Adolescent

2.

I woke up the next morning, slightly disoriented and wondering where I was, until I remembered the flight home to Virginia with Nat from LAX after the show she, the boys and I flew to California, performed while she chilled backstage and Zayn drove us back to LAX. We then flew to the Dulles Airport and were picked up by Jess and driven back to our small city of Harrisonburg and parted ways at her and my sister's neighboring houses, where I immediately fell asleep after making it to my bedroom in my sister's house.

****

"Wake up and get ready for the fitting!" Jess' voice came through my door.

I groaned, holding a pillow over my face. 

Great. The fitting.

****

Hours later, I was sat the bridal shop in my bridesmaids' dress, trying to comfort my distraught sister.

"Everything would be better if mom were here." my sister sobbed, pressing her face into my shoulder. She was upset over her veil, which wouldn't be ready in time for the wedding rehearsal with the bride, her maids and the groomsmen that night.

I hugged an arm around her shoulders tentatively. "Maybe you could use mom's veil. She would've wanted you to."

I didn't know if I actually believed that statement or not.

"That's a great idea!" Jessica brightened up, and went to a clerk to tell her that the veil's arrival didn't need to be expedited, that she could wait until Thursday's rehearsal.

At the rehearsal, Nat helped me with my dress and hair, and I walked down the aisle on Danny's - Scott's younger brother's, and also the best man's - arm. Everything went well, without one tear shed by the bride.

The trouble was after the rehearsal, when Nat was being picked up by her twin brother Nick.

"Hey Ro." Nick said to me.

"Get the hell away from me." I growled.

"Hey, I did apologize!"

"And what the fuck would an apology do to even make an attempt at an attempt to make up for what you did?"

The previous June, right after school let out, my father shot my mother in a drunken rage and then offed himself using part of our stair railing and one of my belts. Being me, a minor, and, well, living with them, I'd found them after coming home from school. At the time, I'd been in a funk, my book having been rejected by a second publisher, had been being abused by my schizophrenic, PTSD-affected, ex-military father - though I had been for years, ever since he'd been discharged from the military - and being causing even more pain to myself because of those factors. Maybe a week after I'd found them, after the double funeral, being so overwhelmed by all the sudden pain in my life and not thinking clearly at all, I tried to commit suicide. Jess found me and promptly had me locked up in the psych ward at the best hospital in the state, where I was put on suicide watch and forced to stay for two months, in which I had pushed down everything that had happened to me and forced myself to not think about it or even show any emotion at all, and never again attempt to end my life or to intentionally put a scar on my skin. When I was sent home, still in a medicine haze, a partially-intoxicated Nick thought it would be the perfect time to try and take advantage of my semi-catatonic state, only to be busted by his sister and by my becoming fully aware when I realized what the hell was going on.

Things had gotten better since then - a hell of a lot better - but every time I even thought about Nick, I felt his hands.

And at that moment they were nearly tangible, even though he was standing three feet away from me.