Almost.

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

 

I haven’t returned home in a day but no one seemed to care. It didn’t bother them that I hadn’t returned home after school. They ignored it, like I was some disease that infected the whole family and now without me there, they could breathe regularly. They weren’t infected. I Still managed to get the bus in the morning as I had wandered the streets and as the night fell into a neverending circle of darkness, I snuck into the house, creeping quietly up the stairs and snatching the bag I had planted underneath my bed.

I wasn’t a runaway, I was merely trying to find the right of my mind. I couldn’t do that when I was surrounded by people who could care less if I was alive or dead. I didn’t consider myself alive but I don’t see myself as dead like Conley had insisted I looked. I had been awake all night, searching and wondering what life would be like if suddening I stopped breathing. Would I be able to see my family in the glory of their celebrations of my death?

It had dawned on me that if they really were concerned for my well being they would be looking, searching high and low for my presence. But they weren’t. They didn’t. I waited for the bus to arrive at my corner and as I waited, I could feel the yearning of someone wanting to talk. I could hear the soles of their feet scrape against the concrete and the burning of their eyes as they watched me, waited for me to spike up a conversation.

“You know,” They spoke, a dark tone to their voice. A breeze wisped by me and it knocked my senses off balance. It reeked of smoke and it was searing my nostrils. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a lost girl before.”

I whirl around and gazed up at the person speaking to me. I had to catch my breath as I gazed into a pair of crystal blue eyes and a mop of light hair. In a world full of darkness, I felt as if I was seeing some light. I could see the concern leaking through his eyes but he was smirking, showing off that he was merely joking. I was baffled to see him standing before me with a cigarette bud between his fingertips and his stance calm and relaxed.

“Ansel.” I said his name easily, it slid off my tongue and into the thin air before I could prevent it. It was lodged in my throat this whole time. Gazing up at my older brother had brought some sort of spark inside of me. I was closest with Tristan but Ansel was right there, he was always by my side. Even with his stupid decisions to leave us behind and live in the relaxing beaches of California, I still couldn’t help the smile upon my cheeks.

“In the flesh.” He said, his voice dark and dreary, from the earliness of the morning and from the crisp breeze blowing through us. He threw the bud onto the cement and stomped on it, lighting it out with the tip of his foot. He smiled at me as his eyes casted over my own. “So how’s it been? Living easily without me here?”

I bow my head, not being able to look him in the eye as he speaks about life like it is some easy game that had to be played right. I was shivering but not from the morning breeze. I was trembling and shivering and losing my breath the longer I thought of how much everything had changed. It’s been two months since everything spiraled into a haze of destruction. Since I fell down the rabbit hole and wounded up in a world of hallucination. I was Alice. I was the insane one, I was the one buried in a land of hallucinations and impractical dreams. Only, my dreams were nightmares and I wasn’t dreaming, I was living.

“O.K.” Ansel drew out the word and smiled when I glanced up but my eyes refused to meet his. “Mom told me what happened.” I winced at his words. “Listen, Malina, I know that it’s difficult to cope in that house because of all the nonsense that has happened but what you did, what you tried to do.” He paused, his eyes blazing with a fire, it was igniting within him and I then realize, I was the cause.