M.I.A.

Chapter 18

Chapter Eighteen:

Mia

The day is a haze where minutes become hours and asleep and awake turn into the same repeating dream-nightmare. I'm back in a safe place, watching TV with Ti, dancing with John on the boardwalk, sitting on the floor painting my nails with my sister, then all of a sudden there's a wicked face and a savage knife cutting into me. Slicing me open, making me bleed, making me beg and scream, collapsing the movie screens all around me until there's only black and fun house mirrors stretching me to nothing.

The sun moves across the floor again and again, the shadow beckoning and teasing—close and far, close and far.

I sink further. My body drooping, my mind sucking inward. Escaping. Going so deep that even movement is too far away and monumental a request. Blocks of stone being knocked one by one into the well until it levels, sinks, fills up, becomes dry and forgotten.

I'm beyond the throbbing pain and ache.

I close my eyes, willing the curtains to stop waltzing in the sun.

Stop.

Stop it.

Make it go away.

***

"I can go higher than you!"

"No you can't!" I pump my legs harder, faster. My body swings back and forth, fighting gravity, flirting with the earth and the sky. My feet touch the sun, skim in the dirt. My heart is pounding, my smile could crack my face.

I hear Ti laughing. "I'm winning!"

"No! No way!" I scream.

But it's the truth. She is winning. She always did win. Why couldn't I just let her win? Why?

Unwilling to let her best me, I yank my arms inward and let my butt slide off the swing as I fly at the sun. I fly. Air, air, air, then boom, in the dirt. I feel the sting of the grit in my hands and my knee.

"Show off!" she yells.

I smile in triumph. She never did have the balls to jump after me. But then pain makes me look down. Blood...

Laughing laugh. Horrible Butcher face with his knife. He slashes at me, a pressurized sting that drags and lingers. The heat oozes up, spills over. Lava. I scream and I run, but I'm only going in circles and every time I rotate around, he cuts me deeper, harder.

***

Cool whisper touch rouses me. A breeze in the stillness, over leg, over arm, over cheek. I lean into it, needing the centering balm of it to find the will to open my eyes again.

Someone is sitting beside me. A boy. "You're awake."

Heavy lidded, I blink with the uncertainty of a drug-stupor. Is he real? An angel? Please, God, let him be the angel of death. Take me away.

His grey eyes dart toward the nightstand. "I brought you a gift."

I follow his gesture. There's a pile of dirt in the center, like a little mountain. And springing from the very top is a single white daisy. Strong and alive, the center a sweet bright yellow. For some reason, it reminds me of Ti and my heart sinks further. Ti. My sweet Ti. I miss her. Even if she betrayed me. Had she loved Will, too? I don't know. I never asked. Had we been in love with the same boy for forever? It seems silly now, my tears and anger. She can win. She can have Will. I just want to hug her now.