A slow fall

Chapter 41 - Caleb

    My parents had begun hovering more, if that was even possible.

Lucas left me in the light, slowly he'd coax the darkness away, a dream catcher fighting against all the bad my mind conjured up. After he left my parents asked a lot of questions, but the words were muffled, a barrier separating me from them.

I wasn't sure what we'd done wrong. Lucas was sitting beside me as a friend, a comforting presence in the isolating dark. To them that wasn't enough, but there was nothing I could offer. Not when I didn't even understand what was being asked. Not when I could find any

Somehow around Lucas I was able to tread water. The current was still strong, a storm brewing on the horizon, but the waves that normally crash over me, drowned me, had settled. Then my life jacket was ripped away and I couldn't stay afloat anymore.

My parents never tried to reach me, they watched from a distance sneering as I fell deeper and deeper into the abyss. Sometimes they'd pull me out, let me stand beside them and catch my breath, before the water claimed me back once more. I wished they'd let the darkness claim me.

On Thursday, after harsh words and heavy hands, I found myself in school. The hallway felt far too small and the crowd far too large, bodies jostling this way and that in good humour. Friends telling dramatic tales and laughing with carefree bliss.I couldn't stomach it – the crowd, the people, the cloggy, claustrophobic space.

"You're back!" A hand reached around my shoulder and I wanted to cry. I didn't want to be touched. I didn't want to be here. I didn't want to exist at all. I wanted to let the water drown me.

I couldn't seem to form words so I just hummed in acknowledgement. Shane didn't seem to mind, simply prattling on about things I'd missed that he'd deem worthy of sharing. Marcus stood in front of Shane's locker, head down and typing away on his phone as he waited.

Shane presented me like a gift, "Dude, look who I found." Marucs' bright smile slowly dimmed the more he looked at me.

"A cold again?" Marcus asked sceptically, there was something to his tone that I couldn't quite grasp, accusatory but not. I nodded in agreement, letting the facade I so often wore slip back into place, and let a faint yeah slipping from my lips in an attempt to placate.

"You need to get yourself checked out," we both moved aside as Shane began rummaging through his locker, "you're always sick."

Marcus carried on watching me, his eyes intensely surveying me and I did my best to act normal, but I wasn't sure I even knew what that was anymore. Where did the real me start and the lie end? Were we one and the same? Who even was I?

"Must be a bad immune system." Shane suggested, his voice echoing off the walls of his sparse locker.

I shrugged not wanting to lie, but not wanting to spill my truths either, "something like that." We left it at that, the conversation moving on to other gossip Shane had picked up somewhere.

"Hey stranger." Why was it when you wanted to be alone the world seemed to bring everyone to you?

My smile felt foreign on my lips. After days of feeling nothing, being human again wasn't easy. I still didn't feel right, and no emotion felt real. Still, I went through the motions. Smile. Greet. Engage.

"Hey Aaliyah, how's it going?" Sound friendly. Sound happy. Sound normal. She studded me for a minute, much like Marcus, and a frown slowly formed on her face.

Aaliyah glanced at Marcus behind, her eyes shifting to him so fast I almost missed it, before offering me a smile. "Good. We've missed you."

"It was only a few days."