Goodbye Graceful (Ronnie Radke love story, 3rd book in The Drug In Me series )

2. No Funny Business

**** I'm so glad you guys are still with this book series, and I really, really hope that you guys enjoy reading this book as much as I enjoy writing it, which is a lot. Love you all, thank you, and, as always, hope you enjoy! ****

I smirked at all the bored faces, and I had a horrible, wonderful idea. If I was stuck here, I might as well have some fun, right?

I sighed deeply and looked at Mr. Evers seriously. "Well, I'm not a vampire but I feel like one" I paused, letting my words sink in. No one had any idea what I was talking about, perfect!

"Sometimes I sleep all day, because I hate the sun" I said, cringing away from all the open windows like the sun burned. Which, it sort of did anyways.

It was harder than I expected for me to keep a passive, serious face and not burst out laughing; everyone was looking at me gravely like I was telling them all my secrets and they didn't understand but they accepted it, not questioning me out loud.

Fucking hilarious!

"Like, my hands are always shaking," I held up my shaky hands, frowning down at them and trying to look disturbed. "Body's always aching," I did a few body rocks, biting my lip and looking like I was in pain.

Oh this was just too good. I started walking around the circle, still speaking. "And the dark is when I feed...."

I looked around the room until I found a bombshell beauty sitting there, looking at her nails. I stopped and knelt in front of her, raising my eyebrows and smirking a bit.

"I can lure any woman that I want to in my bed, with me" I whispered, winking at her. She sat back and crossed her arms, rolling her eyes, but a hint of pink rose to her cheeks and I nearly laughed.

"And whiskey seems to be my holy water," I said, holding my hand out and pretending to down a bottle of booze, "mothers better lock your doors, and hide your daughters!" I held my arms out upwards around me, winking and taking a deep breath.

At this point I couldn't help myself, I started singing.

"I'm, insane, well I can feel it in my bones, coursing through my veins, when did I become so cold? For goodness sake, where is my self control? If home is where my heart is then my heart has lost all hope!"

I started prancing around the circle, laughing and smirking at everyone. Here they were thinking I was going to pour my heart out to all of them, and I found the perfect time to sing this song.

I kept singing, avoiding Mr. Evers because I knew that he would try to discreetly stop me, knowing by now that I wasn't being serious about this whole group therapy thing.

But come on, why would I tell my secrets to all these strangers when I couldn't tell Ronnie, Luna, Echo, or Leah? He's stupid if he thinks that I'll say shit if I don't want to.

If I let these secrets create a wedge between Ronnie and I, then why in the Hell would I share it with perfect strangers who didn't give two shits about me? It didn't make sense.

When I finished the song people just looked at me blankly, either not knowing what to say or not wanting to say anything because I was weird. Eh, it worked for me, less social contact for me to worry about!

When the day was over I went to Mr. Willows proudly, laughing to myself. I had spoken, he couldn't deny that.

"Well, that was certainly a performance you put on....singing a song isn't exactly what I meant, but seeing as I already called your friends and sent them on their way here, I can't turn back now. And, well, technically you did speak, though not in the way that I wanted" Mr. Willows said to me, and I laughed, scratching the back of my head, a bit embarrassed now that I was seeing him looking at me, disappointed but amused.

I had cut my hair to above my shoulders, feeling like a change. I shook my head a bit, ruffling the hair up, and bit my lip, staring at him sheepishly.

"Look, I know you just want to forget, whatever it is that happened to you, but that's not healthy, and it won't help you. In order to move on, you need to face your past, otherwise you'll be stuck in this rut forever, never able to get the future you deserve" he said to me.

I shrugged, uncomfortable, knowing he was right. Of course he was right, but how could I face my past? It already hurt me this much with me repressing it, imagine how bad it would be if I let myself think about it?

It would take over my life, take over my mind, take over everything! My life was already destroyed by it, and if I let my mind wander on it for even a second, then I would lose my mind completely.

I tried to joke around with myself, but I really just tried to use humor to drown my sadness. I tried to use humor to forget about how empty and dark I felt inside, so hopeless and fear-ridden.

I couldn't help but feel negative, and if I even thought of Him and all that had happened for more than a second, then I would break myself fully, and not be able to put myself back together with jokes and sarcasm. I would be too far gone.

I tried not to think about this, but of course, now that Mr. Willows had put it in my head, I couldn't get it out.

I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, thinking of........Ronnie of course. I found myself thinking of him all the time, especially in bed when the activities of the day weren't distracting me.

Ronnie, he was always on my mind. I couldn't help myself, I had finally fallen in love, and it just had to be with Ronnie, and I just had to fuck him over and ruin it, ruin it forever.

I just wanted to go back to before all this happened. I want to go back to when I was 15. Maybe if I had stayed up late with Ashley then Pat wouldn't have made a move and would've left forever, maybe it wouldn't have happened and I would be okay, just a troubled delinquent kid.

But then maybe I wouldn't know Ronnie.......

But maybes didn't help me, because I couldn't go back. And no matter what I did, life would've fucked me over anyways. That's just how it works for me.