today i saw the whole world, teen wolf

𝟎𝟑𝟎 open wound.

open wound.

___

"I HATE HER. NO, REALLY, I HATE HER" Paxton said after recalling the events that happened when she left the hospital with Charlie and their mother yesterday. The whole car ride home was spent with Emily making plans to be present in the kids life. It sounded like a plan of eternal misery from Paxton's perspective. But really, it's exactly what the little girl buried deep beneath the surface needed to hear.

"She really wouldn't let you leave the house?" Lydia asked from the passenger seat, turning her head to the backseat where Paxton sits.

Paxton shook her head. "No, she said something about a kid going missing recently. I thought she just meant Matt Daehler, but apparently another person went missing. So, no, I didn't get to leave my house and Charlie wouldn't even help me sneak out."

"How's Charlie taking it all?" Allison asked as she pulled the car into the school's parking lot.

Paxton groaned, and not because the first day of Junior year is ahead.

"He's been acting like the perfect child," she rolled her eyes before continuing on, "he does it every time she comes to visit, which is rarely ever by the way. He's been deep cleaning the house ever since we came back from the hospital, he even did the laundry. He never does the laundry, ever. I've always had to do it but, of course, when mommy dearest decides to stay home for once, he has to do everything and perfectly."

"Do you think she'll stay long?" Lydia asked, gathering her things while Allison shuts the car off in a parking space not far from the entrance.

"If she stays longer than a week, I think hell will literally freeze over. In fact, if she does stay, I'll leave. She can keep the house, I don't even like it anyways."

The girls hurry to the sidewalk that leads to the school, greeted by the smell of dew that had formed along each freshly cut piece of grass. The smell of a summer's early morning.

The new class of freshmen rush inside the school, worried they might be late while everyone else takes their time, hoping they are.

"One good thing about her being back, she's paying to get Charlie's car fixed after that deer ran into me," Paxton continued the conversation as they walk through the hallway.

"Did the deer run into you, or did you run into the deer?" Lydia questioned, smiling at the unlikely story Paxton had told about how she wound up in the hospital.

"I told you, I was driving to your house and suddenly the deer just ran into the side of the car. It's not my fault it felt suicidal, besides, I'd never purposely hurt an animal. A person, maybe, but never an animal."

The bell rings, a sound they hadn't heard in what seems like forever. The ear-aching sound caught Paxton by surprise, reminding her of a time before the summer break. She could remember the sound of a gun shooting vividly, and she had heard numerous shots over those few months of the last semester. The ringing in her ears seemed to have never left.

She's brought out of her daze by stumbling bodies pushing past her, all filing into a door that Lydia and Allison came to a stop at. The two girls look to Paxton's frozen and fragile body in the middle of the hall.