Never Alone

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Isabella was entirely grateful for her aunt's absence. It gave her the ability and space to think. Slumped on the sofa in front of How I Met Your Mother trying to avoid thinking about what really needed thinking about. It was an old habit of hers really, procrastination. It was an ability she had picked up around the same time that homework had become more than one piece per week. The only problem with her seemingly faultless plan was that thoughts weren't exactly like homework. They weren't just something she could add to the mountainous heap of things on her desk and forget about. No. The thoughts probed and pricked at her mind, so much that she struggled to focus on the storyline of the show. It almost had her wishing that she still had homework to take her mind off everything. Which was a thought she'd never imagined having. Ever. 

The thought of homework caused her train of thought to race back round to another problem. If she went back to America, would she have to start up school again? She hadn't been in education for about a year, maybe more. And with good reason too. Even though she was slowly beginning to recover, she wasn't certain she could walk down a school corridor without hyperventilating. Just the thought filled her with a heightened sense of fear. It made her stomach rise up and out of her mouth, leaving a lifeless corpse somehow still standing, blinking as she stared out at the pristine white floor. Not smeared with blood as it had been. But also still stained. Because she couldn't imagine that floor not soiled with the horrible red liquid, oozing out of the walls and pooling around her feet, dribbling from the ceiling and nesting in her hair like some kind of overgrown fungus. Just like in her nightmares. Any school corridor was bound to bring back some sort of demented panic attack, and that wasn't something she was willing to put herself through. She could already feel the claws of fear grasping at her throat.

She turned her thoughts to other matters.

Elliot.

Elliot. Elliot. Elliot.

She sunk her teeth into her bottom lip, the sound of the television completely drowned out as she fell into a deep wave of thought. Completely submerged. She couldn't even begin to fathom the problem at hand. America had been where she grew up, where most of her fond memories rooted from. The smiling grin of her father as he encouraged her to ride without training wheels. The warm, inviting accent that Elliot always seemed to poke fun of. The people. Her friends. Her teachers. That old lady at the corner store who had always let her off with something a little extra. All the memories had a gorgeous, gold tinge to them in her mind. Prestigious. Home. Like looking at something through a stained glass window, glossing over all the ugly colours and pain that resided there.

Did she really want to go back? Was it really worth it? Was she just sugar coating things in her mind? Because not everything about America was great. For starters, there was the whole gun thing that caused her to flee in the first place. She didn't have that many close friends still living. And...the ones she did have, they were just as messed up as she was right now. She wasn't sure if she could speak to them without having a terrible series of horrific flashbacks. She supposed that the same went for them. Hell, maybe some of them even blamed her. If she...if she had just...stuck it out then a whole lot of people would still be alive.

Still breathing.

And then there was her mum. Who she had spoken to more on phone calls than in person. She did have a connection with her, she supposed. In a mother-daughter way. They had always got on and she always looked forward to her phone calls or letters. And she had always dreamed of settling down with her one day, as one big family. But...dad had been in that image. And now that wasn't...that wasn't exactly possible. But she still wanted to be close with mum. To feel some familiarity in all she had lost. To have one thing that she hadn't lost. A fresh start. For both of them.

But then there was her Aunt. Who had taken care of her in the best way that a parent could. She had been smiling, caring, patient, kind. She had really been Isabella's rock throughout all of this. Offering hot chocolate at midnight. Settling her back into bed when she had woken up screaming. Encouraging her with every little baby step she took back into something like normality. 

And she had never really thanked her for it.

She felt a stab of guilt at the thought of leaving her behind. She had seen her aunt in this entire year more than she had seen her mum in her entire life. Did it really do her kindness justice to just abandon her like this? She wouldn't protest, Isabella knew that. No, she would encourage her to go. She was nice like that. But it would still hurt her, wouldn't it? To put all that effort into helping a child grow and prosper and just...just to see them leave?

And then there was Elliot.

Of course.

She closed her eyes, leaning her head back against the wall as the flashes of the television made the light behind her eyes shift colour. Elliot had become more vital to her than she had realised. From their first phone call, he had slowly wormed his way into her life. He had made her laugh. Smile. Remember and forget all at once. He had shown her that it was okay to move on. It wasn't doing any damage to anyone's memory. She could just live. And do them proud by being happy.

He made her happy.

Really, really happy. 

And she wasn't sure she was ready to let that go just yet.