Almost.

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

 

Conley hasn’t been in school. He told the teachers that he was on some vacation with his family but when I walked past his house on my way to cool down the night of Breton’s confession of speaking to Tristan, his parents car was in the driveway. He was lying and when he didn’t show up in school the next day, I noticed the sour look on Jakes face and the concern laced between Connors eyes.

I hadn’t swallowed enough courage to speak to Jake, his eyes still penetrating into my own like a demon unmasking itself. Everything about Jake signaled a wrong way sign in my head but for some reason going the wrong way seemed thrilling and I took a chance. I swung at a ball and suddenly I was running the bases.

As the days dragged by and the burning of Jake’s eyes intensified, my mind became a spiral of black lines. It was a mess of dotted thoughts and I couldn’t seem to erase the mess I had created. I was leaking into a world of destruction and everyone around me saw the way I went down, yet no one once came forth and tried to stop it all. I was being dragged, dragged by the outstretched hand of the darkness and soon I learned that this hand was comforting towards me because it wasn’t a stranger, it wasn’t even a friend, it was Tristan.

Tristan was leading me down the same road he had entered and seeing as I was already more than halfway down the path, he decided to take it further and pull me towards him and I had done just that, willingly. My mind was a tornado of thoughts and the only way to make it stop, to make it become ceased was to end it myself. So I tried, only Savannah had saved me at the last moment.

Everyone had heard of the damage I had put upon myself, yet no one, not one single soul in these halls knew about the disease that took over my mind, no one knew that it was slowly killing me, ripping me shred by shred until I was no longer able to survive. No one knew, except Conley.

I was slowly destroying myself with the constant thoughts of Conley. I wanted to hear his voice and feel his hands. I wanted it to all end, I needed a way to prevent the pain, to stop the constant wandering of my mind. I needed to get something to take over the space that Conley used to fill. It felt nearly impossible to smile again, to laugh, to actually feel happiness.

The utter worst part of being sad is that you don’t even know what makes you happy anymore. Sometimes I find myself thinking of what happiness is like, if it’s a lingering feeling in the pit of your chest or is it sleek and hides behind you like a mask? Will it come like a train and unexpectedly hit you like it would when you lie on it’s tracks? Can it hold you as steady as a rope can around your neck?

I wonder what it would be like to feel it, to thrive for it, to crave it. I’m only wondering, I crave Conley and I thrive his voice and his words. I want to drive to his house and just stand in front of it, waiting for the front door to burst open and for it to reveal Conley. I want to see his sea green captivating eyes and his mahogany, flowy hair. I want to talk dreams and reality, only as of right now, I don’t know what the difference between the two is.

That would be something Conley would joke about. Him chuckling lowly so only I would be the one to hear and whispering words that would soar through my ears and echo in my head. I’d hold his words in my head all day and just repeat them over and over.

As I was in class, I hear a shuffle of noise from behind me but I never once turned my head, not bothering to care enough anymore. My head already spinning, to actually turn it would be like to have a tsunami hit the school. I jolted forward a crumbled piece of paper landed on my desk. I glanced around, seeing as everyone’s head was down and their pencils crushing against the paper the teacher had just handed out. I was doodling on my notebook, not caring if I would have gotten caught for not paying attention in class.