From Heaven To Hell

Tap-Tap-Tap

Ouch. Ouch.

A stinging pain jerks me awake. My light purple quilt is tangled around my legs, making me tumble out of the bed in an effort to get out of them. Landing on the carpet on my floor, I lay there. Half awake and half asleep, the morning light filling my bedroom. A small knock comes from my door.

"Is everything okay? I thought I heard something drop." My mother's worried voice is nearly a whisper through the wooden door. I blow some hair out of my face but it just comes back down, right in the middle of my vision.

"I'm fine." I yell it with little enthusiasm. She doesn't come in and seconds later I hear my mother's footsteps as they walk away. I consider just staying there, when I remember I have school. The thought makes me groan. I look at the small electric clock on my nightstand and see that my alarm was set to go off in 5 minutes.

My whole body is in pain, the muscles in my legs the worse. I sit up, wincing from the aches it gives me. What happen- I remember the run.

Reaching my hand to my ankle, I inspect the bruised skin there. Besides it being a little pink, the injury looks fine. What the heck?

With a sprain like I got yesterday, it should have still been swollen and purple. I remember when I had first started to try running, how I had gotten injuries like this. How they would last a full week, and I was always aching to run.

But nonetheless I rotate it, waiting for a fresh wave of pain to come from the motion. Besides a slight soreness, my ankle feels almost all the way healed.

It probably just felt a lot worse yesterday because I had just come back from a run. Yeah. That's probably why.

I stand, putting some weight onto it, and it feels okay. Shrugging my shoulders, I start to get ready for school.

{{{{{{{}}}}}}

What do I say to him?

Mr. Williams stands at the front of the classroom, looking at his clipboard that he has in his hands at all times. I got to school early. After I got ready, Mom had already left and I didn't feel like eating anything, my stomach a jumble of nerves.

There were only a few other people in the classroom who either had their eyes glued to their phones or were speaking in a big group. Emma wasn't there and neither was Noah.

Which brought me back to my question that caused my stomach to turn. What was I going to say to Noah?

Should I just act like it never happened? Maybe tell him how my ankle felt? No. He probably wouldn't care, probably even forgot about it already. I peeked back at the clock above the door. The bell wouldn't ring for another fifteen minutes. My fingers tap a nervous rhythm on the desk. Tap-tap-tap.

I slip my phone from my pocket and try to distract myself with looking at my social media. Seconds tick in my head, reminding how much time is going by. My eyes skim the pictures on the screen, not focusing on any particular photo. Thoughts on my ankle pop into my head and I suddenly can't think of anything else. Ever since I first inspected it this morning, how fast it healed keeps crashing back into my mind. How can something that bad have been healed in the time I spent asleep?

I rotate my foot, feeling my ankle move easily with the movement. It shouldn't feel like this already. The realistic result would have included me wincing just by moving it a small inch.

"Lizzy!" Emma's voice is right next to my ear, startling me and almost making me fall out of my chair. Covering the aching side of my head, I look up to her grinning face. That's 10 feet away. What the heck is wrong with me?