Open Your Eyes, It's Just a Dream (Escape From Furnace Fanfic)

Chapter Thirteen

**Two years ago**

"Get out of my face Zoë!" I yelled, shoving her back. We were standing in the hallway in front of my room fighting over a guy. Stupid, I know, but Zoë's boyfriend had broken up with her and I may have said some stuff to make her mad. She glared at me.

"What is wrong with you Mel! All you do is talk trash about my friends and now my boyfriend!" She stomped her foot in frustration, her brown hair bouncing on her shoulders.

"I don't talk trash about your friends! Maybe if you had listened to the things I said about that idiot he wouldn't have broken up with you!" I yelled back. Our parents, well adoptive parents, were in the living room waiting for us to cool down before talking to us.

"That 'idiot' was the love of my life! But what do you know about that? The guys at our school don't even look at you twice." She stated, glaring at me. I groaned.

"Love of your life? Yeah right! You'll have a new boyfriend by next week and he'll turn into the 'love of your life'." She looked taken aback.

"Are you calling me a sl-" I cut her off before she could jump to conclusions.

"NO! God Zo! I'm just saying that you're over reacting!" We have been going back and forth like this for about ten minutes and I was getting tired of it. "Why don't you go talk to mom about this instead of pestering me!"

"Yeah, maybe I will. Oh wait! She's dead because of you!" Horror filled her face when she realized what she said. This was something we didn't talk about. I glared at her, biting my lip, hard. "Oh my god... Mel... I didn't mean it... It just slipped out..." I shoved past her and ran down the stairs. Our parents tried to stop me but I ignored them. "Mel! Please come back!! Melody!" She raced down the steps after me. Slamming the door, I turned and ran down the road. I didn't have a destination but I needed to get away. I was in the verge of a panic attack and my eyes were blurring over. I ran for awhile before having to stop. I was just outside of town -which isn't as far away as it sounds, our house was right near the edge- and stood next to the woods. I wiped the back of my hand across my face and stepped off the road, sinking to the ground against a tree. Pulling my knees to my chest, I started sobbing.

She was right... It was all my fault. Our mom died in childbirth and our dad left when he found out she was pregnant with me. This left Zoë and I alone and bouncing from foster home to foster home until I was eight and she was ten. We were even split up a few times before our current parents adopted us. I wiped my eyes, smearing my dark makeup across my cheek and hand in the process. It didn't matter though, I had no one to impress. I felt a panic attack start to kick in and began hyper ventilating.

A two years ago, when I was twelve, I developed an anxiety disorder. I had begun to get it under control this year but I still struggled with it. I was also depressed last year. Yeah, great life huh? Anxiety, depression, no parents, sister that acts like she hates you sometimes, and no friends. This year things had started to get slightly better. I had moved a few classes and got a few new friends; Emily being my closest one. We had been friends the year before but not that close. My depression went away mostly and I started to get my anxiety under control. My sister and I had even started getting close as well. Music helped with a lot of the things I was going through. I had even met one of my favorite bands, Of Mice & Men. It had been amazing.

When I met them I kept it together when I met Aaron, Tino, Phil, and Alan. Then I got to Austin Carlile. I walked up to him and completely broke down. He had walked around the table and hugged me while I told him my story. Then he had given me his autograph and told me that everything was going to be okay and that if I was ever feeling down to message him. I did a few times and he responded which always helped. Recently though I was feeling down again. I was fighting with my sister more and I had started pushing people away.