Monster.

Chapter Twenty Three

It had been three days since my last near mental breakdown. I’ve been trying to stay as far away from Niall as I can get, and he being away for his whole gang business made it easier. Charlie had always made sure I was okay, checking the bruise on my face regularly. I always tried to hide my smile whenever he took the time to actually make sure I was fine. From what I can tell, he thinks my screaming and crying was because of the slap from Niall, and I continued to let him think that. No one had ever been told by me about the voice in my head; I’d always passed it off as just random thoughts or my conscious. I’ve only fallen asleep once and that was for a few minutes before I instantly woke up from a pain in my cheek; I’d leaned against it extremely hard and the pain was horrible. I was terribly drowsy and more than once I had nearly fallen down from random dizziness. But, like before, I couldn’t allow myself to fall asleep and go through that; it was too painful. So, I forced my way through the headaches and sleepiness, with the occasional help from the single word that had seemed to be the voice’s favorite word; weak. I had constantly and forcefully tried to push the thoughts of the feelings that I had felt for Niall in that second of imagination. I didn’t know what it meant; why in the world would you feel anything but fear for the person who had physically hurt you? I spoke to no one about it, hoping the feelings would die down and leave my mind, but they hadn’t and I wasn’t exactly sure why.

 

Early in the morning, present day, I got up and left my room, clutching on the walls for support as to not literally collapse from exhaustion. I was in search of Charlie; he normally came in quite early to say hello or lay with me or just talk, but I hadn’t been visited by the dark haired boy yet. I listened carefully, trying to channel all my attention to this one action, the tiredness make my mind slightly unruly. I was listening for one thing; Niall. I had managed to see him only once in the last few days, that time only being for a fraction of a second because I dived straight into the nearest room; I wasn’t sure if he had seen me or not, but I liked to believe he didn’t. When my exhausted brain finally was assured that it was safe, I started to search. I first went to his room. I told myself that he might have had a late night and was still sleeping; he wasn’t there. I searched the office, which was empty. I looked everywhere, but to no avail. The last room was Niall’s. I wasn’t sure if he was home or not, so all I did was press my ear against the door; silence. Everything was completely empty and I knew I was alone. From all the time I had lived with the two boys, Charlie had never left the house at all; which instantly caused me to panic slightly.

 

It was probably due to the fact that I’m alone and last time that I had be left home, three men had broken in and nearly killed me; but it was mainly the fact that Charlie wasn’t home and I had no idea why. There were hundreds of reasons why he might not be home, but my thoughts seemed to instantly shoot to the worst possibly scenarios. I walk back into my room, briefly but thoroughly checking everywhere once more. I eventually fall back on my bed, my mind running wild and gruesome images going through my head. The tiredness made even thinking an exhausting job, and the amount that I was doing of it made my head hurt. And then my mind turned to it being my fault. There could be countless reasons of why he would want to get away from me and my mind thought up every single one. My breakdowns were too hard to handle; my seemingly constant crying was aggravating; my clinginess was annoying. The strangest things ran through my mind, but they all seemed logical to me, and with the repetitive chant of ‘your fault’, my mind started to go wild. And I knew what this would lead to, but I did nothing to stop it, mostly because of the fact that I couldn’t. It was going to do whatever it wanted and I could do nothing to cease it. So, I let the mental breakdown begin. The first thing I did was rub my temples, attempting to relieve the pain, which soon led to hair pulling and scalp grabbing. Then, I went into the usually comfortable fetal position, my face pressed hard against my knees. The low begging of ‘stop’ finally started and I knew then that there was no going back. I was going to eventually pass out and there was no one here to save me from it. Tiny whispers soon turned to horrible screaming and rocking back and forth. The harder I tried to hold back the tears, the more difficult it became, and then tears of pain and fear and everything in between spilled out. And so there I was, alone in a house, screaming so loud my throat hurt, crying so hard that I could taste nothing but salt, ripping at my hair so hard I could almost feel strands falling out into my hands, the pain in my head so bad that it throbbed and shrieked, all while a voice in my mind that I had no control over was taunting me.