"Iris?!" I yell as I pull the door behind me shut, locking it, "We need to talk!"
"Add? What's up? You alright?" A voice nearly identical to mine calls back, making my scrunch up my face slightly in a cringe as I am reminded of how similar we are in appearance.
"So... I, uh, heard some boys talking about you today..." I say as I walk into the kitchen. I spot Iris bent over our L-shaped granite counter.
Iris looks up at me, and I suddenly have her full attention. Her brown eyes lock onto my own, and concern draws her eyebrows together, "Who? What did they say?"
"Are you sleeping with the boys from the hockey team?" I blurt out, my breath is caught in my chest, and my sisters eyes brim with tears.
"Add, how could you think I would do something like that..?" Iris takes a sharp breath, and it's like she stabbed a knife straight through my heart.
"I'm sorry Iris, that was so so dumb. Of course you're not," I shake my head as I head back to our room. I quickly snag my black headphones off our desk and they click together as I wrap them up carelessly. I feel exhausted, but not in your traditional way. I feel emotionally drained. I feel empty.
I begin to make my way out of the room, and I wish we never had moved. I hate it here. I miss a boy from back home. He was sweet and caring, and frankly everything I could've ever wanted. Tall and handsome, but I knew we could never be. I wonder what he thinks happened to me...
When we left, we just up and left one day. I never told him where I was going or why. He never knew. I hugged him tight like I wouldn't ever see him again, which I wouldn't, but he never knew that. And I was gone with the wind.
I walk out the side door and begin climbing the stairs to the roof, and I know for sure I'm not sleeping in my bed tonight.
I jog up the spiral stairs, the balls of my feet only gracing each step for a second, and I hardly make a sound.
The white paint reflects the sunlight harshly, but I lay down flat on my back in a starfish position anyway.
I spend the next five hours rolling into a different position, crying, drifting in and out of sleep, or pacing up on the roof.
I look over the edge of the roof, trying to see hundreds of miles away, trying to see my real home. Trying to see my friends laughing. Trying to see him forgetting that I'm alive.
I kneel down by the edge, and my heart races so fast I'm afraid it'll just stop from stress. I turn my back to the edge and scoot toward the center of the room a tad, cringing as I can feel my jeans just collecting dirt and grim. I lean back slowly, feeling as each vertebrae in my back touches the roof, and right where my neck connects to my back, I run out of roof and allowing head to go backwards.
Sheer terror fills every cell in my body, and I slowly sit up, deciding that maybe that isn't the best option. I'm 100% sure I'm bringing up a lawn chair or something up here. I'm just gonna live up here now.
The setting sun paints intense oranges and yellows across the sky, and I giggle as the orange clouds give me unremarkable pleasure.
"It's Fanta orange," I whisper to myself, the corners of my mouth pulling up at the memory of me sitting on a diving board above my old pool while my team packed up tents. I was so young, I couldn't help much with tearing down tents, so I went and sat on the diving board as the sun set. It was an indescribable orange that reminded me of a unique soda I had recently had for the first time: Fanta.
I'm ripped back into reality by the growling of my stomach, and I pull up my shirt to look at it.
Much to my surprise, it's almost completely flat, and I look quite a bit like a model. I frown, caught up in my predicament. I could eat and have my stomach stop growling, but I would have to go inside and I would also lose the perfect body; or I could remain on the roof, and be hungry but keep looking perfect.
I glance at my phone clock, which presents me with the time of 7:10 PM, and I decide that at 9:45 PM I'll go in and grab some food, but for now I'll remain here on the roof until I get the chance to look back in time.
I love looking at the star because the light doesn't reach your eyes until hundreds of years later, so you literally look back in time, and there's something about that that makes me happy. Almost... peaceful.
