Phoenix's Lies

Your Somebody Else

River

Present Day

I'm Ok. I'm Ok. Seems like the easiest words to say in the human - English - language. Said by billions all over every day. Day in and day out. And yet it was a lie. One I'd used to push down the pain, the past, the hurt and convince both myself and those around me for the past five years since he left. The same words I repeat like a mantra each time the nightmares start. I'm ok. I'm fine.

The nightmare begins as it always does. With me being back in that abandoned hallway the day my life truly started to shatter. I can hear the whispers, and feel the stares as if I were there. Only instead of lingering there as soon as I make it to the fight and when I run I see the scenery shift until I'm running through a forest. A huge forest of dark green trees interspersed with grey stones sticking up out of the ground. No. not a forest. A graveyard. The same one that I'd first visited at the age of fourteen when burying my dad, but that fate would have me returning to. Would dictate that I made many more trips in the following three to five years since.

Running from the small funeral gathering on my left I can see the fading mirage of the fight from when I was twelve before he vanished. Before he became somebody else I barely knew and I lost him for good. Swerving right I can see the darkness ahead and race towards it in the hope that I could wake up before the next stage of my repetitive nightmares. Hoping to avoid the pain just this once.......

Sitting up with a start I sigh when the familiar, dark, walls of my room swim into focus, calming my erratic nerves just a little as I watch the early daylight shift and paint patterns on the wooden floorboards beneath me. My mind was on the dream I'd just managed to narrowly escape. It was one I hadn't seen - or rather witnessed - in its entirety like that in some time. Partly from my lack of sleep but mostly because of something else.

Muttering a string of expletives in Spanish at the slowly rising sun I dragged myself out of bed and trudged over to the shower, hoping the warm water would help ease the stiff knots in my back and shoulders from a night of tossing and turning. Of worrying about the past and how it could catch up with me. Hurt those I care about. People like my best friends Aria and Hunter Sinclair. My sister Elena.

Sighing in defeat I stopped the water and stepped out of the shower to dress for school. Slipping on a beige and white sweater dress and leggings combo I sit down and make sure all my tattoos are covered. Hiding who I am from people desperate to find me. To hunt me down for past mistakes I still have to make up for. Pulling my hair into a messy bun I slipped out of the room with an ease that made me soundless, holding my breath in case our mother was home to avoid facing her when I had to get El and me ready for school.

Finding her room empty and the door open, I sigh and move down to El's tapping once gently. She doesn't respond and cracking open the door shows her still asleep curled under her duvet. I cross the room to her and tap her once. "El? Munchkin you need to get up for school. Come on." I shake her gently and El rolls over, opening her eyes with a tired nod before sitting up. Tense as I was in response to an empty house. To the danger that could be lurking around every corner.

Making sure El was up and getting ready ok I left her room to go get some breakfast for at least one of the two of us, the tension I was carrying around caused knots in my stomach that made it hard to breathe as I slipped out and down the stairs. All the while checking to see if there was anyone besides the two of us in the house. But it was silent as always. Thank god, she's not here. She can't do anything today, at least not before school's over. Finding the kitchen blessedly empty and silent I hunt in the cupboards for something - anything - the two of us can eat. Though I found very little in the way of edible food and a lot in the way of mess from people who had come round to visit my mother yesterday.