In real life

Darkness

The week that followed was horrible. Being at home was a nightmare. Why? Well, mum and I didn't say a word to each other. The short periods of time my mum was home from work she simply ignored me. The thoughts about sitting down and talking seemed to have disappeared completely. Even if I had been the one who had refused to talk in the first place I must admit that I was hurt. Me and my mum had always been close and not talking to her broke me.

Mum and I not talking also resulted in an uncomfortable atmosphere constantly lying in the air around the house, and I wasn't the only one who felt it. Spencer felt it to, and he didn't like it. He stayed out later than usual and took the opportunity to stay at a friend's house as often as possible.

Dad I didn't see at all that week, not a single time. I wondered if he even came home to sleep at night. It didn't seem like it.

Considering what was going on at my house you would think it was a relief to get to school and be there for a couple of hours every day. But it wasn't. It was even worse than being at home. Every single minute I spent at school I was afraid. Afraid that Chad and his friends would suddenly come running out from some dark corner and hurt me. No one had seen them since the incident at the parking lot, they hadn't been at school a single time, but I was sure they were going to return. It was just a matter of time.

Mr Brown told me not to worry about it. "As soon as those boys sets a foot on the school property we are going to take care of them", he said to me and Troye the day after the incident. "Relax Miss Hemingway, you have nothing to be afraid of!" Easy think for him to say. He hadn't heard Chad that day. I'm not done with you. I'm not done with either of you. Chad wanted revenge, and a couple of teachers wasn't going to stop him. How the hell was I supposed to relax when that thought kept on hunting me? Day as night it was there. In the day in form of painful memories that flashed through my head and almost made me panic. In the night in form of horrible nightmares which I woke up from in the middle of the night, sobbing and shaking. It was like I had been pulled into a great darkness. A painful darkness that showed no end and no beginning.

The only thing that lightened me up during that time was Troye. But not even Troye was the same. I could tell this whole thing had affected him as much as it had affected me. The bubbly, funny Troye I had gotten to know so well seemed to have been washed away. The only thing left was a broken boy who desperately tried to get up from the same darkness that surrounded me. I tried to help him as best as I could, but it seemed impossible. How do you push someone out of a hole when you are stuck in there with them?

I couldn't help Troye, and nobody else seemed to try either. Sure, Troye had Tyler and he had his family. But they wasn't always around. At school there were no one who cared. The teachers didn't do anything, they just walked around and gave us what I think was their version of a comforting smile. It wasn't very comforting.

The students wasn't much better. Me and Troye hadn't been very popular before the incident, but their behaviour towards us that week was on a whole other level. We couldn't take one step inside the school without hearing them whisper. Without seeing them pointing. We was the main topic when it came to gossip. Everybody pitied us, yet no one seemed to be interested in helping us.

The whole situation was quite depressing really, and when Friday came it was a huge relief. Friday meant that we could forget about school for a while and just spend time with our families (or at least Troye could, I didn't know about mine). And most important of all; it meant that we had made it through the week without Chad and his gang coming back for us. That lit a small spark of hope inside me. Maybe they wouldn't come after us after all. Maybe Mr Brown was right, maybe everything would be fine. Maybe Troye and I was safe. That thought made me feel a whole lot better.