Addicted To You .L.S.

Four.

June (now)

My parents still haven't shown up. Dr. Charles keeps checking her watch and tapping her pen against her knee.
"I can wait by myself."
Frown lines mar her smooth forehead. This is not the way things are done. My parents should have been tearfully embracing my new and improved, squeaky-clean self at least twenty minutes ago.
"Let me make a phone call," she says.
I lean my head against the wall and close my eyes. I sit and wait, wondering if she'll even let me call a cab if she can't reach my parents.

About ten minutes tick by before someone taps on my knee. I open my eyes expecting to see Dr. Charles. But instead for the first time in months, I feel a real smile stretch across my face.
"Aunt Marry!"

Of course, Aunt Marry wasn't my
actual Aunt. She and mum grew up
together and were best friends since
they were four. Marry's parents were
hardly home she practically lived with
my mum. From the day I was born I'd
been calling her my Aunt.

I throw myself into her arms, almost knocks her over. My chin hooks over her shoulder as I hug her. Marry's a few inches shorter than me, but theres something in the way she carries herself that makes her seem taller. She smells like jasmine and gunpowder, and she's the best things I've seen in forever.

"Hey, Kid." She grins and hugs me back, her callused palms warm against my shoulders. Her dirty blonde hair is pulled back in a messy long braid that reaches just above her butt. Her tanned skin makes her eyes look shockingly blue. "Your mum got held up on a case. Sent me instead."

I haven't heard from Marry the entire time I've been here, even though after the first two weeks I was allowed letters from people other than my parents. But now she's here and I have to bite my lip against the relief that rocks inside me.
She came. She still cares. She doesn't hate me. Even if she does believe everyone else, she came.

"Can we please get out of here?" I asked thickly, fighting tears.
"Yeah." She cups the back of my head, her fingers tangle in my hair. "Let's get you checked out." Five minutes spent signing a stack of paper and I'm free.

I feel like running the moment I step outside. I'm half-convinced that any second Dr. Charles will come slamming through the doors, suddenly seeing through all my lies. I want to sprint to Aunt Marry's ancient Volvo, locking myself in. But running isn't an option. It hasn't been for almost four years, since my right leg and back got messed up in the car accident. Instead, I walk as fast as my leg allows.

"Your mum wanted me to tell you she's sorry she couldn't come," Aunt Marry says after she starts the car.
"And dads excuse?"
"Out of town. Some convention."
"Figures."

Marry's eyebrow raises, but she doesn't say anything as we pull out of the parking lot onto the highway. I role the window down, trailing my fingers in the hot summer air. I keep my eyes fixed on the buildings blurring past me, away from her questioning eyes.

I'm afraid to speak. I don't know what she's been told. The only visitors I was allowed were my parents and they came only when they had to.
So I stay quiet.

Nine months. Two weeks. Six days. Thirteen hours.
I whisper the days under my breath, pressing the words against my lips, barely letting them out into the world.
I have to keep adding it. I have to stay clean. Stay focused.

Harry's killers still out there, walking around, free and clear. Every time I think about whoever he is getting away with it, I want to bury myself with a handful of pills. But I can't.