The Secrets Of Journey Reynolds

Chapter 9: Act Normal

I was frozen. What did he know? I needed to run, get out of there as fast as I could. How could he know about anything? With everything I did I used a completely different name. There's no way he could have found something. My only choice was to play dumb. I laughed, "what are you talking about?"

He gave a serious stare, "your obsessive drug use and month in rehab."

I stopped laughing and glared into his eyes which seemed to be darker than usual. "Listen you little shit, I've been through hell and back these past few weeks. And I'd really love if you could just back the hell off for a motherfucking second. Yes, I had a problem, but from what I've seen you're even worse." I hadn't realized I started yelling, drawing the attention from people walking by.

I leaned back against the bench. It was silent for a long time. I stared at the moon waiting for his come back, none came. I finally decided to stand. "Where are you going?" he asked in a quiet, almost hesitant voice.

"Home," and with that I started walking home. I had heard Terrance stand from the bench and walk a few steps after me, but stop. Was he really going to give up that easily? I guess he wasn't the man I thought he was.

I kept walking until I got home, surprisingly fine. I wasn't winded or tired. The house was silent and dark, no smell of dinner, no old stories being told. I didn't bother turning the light on. I sat on the couch, in the dark, until I fell asleep.

I didn't wake up until 12:00pm. It was Monday, I was terribly late for school. I had messages from Terrance on my phone:
"Hey."

"Hey, Journey."

"Journey answer me."

"Hello?"

"Come on."

"Stop ignoring me."

"I wanna talk at school."

"Why aren't you here?"

"Hello?!"

"You're pissing me off."

There was none after that. I sighed and threw my phone across the couch, running my hand through my hair. It needed to be trimmed. I got up to go make lunch and started thinking. What happened the other night...? How did Terrance find out about my month in rehab...?

I couldn't focus on cooking, so I put everything back and went to my room. I took off my clothes and got into the shower, washing my two-day-old, messed up makeup off. When I got out, I trimmed the shaved side of my head.

I stood in front of the mirror. I was only in my towel as I observed my clean and pale skin. My dark brown hair draped over the towel. I had nothing to show of my torturing. All the years of abuse, and all I had was scar on my ribs.

I dropped the towel to reveal the scar that hardly showed under my right breast. I'd earned it from the miss of a bullet. It was straight to my lung. I was out for weeks, I had almost died. This was four and a half months before my parents' murder, three months before rehab. They only visited me a few times in each.

I started crying at the memories. I fell to the floor and hugged my knees. After a few minutes, I stood. Now I was furious. Not at them, at myself. I needed to do something to take care of all of this. But what? I didn't know.