Captivating

~The Drowning Boy~

Brooke

Rolling over, I push down on the button on the awful machine with the tragic sound that my treacherous clock is making.

Elegant, complicated words calm me.

I don't know how or why, but they make the pictures go away. They make the screams quite. And it's delightful.

They give me something else to focus on.

Shooting out of bed, I quickly get up, glancing around my room as I carefully check for them. The ones that don't leave.

I scurry over to my vanity, pulling back the thick fabric that coats the only mirror in my entire house, and brush through my dark blonde locks of curly hair. Looking into the mirror, I see striking, electric green eyes staring back at me in fear. Always in fear.

Not even a second later, I see him. I always do. The small, seven year old boy, so ghastly white he appears blue, with blood leaking from his hollow green eyes, so much like my own. He's covered in water, and he does nothing but stare. Eyes wide and emotionless, he haunts my every moment.

Always in the mirrors.

He's not real. He's not real.

I chant this to myself, waiting until I think it might be safe. I slowly creak one eye open, and once I see he's no longer there, I quickly put my hair up in a bun and apply ChapStick after wiping my face with a cleanser.

The second I'm finished, I immediately drape the quilt like sheet back over the god awful mirror.

I toss off my shorts and tank top and quickly put on my jeans and a T-shirt.

Walking past the kitchen, I ignore my drunken mother passed out on the couch, head out of my house and straight to my best friend's car.

"You ready for today?" Derek says. He's been my best friend since the accident. His dad is my therapist, and, surprisingly, he didn't try to take take his thirteen year old son away from the twelve year old freak, but instead encouraged it when he found out. Five years later, and here we are.

"Am I ever?"

"Touché." And with a smirk, we're gone.