Adrian (The Write Awards 2013)

12: Home

It is dark for a moment, and yet it feels so comforting as I slip away from consciousness.

Adrian pulls me back up to the surface by the arms, sending droplets of Burningwater in a thousand different directions. I can barely register it's greenish color. My lungs' thirst for air is quenched as I breathe in heavily, gasping again and again. My throat burns and I can barely feel it while my mind can't comprehend what's going on around me, or what just happened. One minute, I wasn't letting them win, and the next I had them pulling me under. I'm losing control.

I can't hear Jax's icy laugh in the distance, but somehow I know for a fact that it's there. I can almost hear it's echo. Almost.

I felt an overwhelming numbness just before I went under. There is a common misconception about numbness. It hurts so bad. It hurts not to be able to feel anything, not to know anymore, not to be connected. It's like you are sitting in the middle of a fish tank, and you're a tiny minnow in size, all alone. Everyone's banging on the glass around you, but it just hurts them in the process. You can see the hurt, but you can't feel it.

And at first, it feels good. Everyone's hurting around you, and you know it, but you don't have to hurt. It's great because you're safe. But then, you realize that they need comfort. No one's offering it to them, and you aren't even capable of doing so because you're so numb. You don't know how to feel about that because you can't feel. And everyone keeps pounding, asking for help. Suddenly, it gets really loud; your brain can't handle all the noise mixed with the silence.

Then the glass shatters, and you can't breathe anymore.

Adrian grabs my shoulders and turns me around to face him. He stares at me like I'm a puzzle that he can't solve. His head is tilted, his eyes are wide, and his lips turn downward as he tries to decipher what's going on in my mind. Good luck, I think. Not even I can do that.

"Why would you do that to me?" he asks, because guilt-tripping is his favorite way to get the answers he wants, that I remember clearly. He picks the exact words that he needs to make someone feel a certain way, and I'm always left wondering how he does it.

I shake my head, burying my face into my palms. Even my skin feels surreal; rough like sandpaper but somehow not itchy. "It was easier," I say, because it was. As soon as the words pass from my lips, I can see their effect in the air.

"It was easier for you." Adrian's voice is shaky and obscured by the sound of him being on the verge of tears. "But was it easier for me to watch you do that?"

The glass shatters. It cuts my skin; I begin to bleed. I can feel it, too. I'm shattered, too.

I shake my head no slowly in response, then proceed to apologize before his gaze cuts me off and no words will come out, no matter how hard I try. His cold stare seems to have frozen me. I just wish so much that there was an easy way out, but apparently there never is. I just need to get away!

"Can we just get out of here?"

I roll my eyes slightly. If only he knew exactly what I was thinking. "No," I say, but quickly add, "it's not that easy."

I mean, I tried to already, didn't I?

"Since when was easy of such importance to you?" he spats sourly as his face contorts into a look of utter disgust. His eyebrows crease, he frowns deeply, his nose crinkles, but his eyes... his eyes are what scares me the most. They're so angry.

"When everything became too hard."

His expression softens a little, but only for a second, as if it was a mistake that he let slip. I don't understand why. What's happened to my Adrian while he's been gone? Have his monstrous ways stuck with him, or is there something I'm not catching? I give up thinking about it; I'm tired of caring.

"Where do you want to go?" I ask after a long pause.

He sighs, as if the answer is so obvious. "Home."

Home?

Is he absolutely serious? What a preposterous idea! We can't just leave. It's not as if vanishing is such an easy act. And besides, I have to recreate the universe; that means there is no home unless I imagine it-

"You're onto something, Cleo. I can see it in your eyes. They brighten like the sun."

Shut up, I'm thinking, because I'm so tired of his inconsistency and how he can read me like a book. He's using that gift to his advantage; it's driving me up the wall. But, then again, he's right. What if I just recreate our little life that we used to have? What if we just go back home, and pretend that nothing happened? It wouldn't be so hard, would it? Just to end it all? Just to find a way out and never come back to this hell?

"Adrian," I say, with a malice in my voice that I don't even recognize. I can't even remember wanting to say that. But then I know what it is before it's too late. Panic escalates inside me as I try to stop what he's saying. Desperately, I claw at my own throat, wrapping my fingers around my neck to stop Jax's (or maybe even Darren's) voice from finding it's way out, but I can't. "Go home." The words come out of my mouth, but they are not mine.

Three more words whisper in my mind without my control:

One.

Two.

And no matter how hard I fight it, no matter how much I don't want to, I think:

Three.

Adrian vanishes into thin air, leaving me alone, wading in the Burningwater. I don't know what to think. So many terrible thoughts are running through my mind that I feel guilty.

How come he gets to go so easy? And, no one is watching me anymore, maybe I can try to drown again.

I know these thoughts are so primitive. I know these thoughts are so sick. So I focus on different feelings, ones that I feel more comfortable with.

Now with Adrian gone, I yearn for home undeniably. I can't fathom not going back. The thought continues to nag at me until I want to scream. I have to get home, I just have to. I can't die without going home.

Maybe Adrian's at home.