The Vinyl

1

One second. One second every morning I feel like my reality hasn't reached me yet, and I'm floating in thin air. My eyes, barely separated after a deep sleep, a vacation from life. My only escape. One second, the most pure moment of the day, though you barely remember it. Nothing is on your mind, and you feel loose, your body feels light and you can breathe perfectly fine. Then all of a sudden, BOOM, your back. Back into the misery of being a teenage girl.

I hear the laughter from the living room all the way from upstairs. My sister's shoe laces clap onto the floor as she makes her way towards my room, running away from Quinn, her perfect boyfriend. But when you think about it, why would you run away from something that you like so much? I guess she didn't realize what it was like to lose someone yet.

"Rise and shine," Laney swings open the door and fixes her hair. Quinn appears behind her and takes her from behind, lifting her up and kissing her head.

"Leave," I groan, putting my covers over my head and sinking back into my white and gray comforter, the same one I've had since 2017. The same one I've had since her.

"Hey, don't talk that way to your sister!" Quinn jokes with me, but I'm not in the mood for it. He has fluffy strawberry blonde hair, the back of his head is filled with darkish red tones, but the top is dotted with lighter pigments. Quinn has been with Laney for about 3 years. Since Freshman year. He's fine, he stands up for me. He has good taste in music, so I like when he drives me to school early so I can study when he has early morning football practice. I never really understood what Laney saw in him, I mean he's a great guy but they are really different. Well, they were really different. Before Quinn, you couldn't get enough emotion out of Laney to know whether she's happy or sad, but once they got put in spanish together, I guess something in her just clicked. Now everything she does is posted on social media, and her shirts barely cover her belly button and she always shows the top of her cleavage. It's almost like I don't know her anymore, but she acts like she didn't change at all.

We used to be close. We used to be best friends. Laney basically fell in love with me the second I got transferred from a foster home I was at for about 2 weeks, our parents used to say it was meant to be. I had had foster families before, at least three. I don't remember much, the first five or six years of my life is kind of just one big blur. There are some vivid memories that I'll sometimes recall while I'm daydreaming in class or trying to fall asleep. But I feel that I truly started to have a childhood when I met Laney.

We used to go bowling together, as a family, every friday night. We would get pizza, dad was the only one who liked pepperoni but we made sure to get him a whole pie so he could have some for leftovers over the weekend. Everything was perfect. We were perfect. I was perfect.

Then there was Sasha. When Laney started getting loaded with school work, I had Sasha. Sasha was like a sister, but also, in every way she was not like a sister at all. She was so much more than that. Sasha is the definition of perfect. Her lips are parted and you can always see the sparkle of her two front teeth if you look close enough. She has bone straight hair which gets wavy at the bottom, the top consists of a chestnut color but it gets lighter as you trail to the ends. She has these gray eyes that you could get lost in. When you look into her eyes, mixed with all sorts brown, green, and blue tints, you'll loose track of time and sense of reality, and just feel overwhelmed with love as your skin turns hot. She has freckles around her nose, which I could count and draw constellations around without getting bored for a second. Something I love more than anything about her is how her eyes squint up when she smiles, and her dimples appear. Just by hearing her voice, I knew that everything would be okay. Even when Dad went to rehab, Sasha found a way to make me forget about all the wickedness in the world. She made me realise that even in the darkest times, theres always a hint of light, and it can sometimes be right infront of you. For me, the hint of light was Sasha. It always was, and I wish it always would be. But all good things come to an end, right? Although, usually theres a reason.

"Get out of bed, you've been sleeping for like 10 hours." Laney grabs the end of my blanket and rips it off. Quinn lets out a laugh and Laney looks back at him. I roll my eyes and get up. "Your so fucking annoying," I grab my phone off my bedside table and stroll into the bathroom. My eyes feel heavy and my legs are weak. I feel like my body is over 1000 pounds and that I have no control of it. I shut the bathroom door and lean on the door, letting my body fall as my knees go infront of my face, and I rest my head between them. I curse under my breath.

"Whats her deal?" Quinn whispers to Laney, but I still hear it.

"Shes always like this," Laney laughs to Quinn. "Wanna watch the conjuring?". I hear the two run off, laughing. I remember when I used to do stuff like that. Me and Sasha would watch a horror movie every weekend, sometimes wed would watch up to four a night. We would stay up until 6 am, watching horror trilogys. Sasha isn't a big fan of gore, she would always throw her head into my shoulder when there was too much blood. Not gonna lie, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it all. Every little thing she did, especially when she was happy while doing it. I miss that feeling. The feeling similar to that feeling that you get the moment you wake up, for just one second. The feeling of pure happiness and euphoria.