Samantha walked out of the room and returned shortly after. She started to rummage through her dresser and slipped on a long sleeved blue top and a white, knee length skirt. She pulled out a pair of loose jeans and a t-shirt for me.

“Put those on,” She demanded, “I’m in the mood to shop.”

After putting the clothes on, I followed her into the front hall. I noticed her grab a credit card from her mom’s purse, which she slipped into her pocket.