Stuck Between Death And Life

My mind is a jail

(Later that Monday) Kyung's POV: We finally arrived at Jolene's house after sitting on the bus for about 15 minutes. Jolene slept on my shoulder all the way. I didn't have anything against it. Honestly, I thought it was cute. Jolene picked up the keys out of her backpack and unlocked the door. I assumed that her parents were still at work. I had never been here before, but the first impression I got was that Jolene's family thought it was important to keep the house clean. There were no socks on the floor, no dirty plates, nothing at all. I took a deep breath and felt the smell of a clean house.

"Do you want me to stay?" I asked Jolene after a while.

"I mean... I'd like to have you here with me but.. I don't want anything to bad to happen." She looked into my eyes with a bit of a sad face.

"What do you mean?" I asked her. I wasn't sure of what she meant. Bad things... like getting a piercing? Was that a bad thing?

"You know what I mean." Her cheeks suddenly turned bright red and I immediately understood what she meant. What happened in the forest. Right.

"Okay.. I guess I'll go back to school then."

"Y-yeah.." She said hesitantly. I knew she wanted me to stay. But I didn't wanna do something that she didn't wanna do.

"You should get some rest. I won't disturb you no more."

"Bye.." She gave me a faint smile and waved at me as she closed the door.

I thought that Jolene was pretty confusing. Did she like me or not? It was obvious that she did but she didn't want to. She was dating Alexis after all.. I shouldn't be in their way. If Alexis found out about this she would hate me. Now when I think about it, I wonder how she's doing. Last time I saw her, she looked really broken and tired. Her skin was pale and she had dark circles under her eyes. She had that kind of look in her eyes that showed me all the pain she was feeling inside. I couldn't understand how it let like being in a hospital for days without anyone to talk to. It must be boring... and lonely.

Maybe it's like jail? Except when you go to jail you get punished for something bad you did. But when you get sick, so sick that you have to stay at an hospital it's like you get a punished for no reason at all. It made me angry. How some people had to stay in the hospital their whole lives.

Jolene's POV: I was in deep sleep when I was suddenly awoken by the sound of a closed door. I heard keys bump into each other and the sound of high heels walking over the floor. I yawned a bit and rubbed my eyes. I remembered what happened in school. Ugh... I embarrassed myself so bad. Just running out of the classroom like that. Everyone probably thought I was nuts. Which I practically was when I think of it. Who gets a panic attack by sitting a classroom? No one. No one other than me. I sighed and laid down back on the soft pillow when a rush of anxiety reached me. I pulled the pink blanket over my head, trying to hide from the world and my feelings but there was no use. The anxiety was still there, nagging in the back of my head.

"Just let me be happy for once." I thought to myself.

I reached for the iPhone on my nightstand. I opened my messages and scrolled down to the conversation with Alexis. Then I scrolled all the way up.

First, I laughed. Then I cried.

It started out with simple texts like "I forgot my English textbook at school, can I borrow yours?" Then a few memes appeared and other funny stuff. I laughed a bit at it. I scrolled down a bit and found a selfie that Alexis sent me. I replied with "You're looking as beautiful as ever." And she was looking beautiful. She had carefully applied a bit of mascara and a faint color of red on her lips. Then other texts that I sent appeared.

"I love you." No response.

"I miss you." Still no response. I bit my lip, trying to stop the tears. It hurt a lot, since my piercing wasn't  fully healed yet. But I didn't care at all. My tears dripped on the screen, one by one, ending up blurring the black text.

My heart ached by the thought that maybe she was ignoring me? Maybe she didn't even wanna talk to me anymore. Then it hit me. The hospital didn't allow phones. I completely forgot about that. I quickly wiped away the tears from my cheeks and got up from the bed, so quickly that I got dizzy for a moment. Then I walked downstairs as quietly as I could. I didn't like to make a lot of noise. I looked for my mom in the kitchen but surprisingly, I didn't find her there. I continued searched in different rooms, finally finding her sitting in the couch in the living room. Her black hair was put up in a messy bun and she was wearing a black dress.

"Um mom?" I carefully asked her.

"Oh my.. you scared me." I realized that maybe she didn't hear me come downstairs.

"Sorry. I just wanted to ask you if I could go see Alexis?" I looked down at my feet, not wanting to face her.

"Tomorrow, in that case. Why are you even home now?"

"I wasn't feeling very well.. Kyung followed me home and then left to let me get some rest."

"Awww, honey... come here." She put her hand next to her on the couch, as a sign for me to sit down. I sat down next to her, close enough to feel the smell of her expensive perfume. She held me close and brushed through my long hair with her skinny fingers. I felt my eyelids get heavy, once again.  I slowly leaned my head against my mother's shoulder and let my tired eyes rest.

[End of chapter 1056 words]

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