After Midnight

Chapter 7

The next day, I laid in bed with my blanket covering half of my face. I had been questioned several times yesterday, and I just wanted to sleep, although I couldn't. I couldn't get Cynthia's face and body out of my head. And the way my mind would change her face from her own, to Dalton, to Tom, to Dane, to myself and several other people wasn't helping at all. I begged myself to stop, as if I could convince myself to stop thinking about it. It obviously didn't work though.

I sighed and laid on my back, staring at the ceiling. There was a small hole in it that I decided to stare at for a while. I wondered if it led up to my attic and what would be up there. Maybe there was herds of spiders and rats. Maybe there was some kind of treasure, or maybe there was no attic and I was imagining nothing.

The image of Cynthia flashed in my mind again, this time as my mother. I cringed and winced at the thought.

I might have hated my mother for listening to my dad and leaving us, but that didn't mean that I was just gonna forget about her. I couldn't forget about her, no matter how hard I tried. I grabbed the remote off of my night stand and turned on my TV. That didn't help. The first thing I saw was a picture of Cynthia and the headline saying "Teen Girl Murdered Last Night".

"Don't watch that", Ellie said, stepping into my room. I turned it off and put the remote back. She sat at the end of my bed and sighed."How did you sleep last night?", She asked.

"I didn't", I sat up and fixed my pillows so I could lean back against them.

"Neither did I..", She looked down for a few seconds the back up at me."Did you know her?", She asked, hugging one of my stuffed bears.

"We talked once. She told me that she thought it was stupid how people thought we brought rain, and my first thought was 'this is the only sane person in this town'. She was kicked out of class because of me, and now...", I sighed and rubbed my nose."Do you think it could've been my fault?"

"No", She furrowed her eyebrows at me and moved closer to me."That was not your fault, Arin. Don't think like that. Why would you even say that?"

"I don't know. don't you think it's kind of weird that the only day she's ever talked to me was the day she was murdered?"

"It was not your fault, Horizon"

I shrugged."I just want to sleep", I laid down and pulled the covers over my head.

"No", She pulled my blanket off of me and I curled into a ball."We're going to do something today", She said.

"What?", I sat up and crossed my arms.

"We're going to the beach", She smiled."Yeah. The beach"

"What? Is there even a beach around here?"

"Yeah, like twenty minutes away"

"Do I have to go? I kind of just want to stay here and bang my head against a wall until I get amnesia"

"Yes. You have to go", She said and stood up, walking out of my room.

I laid back down and stared at the tiny hole in my roof again. After a while, her face flashed in my mind again, this time I heard saying the words "not safe". The last words she said, and they were to me.

I decided that if I wanted to stop thinking about Cynthia and about everything Dalton told me last night, I was going to have to do something. So I got up, put on my black swimsuit that I've had for years due to lack of beaches in Rhode Island and me not growing much, though I got a few sized too big when I was younger, and I grew into it, finally.

"Ready?", Ellie asked, peeking into my room. I nodded and put a big shirt and shorts on. Not in attempt to look good, but an attempt to cover myself up.