Choices, Love, and Magic (Complete)

chapter 11

Chapter 11 Surprises and Shockers. Great.

I drifted in and out for a while, feeling completely at peace, before I really woke up. Then there was no peace. I knew what I'd done, and I hurt too much to even cry. I couldn't even move when my mom came in and shook my shoulder gently as I stared catatonically at the bare white ceiling. I knew she was getting scared when all I did was blink. I didn't speak. I didn't move. I couldn't. I was drowning.

Mom eventually left, and I heard her turn the T.V. on in the living room below. I knew she was waiting for me. I tried to move. To get up and go to her and lie by telling her I was fine. I tried. And for a long time, I was too overwhelmed with anguish to even look somewhere besides my empty ceiling. Later I realized that was because it mirrored me. Only one color paint. Only one devastating feeling. Both blank, and only filled with one thing. The difference was, I was aware. I felt it.

I couldn't tell if I stayed still for minutes, hours, or days. All I knew was the hurt. But, finally, I moved my eyes. I looked out the window, seeing Cora's car on the road, headed to my house with half of my friends in the car, including Christian. The rest were riding behind in Antonio's Lamborghini. If anything else had been the sight to greet me, I might've kept it together. But instead, I saw the people who's pain I'd caused. And I couldn't handle that. I screamed.

This scream was like no sound I'd ever made or heard. In the back of my mind, I wondered if anyone had heard anything like it before.Was it even possible to make that sound? The scream was so loud, long, shrill, and unbroken that it was the very essence of agony, terror, and horror. I knew that even my human friends, in the car on the road, over a hundred meters away, with music blaring would hear it. I knew I was right when both cars sped up, shooting into my driveway. They were out of the cars and almost at the house, my mom was shaking me to try and make me stop, and I was still screaming. I hadn't even taken a breath.

I stumbled, still wailing, into a corner of my room just as my friends burst in. Antonio ran over, grabbed my shoulders, and shook me, trying to call my name. I still screamed.

And someone else walked in, strode past the others, and knelt in front of me. Then, shocking us all, he dealt me a sharp slap to the face. I was surprised into silence, only broken by my aching sobs as I fell forward to the floor. I looked up, injured, and took in the face above me.

He had jet-black hair, black eyes that both enticed and repulsed, repulsing only because of the lack of emotion there, strong and chiseled features, pale skin, a rough yet sexy mouth, and a very masculine body clothed in a tight black t-shirt and dark jeans. Altogether, he was hot! But my interest was tempered by the fact that he'd slapped me. Hard.

Antonio recovered first, nudged Hannah, and the twins shoved the strange man across the room. Then Hannah yelled at him.

"Damn it, you ASSHOLE!!!" Hannah screamed at him,"What the HELL is WRONG WITH YOU?! Good God, Tristam. Sometimes I swear your name means 'sorrow' because you cause so much of it." She said the last sentence as she examined my face where the guy, Tristam, slapped me. I whimpered as she lightly pressed on it, and Antonio visibly got angrier as Christian leaned on the wall and my other friends cowered with my mom by the door. Scared to leave, but terrified to stay. Terror won, though, and I heard them run downstairs. I didn't bother listening after that, though. I was too mad.

I could tell that Antonio was about to attack Tristam, so I stood quickly and put a restraining hand on his chest. When he looked down, I winked and grinned wickedly, and he smiled back and stepped back. Then I turned to face the sonofabitch that slapped me. He looked me up and down, grinning like a pervert, and I let him. For a moment. Then I attacked the grinning jackass.