Mathlete to Beauty Queen

STAIRS, AKA THE DEVIL

              It's been three months.

  Three months have passed before my eyes and I barely noticed. I suppose that's what happens when you spend your entire summer locked inside your room.

  My mom came to the house to visit sometime within the first month of my self-proscribed solitary confinement. Long story short, we fought and she left. After that, my parents simply left me alone. Maybe that's what they thought I wanted . . . or maybe they just stopped caring.

  Last week, they finally decided to come home. My mom and I have exchanged a few small words, but my dad and I have done no conversing, which hasn't troubled me much.

  I'm not quite sure why they decided to come back when they did. When first I saw their car pull up, I thought they'd come to apologize, but I was mistaken. Apparently in their minds, I'm the one who is in the wrong here.

  They have a right to be mad about what happened the day Bryn died, I am too. I hate myself for it, but the funeral. That wasn't my fault.

  My mom likes to sit in my room at night when she thinks I'm sleeping. Little does she know, I've barely slept a wink since Bryn's death. I think that she wants to wake me and finally have a heart to heart like we used to, but she's too afraid to do so. So she just sits there night after night and says nothing. Nothing at all.

_

Now that we're all caught up, let's us get back to the present.

Today is my last first day of high school. This is the day that I've been dreading all summer, the day that I finally have to deal with all my issues. Not that I haven't been, but now, I have to do it in front of hundreds of judgmental teens.

  I should be more excited. I used to always look forward to starting school, but now it's just a pitiful reminder that Bryn is gone.

  She'd of started her sophomore year today. She used to annoy the crap out of me rambling on and on that she was tired of being at the bottom of the high school food chain. At least now, I know what she meant.

I don't want to get up.  It's literally the last thing I want to do right now, but I know that I have to.

After a few moments of arguing with myself, the school obsessed freak that is Ashlyn Breyers takes over and wills me to get my sorry butt out of bed.

  I don't know whether I should feel excited, anxious, or depressed. I choose all of the above.

I'm excited to start senior year.

I'm anxious to be around actual human beings again.

I'm depressed that Bryn isn't here with me.

Dragging my lazy legs out of bed, I somehow manage to make it through my bedroom door. This time as I walk through the hall, I don't spare a second glance at Bryn's room. I can't bear to put myself through that again. Eventually, I reach the stairs, aka, the devil.

  In exception to trips to the kitchen for food, I've spent the majority of these three months in my bed. Meaning, my legs are barely use to walking on flat ground, let alone walking down the stairs. So, pulling out the five year old in me, I begin to slide myself down, bouncing up and down on each and every step, which hurts a lot more than I had remembered.

After my painful, yet somehow fun trip down the stairs, I make my way into the kitchen. What I see is something I haven't witnessed for three months, smiling. My parents smiles more specifically. They haven't looked this happy in . . . Well, forever.