clouds ; l.h/c.h

CHAPTER EIGHT

Ever since Darla died, it's like everything small in life agitates me. Calum hasn't texted back in an hour? 'why the fuck not?!! doesn't he care about me anymore??'. mum and dad just trying to be caring and talk to me? 'piss OFF, you're so annoying, why can't you just fucking leave me alone?'. i'm finally alone? i start thinking about how catastrophically lonely i feel and i feel like nobody loves me. i make plans with friends? fuck, now i'm annoyed because i only have this many hours or days left to myself.

What is wrong with me??? I mean, i'm sure we can pinpoint a lot of things wrong with me, but it is so fucking annoying to constantly have my emotions so rocky and unstable, able to be tipped by absolutely anything, even something normal like seeing a stick on the ground.

Everything feels noisy, nobody and nothing l will shut up, but all I do when i'm alone is blare music. I don't want to be alone with myself, with the same intensity, that I am the only person I feel like I want to be around.

Oh, and I stole Darla's file. I suppose that's something.

Ditched school after lunch and ducked into the Police station, slipped the all too acessable folder of statements and crime scene photos into my bag and dashed out before anyone noticed I was there.

It was a rush. I felt in control for just a second. But now the crushing guilt was hitting me, now the fear of what I would find waiting for me inside of it was gripping me.

I hadn't opened it. It was sitting on the flor in front of me, my mind spacing as I barely comprehended what I had done. Everything is blurry lately.

Calum texted back. Ugh. Huge releaf, big weight off my shoulders. I immedietly feel loved again.

Over a text.

A. TEXT.

My emotions are so haywire recently. What place do I even have in Darla's case anyway? I'm just trying to trick myself into thinking I'm coping at all by acting all Nancy Drew and nabbing files here and there. I could go to jail. I could get caught. I never fucking think before I do anything.

What happens when I catch Darla's killer? Will I even feel a sense of relief? Accomplishment? Justice? Or will I just have to stare at some bastard's face, and for the rest of my life, know that that was the last thing Darla ever saw?

I was beginning to think it was better if I just left everything alone, but the idea of shuffling through the rest of high school as simply The Miserable Girl Who's Trying To Cope made my skin crawl. All I feel like I am is some miserable girl, I may as well try and give myself a purpose, right?

For Darla. Right?

Or was this all only for my own selfish desire to be some kind of hero? To heal my own trauma? What about Darla's parents? Everyone else at the party, everyone else in the town that was effected by her death? But even if any of that was true, did I even have he energy to care anymore?

Stuff is weird right now. I don't think it will get anywhere near close to normal for a few years. I don't really want to go back to being normal. I want to make a new normal for myself. I suddenly resent the Kat I was before any of this catastrophe happened. I wanted the grueling greif to grow a new Kat, and that Kat, me, can finally move forward, leaving the happy person I used to be behind. I want to be happy in a different way. I wasn't myself before, at least that's what I keep telling myself. I don't want her hair anymore, I don't want the clothes she wore or the scrunchies she bought or the words she said far too often, I don't want the giggle she held or the way she walked or talked or even existed. I want a rebirth. I deserve a rebirth.

Maybe that's what this is.