Hidden Close (Jr. Year)

Chapter 57

Part 57 Of The First Draft

It’s hard to believe that I’m still breathing. When Perry left, I thought I would die. Not by my own hands, though. I literally thought I would wilt and die like a flower deprived of water and the sun. I’m still alive, though, and I still have a scrap of hope that is keeping me going. I keep believing that one day he’ll be back. Perry will return one day, I keep saying to myself. He loves me, and that is the gist of it. Love will bind him to me once more.

Even with Perry gone there is plenty enough to worry about around here. It is not as if we are fighting evil monsters and demons, but we are facing the dreaded foe we know as our parents. Every day it seems like my mom is asking me what happened between me and Perry. I told her the truth,

“Perry and his family moved because of the danger that they were putting us in. He thinks we are....”

My mother glared at me, her eyes piercing right through me. She asked me, with cold aggression,

“Thinks we are what?”

I gasped, knowing that my mom was not one to argue with. I simply responded to her with, conceding for the moment,

“It is.....was too dangerous and I know it. I’m sorry, mom. I should have never fallen for him.”

I hid my face as I silently started to cry, proceeding to dash up the stairs to my room. I scooped up my phone as I laid on my bed, trying Becky’s number. After a few rings, she picked up, asking me,

“What is wrong, Mindi?”

I told Becky as I continued to cry,

“Why cant I get over him?”

Becky sighed, as she had already been over this with me a thousand times. She tried to explain away my feelings once more,

“He was your first real boyfriend. You may never get over him. Don’t worry, though. Time heals all wounds.”

Just then, I felt my power come to life after a long absence. It quickened, and I felt as if I could sense Perry, far away, but still there. It felt.....good, like his very essence of life was in me again. Was this him calling out to me, saying he still loves me? I decided to hide this from Becky and everyone else, ending the short conversation with Becky,

“You are right, baby. I wonder how I couldn’t see it before? I love you, Becky. Good night.”

I hung up the phone and reclined fully in my bed, thinking, as I have since he left, of Perry. I obsessed over him all night, barely getting any rest. When I finally woke up on the weekend, I received a text from a number I haven’t seen before. It read,

“I’ll be there for your birthday.”

This is weird. Is this Perry texting me?

I responded back to the text in a hurry,

“Who is this?”

Their reply was instantaneous,

“We’ve not met before. I”ll be there for your birthday. That’s all I can say.”

How creepy. I ran and found Lana, showing her the pair of texts. She was astonished, too, and mentioned,

“That area code isn’t local. In fact, I don’t recognize it at all.”

I kidded her, hoping to alleviate the grim nature of the situation,

“Maybe they are from the grim reaper....”

Lana, who was staring at me, did not laugh one bit. She instead remarked,

“For our sake, I hope not. The Eisens aren’t anywhere nearby to save us.”

Her words were dramatic but true. All it would take is one foe to kill us all. There is nothing we could do if someone wanted to kill us, and we got a lot of enemies at this point, too. Are we really safer with the Eisens gone? Of course not. We are more or less waiting to be blown out of the water. Curse you, Perry. You’ve left me broken and scared. Even if it wasn’t your idea to move, I still don’t forgive you.

Later that week, as my seventeenth birthday neared I felt that strange sensation again. It tingled and reverberated throughout every part of my body and I heard his name in my head. It wasn’t in his voice though, but instead a feminine one that I have never heard before. I made out these words,

“Find him......find him......”

I had to pull myself back out of it and act as if I were daydreaming in class. I tried to sit up, and I couldn’t, nearly crashing to the ground instead. I fell completely out of my chair, splitting my head open, and as the blood gushed and oozed out of my head, I panicked, and reached up, for anyone to save me. My teacher, Mrs. Bernhardt, shouted,

“Call 911! Somebody, please!”

When I woke up again I was bound to a hospital bed and my head was covered in many bandages. Wait.....is that him? At the end of the bed stood....wait. No, that can’t be him. That has to be a figment of my imagination. As I squinted and focused, the apparition that looked like Perry faded away, and then there was just an old and balding doctor standing before me. He must have been who I thought was Perry. The doctor told me, as he examined my wrappings,

“You are lucky. Others would have died.”

His thick Russian accent was almost pleasing to my ears. The doctor talked to me politely and recorded things until my mom and Lana arrived. My mother exclaimed,

“Gosh! My daughter! What has happened to you?”

Lana merely looked on with worry, and my mother cried as she saw my xrays. The doctor tried to be optimistic,

“She’ll have permanent brain damage, yes, but I feel she may recover....over due time, that is.”

My mother demanded to know more,

“What really caused this, Mindi?”

I wanted to cry but my pain was too great. Lana sat near me, as did Becky when she arrived later on. They stayed all the way up until eight, proving their love for me. He isn’t here, though. Perry is gone and doesn’t care. I have to face reality, and it sure does stink. I yearn to see him, but at this point, that may just be a dying dream.