Take My Picture

Chapter fourteen

The next few weeks were pretty normal in terms of events of the week. I went to school, I came home, I did my homework, and I hung out with Brinley. They had, however, been quite the emotional rollercoaster.

You see when Demi dropped me home on the Sunday night, Elise was waiting at the door for me. I had managed to avoid everyone when I was there earlier in the day to get clothes, so the shock, the worry, and the angry questions began pretty quickly. I told Elise that I fell while I was racing Madison to the car after the trampoline warehouse. She bought it. The fact that she did though, is what sort of facilitated the emotional rollercoaster that began the night before.

No one at the home suspected anything more than what I told them. Brinley and Madison were too scared to bring it up, even though they were suspicious. And Demi; Demi had barely spoken to me in almost three weeks. She's been pretty busy since the weekend we all spent together. I know she went to New York sometime after that but I have no clue where she was now. I try not to text her too much because I know she's busy, so I'd rather leave it up to her to text me so I know that I'm not interrupting anything. But that meant that I had no one to encourage me to talk about what happened.

Demi hasn't messaged me in 2 weeks and the last time I texted her was three days ago but I got no reply.

I guess everything was building up, my mood swings were getting more obvious and I was starting to shy away from some touch. Three days ago some guy at school grabbed my arm, it was just to tell me I had dropped a book, but I just dropped to the floor and had a bit of a meltdown. It was in the middle of a class so the halls were empty thank god, but the guy just bolted, so shocked by my heavy reaction.

I guess that incident made me realise that I really did need to talk about what happened. I managed to drag my shaking body to the bathroom and immediately pulled out my phone to text Demi to tell her I needed to talk to her. She was the only one who knew something happened. And I needed the calm, safe feeling that she gave.

I, however, got no response.

It was now Friday and I was not feeling school even one bit. My emotions were all over the place.

I still hadn't heard from Demi, which confused the shit out of me. A couple of weeks ago she had been talking about adopting me, and now she's not talking to me? When I needed someone the most? It frustrates and angers me beyond belief.

And to add to it, I really did not want to see that boy (who I found out is in my photography class) I had a meltdown in front of. I'm already known as the girl who set her sister on fire. I don't particularly want to also be known as the girl who has spontaneous meltdowns.

So when Elise walked into my room at 7:45 am to hurry me up, I pulled the covers further up and put on my best 'sick' performance.

It worked. Elise left me alone and after about an hour the house was completely empty.

I grabbed my phone, wrapped my covers around me and walked into the upstairs media room to watch a movie.

The Idea of a movie didn't last long as I ended up on Youtube and soon after I was watching Demi's documentary 'Simply Complicated'.

...

My face was vibrating.

I sat up and rubbed my eyes, I must have fallen asleep after watching Demi's documentary.

What woke me up was my phone vibrating. I must have fallen asleep on it again.

Demi - 9:56 am - Hey sweetheart, what have I missed, give me all the gossip.

Demi - 10:14 am - Harriet, I'm sorry that I missed your message the other day, I needed a break from my phone so Kelsey had it all day.