One Big Cliché

Chapter 19

Nicole

          I can't take it anymore. Every day the cavity in my chest expands more and more. It's amazing I'm even alive at this point. Some might say I'm being melodramatic. Some might say I'm overreacting. But how can you overreact when nothing ever happened? One day you wake up with this void where your heart is supposed to be, and it just gradually gets worse until you either feel nothing at all, an empty husk, or the despondency is so overbearing that you can't move, because if you do it'll overflow, and you'll wash away forever.

          Is this normal? Teenage hormones just slightly out of whack? I try to come up with some sort of explanation for what's going on, even manage to feel a morsel of disappointment in myself for letting me get this bad. Nothing bad happened this week. The whispers around school died down, Lyndsay informed me that Jake won't be coming over anymore, since the grass isn't growing as fast in the cold, and on Thursday I even hung out with Dustin, Chris, and The Dweeb. But I'm slower getting to the table at lunch. Slower finishing homework. I falter my steps when I dance, to the point where I just haven't the past two days. And I'm restless.

          I don't know if I want to lay down on my side and stare at my wall until enough of the day passes that I won't have to face it, or get up and pace around, maybe tidying up whatever needs it around the house, even though it's spotless. I want to do both. I want to do neither. I don't know what I want.

          I want to feel whole again.

          A frustrated shriek forces its way through my teeth, and I roll out of bed, tearing down the stairs and into the abandoned living room. This whole house is abandoned. I'm abandoned. Everything is. How do three people live in a house that always looks so vacant? How can my dad just leave me here by myself, oblivious to what's going on with me? How can my mom just leave us? She should have fought! She should have lived... Now I'm stuck with this bimbo that thinks she has a right to try and brainwash my dad into choosing sides.

          Why did she have to leave me?

          A dry sob shakes me, making me fall to my knees in front of the entertainment center. My hand shakes as I reach out to pull the drawer open. They both shake as I start digging through the DVDs until I find the ones that are labeled HOME VIDEO in Sharpie. Some of them are original, but a lot are copies, converted from VHS. I pull them all out and arrange them into a stack, the oldest on top. My hands are shaking so bad I have to press them onto my thighs, fisting handfuls of my pajamas. I clench my jaw to stop the trembling, then my eyes as they start to burn.

          I hear my phone ringing from upstairs, but I'm afraid to move. I'm bound up so tightly that moving at this point will unravel me, like pulling a string on a knit sweater and watching it fall apart, inch by inch. I have to be careful, because who knows how long it would take to put me together again?

          My phone starts to ring second time. I still don't move, but it's distracting enough to make me relax, if only a small amount. Just enough to feel curious as to who it is. Sarah? Dustin? There wouldn't be anyone else, not that I can think of. It doesn't matter, though. I don't feel like going upstairs to see. I don't even feel like putting the damn DVD in and sitting on the couch. So I just sit here, my legs slowly cramping underneath me to the point it's incredibly uncomfortable. But I don't care. I don't have the enthusiasm to move or even try. Actually, I kind of like the cramping in my legs. It makes me feel something other than whatever's been plaguing me this past week. It makes me feel sane, and almost normal, like I'm not somehow messed up. That there are parts of me still work.

          After who knows how long, I finally feel okay enough to reach for that top disc. It feels so much lighter than I was expecting—not that I had any weight expectations. I guess I just figured the contents of the video would hold some influence to its bulk. It doesn't. My teeth dig into my bottom lip, and I shift uncomfortably. I know these videos make me feel better, but no matter how many times I watch them, I'm always afraid that one day it won't work.