Face Your Past

Chapter 4:

I could feel the stings on my arms and legs, the sounds of laughing all around me. The sting of tears as the fell down the cheeks of a ten year old me. Looking around, looking for help, looking to him I saw it. Averting his gaze he looked around and started laughing with everyone else. "Come on guys, let's go. This is boring. She's not worth it." I felt the tears fall harder. I felt someone pulling me up. "Let's get you cleaned up." A tiny girl spoke to me.

         I woke up breathing heavy. The tears escape me without warning. Looking at my surroundings I realized I was in my old room at my fathers. I had to get out of here. I was suffocating.  So I pulled on some of my running shoes and snuck out the front door. It was late,  almost two in the morning. I didn't care, I needed to run, to get lost in the night air and some music, to pretend I was home, running in the morning hours with my best friend, not stuck here in a place that I hated.

            So I ran. I ran across the town that I grew up in, across the park where I had been pushed into the gravel by Katherine and Tina. Past the street where Kyle had laughed as Garrett had asked me to the 6th grade dance and laughed as I stood alone in the dark as they all came out of the bushes to laugh about the thought of anyone dancing with me.  I ran until I finally collapsed in the yard that I used to play in with Aiden. In the yard where a seven year old boy swore to protect me forever. The same yard I had been standing in two years later the first time he had laughed with them at my expense. The first time he called me Serenity instead of Blu. The first time I, Serenity Blu Frost was truly broken.  That lawn was where I was now a seventeen year old girl heaving in tears in front of the house next door, and just like then he stood looking at me.

I faintly heard the door open, the lights flicker on and I tried to will myself to get up, to brush it off, but I couldn't move, I could feel the blood on my knee, just like before, except nobody had pushed me this time.  I felt faint, my breath was getting heavier and my head lighter. "Shit, Blu!! Serenity!! Can you hear me?!" I heard him screaming but still I didn't move. 

       "Seren...Aiden back up, leave her alone, I got it." 

"She's bleeding Nik!" He screamed back to his sister.

"Duh, I got it, you can't help her right now okay." She said softly in a determined voice. Whatever she whispered to him next I didn't hear, he seemed to retreat. Then I felt myself being picked up, I knew it was him.  He didn't say another word to me he just sat me down inside and left the room.  "Ok he's gone, now breathe. Remember like before. 1...2....1....2.  I looked up at her as I felt the sobs slowing down. "There ya go. Now let me get something for that knee okay?" She waited for my nod and walked further into the house. I could feel him staring at me but he said nothing. He was standing against the wall and if I didn't already know he was there I wouldn't have saw him.  "You can stop hiding ya know, I can feel your creepy stare from over here." I spoke. 

        He stepped out of the hallway into the light. He looked....worried. "Are you....okay?" He hesitantly asked.

       "Yup peachy. Haven't felt this great in let's say three years." I snapped at him. I knew I shouldn't have, why give him and his buddies the satisfaction of knowing they still get to me. I couldn't help it, I was mad at him and at me for letting my memories and this place bring me back to the scared child in those memories.  I was usually so free as I ran, not a big pile of blubbering mess. 

     "Never mind, whatever." He said stalking away.

        "He bothering you?" She asked.
         "Nah, it's fine. Thanks."
         "No problem, not my first rodeo.  You better?" I nodded at her.
          "What happened?" She asked.
            "Honestly, I don't know. Thought going for a run would make me feel better, it always does at home, I guess not." I said lightly. She nodded knowingly.
           "Alright well, come upstairs, get some sleep." I looked up those stairs where he had disappeared to.
             "Nah, I should go back." I whispered and gave her a quick hug.
              "I'll see you tomorrow though." I waved as I walked out the door and started to walk across the lawn, to where my father stood on the porch. 

              "Quite the commotion you're causing over there.  I don't think that's the kind of attention you want from that boy over there." He said crossing his arms.
                "Excuse me?" I asked. What happened to the sweet man that raised me?  He just shrugged and went back into the house.

          I sighed and went to sit on my back deck. I looked out at the night sky laid back on the deck watching the stars. Now that's something I missed, stars.