My Life in Rosewood

Chapter Fifty-One

While in the car I can't focus on anything else besides keeping my eyes to the window as the town passes us in the almost night atmosphere. It took a lot for me not to freak out about getting in the car when we got to it. I mean, considering I had been stuffed into a trunk, tied in the backseat, and threatened to be killed along with Spencer in the last one I was in, it's amazing that I could get in at all.

When we get home Uncle Byron half carries me up the stairs and I head to the bathroom to take a shower. I know I need to just get in bed and relax but I also need to feel clean. At the moment I feel like I have Mona still touching me, or tape wrapped around my body. Plus I figured that the warm water would calm me down a bit.

Before doing anything though I look at myself in the mirror and see what everyone else has. My beaten face. The way my good eye is bloodshot while the other is bruised and swollen. How my nose is so much darker than my normal color. The cut on my lip. Everything. My heart sinks because it is so much worse than I pictured and I almost cry from the sight as I stare at myself for a while before I turn away and get ready for my shower.

Keeping myself standing is one of the hardest parts. Even getting undressed and dressed again is a bit of a pain. But when I open that door when I'm done and see my room across the hall from the bathroom it freaks me out. It's like a movie that when you look at something the whole image grows farther and farther away. However, I take slow and small steps from one side to the other, kind of slamming into the frame of the door when I get too weak to keep standing.

Aria jumps out of her skin from the loud THUD of my body hitting the doorframe and looks over from her bed. "Are you alright?" She has the phone to her ear, she's probably talking to one of the girls or Fitz.

I nod. "Yeah...well, no. Can you help me get to my bed?"

She half smiles, "I gotta go, Han. I'll see you tomorrow." She walks over and wraps an arm around my back as I put my arm around her shoulders and slowly get to my bed.

"Thanks." I say as I sit on my bed.

I grab the bag that Uncle Byron gave me from the night the hospital put all my belongings and clothes I went in with and get out my dirty clothes. I stare at them for a few seconds, my heart racing as I look at the white Fall out Boy long sleeve covered in blood, and the blue jeans with blood stains. Then I turn and chuck them over into the garbage can on the other side of the room in frustration. It hurt my ribs doing that but I don't care.

I take a few deep breaths as I try to stay calm, not wanting the memories to hit me again. Then I turn to Aria and say. "Still got it." with a slight smile, as I got it in with no problem.

She smiles a bit and sits next to me. "Dad said when you got out that he was going to make you some soup. You need to get something in your stomach before you take your sleeping medicine."

I start to look around the room, my mind actually not being able to process that I'm not dead and here right now. "That sounds good."

She nods. "I'll go let him know then." She gets up and walks out of the room.

I decide to unmake my bed and get under the covers. I take out my headphones and iPod from my backpack next to the bed and put them over my ears. I set it on shuffle and the first song that comes on is Fall Out Boy's Sugar We're Going Down, and it drowns out everything for a short while as I stare up at the ceiling.

What feels like seconds later the bed moves and I lower my eyes away from the ceiling, I hadn't even noticed I blanked out. Aria is sitting on the edge of my bed with a plate of soup and sets a bottle of water on my nightstand with my sleeping pill while I take off my headphones.