Recovery

Chapter 9

I lean my forehead against the car window.

"Do you want lunch, Lexi?" Mom asked me. It's a wonder I don't weigh nine-hundred pounds by now from the way she feeds me!

"No mom, that doughnut just about did it for me." My appetite isn't huge today. Of course, it doesn't help that I'm thinking about school starting in two days, so my stomach is twisting in knots.

Brent turns around and looks at me. Then he straightens, "I sure could go for a burger," he points to an upcoming Burger King. Mom puts the signal on, and turns off into the drive-thru line. It's really long, because of the lunch traffic. I look at the clock, and it says 11:58. I sigh and close my eyes, starting to braid my hair to the side of my head. I think about the worst case scenario that could happen. Everyone could hate me and shun me, even the teachers, and I could be hated, and need to transfer schools cause nobody can stand to look at me. That's the worst thing that could happen, I think.

I try not to think that it would actually come true. So I distract myself by coming up with the best case scenario. I return to school, everything like it was last year, but I start getting more popular because of all the times my name has been tossed around on the news. Nah, that'll never happen.

Mom opens the car window, and places the order. A double cheese burger, and two regular cheese burgers. Wow, Brent must really be hungry. We drive further, to the paying window, and my mom pays for Brent's food. That's not fair! I always need to pay for my food!

At the next window, we wait for our food. It isn't long before a paper bag is passed through the window.

I hear a voice say, "Have a nice day!" Before we drive away. Mom rolls up her window, and Brent hungrily opens the paper bag, a tantalizing aroma filling the car. He passes a burger wrapped in paper to mom, and reaches back to pass another to me.

"I told you I didn't want one!" I half-heartedly protest. Brent raises his eyebrow and holds his hand out for it back. I take a big bite, and smile at him.

"Thought so, Lex," he smiles at me and finally unwraps his own food.

We pull into the Staples parking lot, and search for a parking space.

"Aah, here's one," mom sighs, pulling into an empty parking space a long ways away from the store.

"Really mom? You couldn't have found anything closer?" I sigh and open my door, careful not to hit the car beside me.

"No! Didn't you see how full it was over there?" She stuffs the last bite of her burger in her mouth, at the same time as me. We give each other cheeky smiles and start walking into the store.

The automatic doors open before us, and I run my fingers through my hair, undoing the braid I did in the Burger King line. Mom grabs a red basket, and we weave through the mass of people crowded by the checkout counters.

"Hey, Alexis," I hear behind me, and I turn my head to see where it came from. That's strange. There's nobody I know here. Not that I know many people, it's just that my schools so huge that I wouldn't recognize most of them. Out of the all of the people, a blonde head emerges, walking towards me. I look ahead of me to see mom disappearing into the crowds. At least Brent's still here.

"Alexis," she pants. "You're the one on the news for getting raped, right?" Her light blue eyes looking at me, and I get the feeling she's one of those 'gossipy' types.

"Uh, do you talk?" She looks at me strangely.

Suddenly my throat constricts and I can't talk, I can barely breathe! Please don't say anything stupid Lexi, don't say anything stupid!

"Mymomsaysnottotalktostrangers," I blurt, and she giggles. Oh great, that's gonna be next weeks juiciest gossip.

Brent grabs my elbow, "she means she doesn't want to talk about it," he glares at her, but she doesn't seem to mind. She turns around and walks away, back to her loyal followers, her miniskirt swishing around the tops of her thighs.

"C'mon, let's go find mom," Brent whispers in my ear. I silently follow him, not wanting to be left by myself.

Soon enough we are looking at binders.

"Lexi, how about this nice Periwinkle one?" Moms voice cuts through the barrier of my private world.

"Fine," I say, and resume worrying about what school might bring. Maybe even Cassidy and Sarah, my two best friends, won't like me anymore! Oh, I really needed my guitar right now.

"Will you stop that?" A sharp voice I don't recognize draws me out of my worries. I look down and my fingers are tapping my leg, and my foot is tapping the beat on the linoleum floor.

Way to draw attention to yourself, Lexi, I silently chastise myself. I look around, looking for mom and Brent. I start hearing whispers of "she's the one on the news," and "poor girl was traumatized" and even "that girl is a disgrace". I feel like everyone is looking at me behind my back. Pointing fingers and looking down at me. My breathing starts to shallow, and my legs start shaking. I grab onto the shelves beside me to keep my knees from buckling.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I knew that music is the only way to keep me from passing out. I take another breath and start to hum. I don't even know what song I'm humming until I get to the chorus. That's when I realize that it's 'I won't Give up' by Jason Mraz. I start singing the words to the song, I try my best to keep my voice quiet.

The last note draws out, and I open my eyes, and people are staring at me, so I closed them again. Oh great, what did I do? People are going to start whispering even more about me. Then, right when I expect the whispering to start, I hear clapping. I crack my eyes open, and more people join in the clapping. I whirl around, and run into Brent. He puts his hands on my shoulders, and whispers in my ear.

"Did you choose two more binders?" He looks around, at all the people, some of them had stopped clapping but others are still staring at me, and I can imagine what they see. An ugly girl, with bruises on her face, a black eye and swollen cheek, who randomly broke out in song in the middle of Staples. Great, now I'm going to be labeled as insane too.

I grab two random binders from the rack, red and orange. I turn back to Brent and follow him to the checkout counter. "She has a beautiful voice" blended with "why doesn't she perform" and "I didn't know she could sing". I'm too embarrassed to bask in the compliments. My face turns red, and Brent turns to me.

"Why don't you just go out to the car? I'll take your stuff." He takes the binders from my arms and I dash to the exit. I'm walking so fast that the doors barely have time to open before I am through them, I weave in between the cars filling the parking lot, suddenly glad that mom had to park so far away. As I approach our blue Honda, I notice someone leaning against the car beside ours, I really don't want to put up with empty conversations right now. In fact, I just don't want to talk. I try the door, to see if it's open, and, not surprisingly, it's not.

My eyes start to well up with tears, the stressful day catching up with me. I turn my back to the teenage boy and lean against our car, hiding my face in my hands. I can imagine what he's thinking. I'm an ugly girl that can't hold herself together, she really should just go die in a hole. Maybe I should die in a hole. I'm just a bunch of extra trouble for everyone. I'm just another person in this world. Nobody would notice if I left. Nobody would care.