Awake

Chapter 3

I screamed. She grabbed my hair in both hands and thrust my head against the wall, bashing it three times before letting go. She wouldn't kill me. I panted. I could feel the warm red goo dripping down from the side of my forehead. She cackles inside my head, each one forcing me to hold my head in both hands. I screamed. The cackles seemed to last forever but when they subsided I found clumps of brown locks scattered across my bedroom floor. For hours I wept. That's when depression snatched me away without warning. I had no time to escape.

For you, sitting in one spot, motionless for four hours is not the best way you might want to spend your day however for me it was the only way of staying sane. When four hours rang on my alarm clock I unraveled my feet from their crossed position and stood up. It took a moment before the blood fully circulated around my entire body but after it did I suddenly felt irritated at Jerome. Why did he have to go to work? Why did he just leave me here to rot in my own? Why? I was fed up of that word but it did not stop me from asking it every day. I sighed and decided that I had to do something to take my mind off things.

The living room was the largest room in the house, it consisted of a three seater, chocolate brown, leather sofa, matching brown curtains, a cream carpet and a huge 55 inch flat screen TV. I threw myself onto the couch carelessly and fumbled for the remote in between the sofa cushions. Found it! I hit the red power button. The screen fuzzed before fully focusing revealing the handsome face of Jerome, thousands of microphones thrust in his face. The words 'BBC1' printed in the corner of the screen. I listened intently for what he had to say. "Is there any progress on the -" the sound blurred as in my mind as a picture of her appeared in the corner of the screen. I almost chocked on my own saliva. I had taken that picture on her 21st birthday.

****

"Oh I'm getting old," she laughed. A bottle of whiskey clasped in her hand. "Finally allowed to buy alcohol now eh?" I chuckled. We both laughed. "Smile!" I ordered, holding up the camera. She followed, the bottle of whiskey still in her grasp. Click. Flash. I captured the moment.

****

They cut that out on the news report. They didn't want to make her seem like a drunk. She did love her booze though. I shuddered at the thought of how violent she got after a little too much. She would try to swing, drunkenly at her mates, she never meant any harm. She always ended falling over anyway and cursing herself. Then the cursing always took a different turn. She began to curse me, "I can never have a decent life, I gotta look after you all the bloody time," she slurred "all the bloody time," she repeated over under her breath until she would eventually pass out.

I always forget what she meant by this. I would be reminded sooner or later when I found myself at the shrinks office being convinced to take my medications whilst she cried, unable to handle the responsibility. Jerome would comfort her. The shrink would explain about my condition about how to handle my erratic behaviour. It made me angry and confused, I didn't know which one to show so I just sat there in silence. I don't do that often.

I cast my mind back to the television, Jerome was now giving us an update on her case. "I'm sorry but there are no leads to the case, but we must not give up hope, we will find out who did this." The same report as yesterday. Same darn thing those Feds lie about. Same old thing he's trying to cover. I watched as he pushed past the hundreds of microphones and was forced to switch the channel as they enlarged the picture of her and began to explain what had happened for the millionth time. I knew their words off by heart, "A young woman's body was swept ashore of the Pacific Ocean after supposedly being pushed of a cliff. The woman no older than 22 was found with a fair amount of alcohol in her system however we are sure that this was not suicide. Severe bruising on her neck proves that she was strangled beforehand. The woman found has now been identified as -" I stopped. Stopped myself from pronouncing her name again in my head. It would only bring back weeks of severe depression that I had just recovered from with the help of a tonne of trycyclic antidepressants.