Screaming at the Stars

Pieces Missing

The sound of my mom screaming my name was what jolted me back to consciousness. It was still dark out and I had no idea what time it was...or where I was.

The last time I remembered I was in the woods climbing that tree...

...Right. I was climbing that goddamn tree and then I fell out it. Great job Andie.

I groaned and sat up, my head spinning and my ankle throbbing. I looked around, and I could see I was laying on the little couch on the patio.

How the hell did I get here?

I saw my mom running out of the back door towards me, looking absolutely horrified.

"Andie! Oh god, you're bleeding, what happened? Where were you?" She assaulted me with questions as she grabbed my face and hugged me.

"What time is it?" I moaned, trying to edge my way out of her grasp.

"It's a little after midnight, now tell me when the fuck you left and where you went?" She demanded. Her tone went from frantic relief to raging in less than a second. I know she wasn't trying to sound harsh, but I overwhelmed her and when that happens she loses her filter.

I racked my brain, trying to remember when I left. I think it had been around 10, but I had no idea. Did that mean that I had been out in the woods for over 2 hours?

And again, how the hell did I get here?

"Andie! Will you please answer me? Oh god what happened to your face..."

I brought my hand up to my cheek and when my fingers grazed a stinging cut I pulled it away to find blood on it. Shit. I must've gotten scraped by a stick when I fell.

Aunt Rachelle  came out to see what all the commotion was about. "Andie? Annora? What's going o-" Then she saw my face. "Oh my god! Andie what happened?"

I kept my mouth shut, not really sure how to tell them the truth. Eventually, their combined gaze made me break. I took a deep breath.

"Okay, so I needed some fresh air so I decided to take a walk and I went into the woods because I wanted to explore a little bit, but it was dark and I couldn't see much so I tried to climb a tree to get a better view of everything and I slipped and fell and I scraped my face and my ankle hurts and so yeah." I said the entire thing in one breath and looked down to avoid looking at their faces. Alright, I twisted the truth a little bit, but they didn't need to know about the part where I was playing pirate ship with my brother who wasn't even there.

My aunt bent down to examine my knee, while my mom lectured me for going out alone and explained all the worse things that could've happened.

"Well, you definitely sprained it," Rachelle said, gesturing to my ankle which was purple and swollen at this point.

"Great." My mom said. "Honestly that's great. Let's get her inside and bandage her up. I'm so done for tonight."

She and my aunt yanked me to my feet, which threw me off balance and made my ankle bang into the leg of the couch. I let out a loud yelp of pain, but they sort of ignored it and brought me inside.

Nicholi and Claudia were still up, and standing right by the door so I knew they'd listened to the entire thing. Nicholi looked kind of sheepish since he'd been caught in the act, but Claudia looked pretty amused by what she heard.

Rachelle took me into the bathroom where she wrapped up my ankle and put a band-aid on my face. She also gave me an ice pack for my headache. We sat in awkward silence, and we could both hear my mother loudly explaining the entire situation to my dad and uncle in the other room. She sounded furious, and referred to me more than once as "thoughtless and careless".

"Your mom is pretty stressed about everything," Rachelle tried to explain to me. "She's going to be okay, she just needs some more time to settle in and everything. She'll get over it. Things will be better tomorrow, besides, look on the bright side, you only have a couple bumps, but no concussion!"

I thanked Rachelle and I limped back to Claudia's room pressing the ice against my forehead. Claudia was already there, waiting for me.

She tried to get me to talk about it. "How far did you go? Why did you leave? Why were you climbing a tree in the first place?"
I gave her vague responses without actually answering her questions. "I don't know," or "I don't remember." She was really getting on my nerves, so I ignored the rest of the questions and pretended to be asleep, until finally she gave up and began to snore.

I didn't actually believe any of the reassuring things Rachelle had told me. My mother was pissed as hell, and I didn't really blame her. Out of the dumb things I've done, wandering off, falling out of a tree and spraining my ankle had to be at the top of the list.

I stared at the ceiling while I recounted the entire night in my head. I still had no idea how I'd actually gotten to the patio in the first place. There was no way I could've walked all the way over without some help. All I could remember was something green...something bright green. Was it the leaves? Was it grass? Why was I remembering the color green? And the feeling of floating...yes, of course. I flew all the way to the patio with wings and had absolutely no memory of it. Jesus Christ I was going insane. There were so many pieces missing and I didn't know how to find them.

However, two things were for certain. I had somehow gotten to the patio with a sprained ankle, and I was sure as hell going back into those woods tomorrow. No one in this house was going to be able to stop me.