The Necklace

Chapter Four

"Jason, you were there, on the bus that day, sitting next to me," I say.

"Yeah, that's correct," he agrees, looking at me silently.

"I just... Would rather not think of it..." He says.

I feel like I warp through the cracks of time and space, venturing to the depths of my recollection. Light grows brighter, purifying my vision, yet causing a sudden dizziness. I feel a piercing pain in my left temple, invigorating the pain, further enhancing the excruciation.

Jason places his hand on my shoulder, massaging delicately. "Go get water," he says to Nico, seeing that I am going pale. "Meghan, if this is too much, then please stop."

"No!" I say. "I can do it. I will be fine."

I return to that place. The place in which my world seemed to collapse.

I travel back to that time, five years ago, the year that I ran away from home.

It was any other day. I got home from school, and my friend Jonna and I rushed up the stairs. I distinctly remember us nostalgically belting out "Night to Remember" from Disney's High School Musical 3: Senior Year.

That. Is a good freaking song.

"Snacks, girls," said Helen, the woman who birthed me.

"Thanks, Mom," I said. Jonna gave Helen the most absurdly adequate thanks. "Be down in a minute," I said, ensuring Helen of our definite need to consume finger sandwiches in the relative future.

"Who's that girl?!" I sang. "She's so fiiinnnneeee!"

"Who's that guy?!" Replied Jonna. "I don't recognize!"

"Who's that girl?!?!" We sang simultaneously.

"She looks so good! Yeah!" Yelled up Helen.

"But you never really noticed but you probably should!!" My father sang up the stairs. This is why I love him. He was obsessed with HSM as much as Jonna and I.

Stepping into my room, the door left ajar, Jonna and I scrambled for art supplies and my laptop.

I heard my father in the kitchen below, conversing with Helen. Something along the lines of being deported to the South Pacific islands to help with the war effort. As you can imagine, my life halted immediately. My heart plummeted. I regained my stature and previously lost pigmentation by the stimulus of Jonna having asked:

"Meg? Meghan. Wake up!"

"Sorry," I said, "lost in thought, I guess."

Opening my closet for my box of assorted pigment-supplying cylindrical objects, I caught a sliver of my forearm on a bit of the closet door. Drops of red landed on the crayons and pencils at my ankles.

"Ow!" I exclaimed. "Shit."

"You okay, Meg?" Asked Jonna. "God, your arm."

"I'm fine," I say. "Let me go clean this up. Meet me downstairs." She nods in agreement.

I cupped my right hand to hold my bloody left arm. I winced in pain as I slipped away to the kitchen. I saw my mother across the room. Hair up in a messy bun. Knowing Helen, that means that she is in a bad mood. Hair down; good mood. Hair up; bad mood.

"Meghan," she sighed with remorse, "what happened to your arm?"

"I slipped and scraped it against the closet door," I explained.