Paralysis

Chapter Eleven

  Olive dried her head of all the water saturating her long, black, spiraled hair. She sprayed energizing serum into it before placing her hair up into a pineapple shape, so that her curls would be safe in the morning when she woke up. Olive wrapped her hair up in a silk headscarf, allowing the ends of her curls to relax. She checked the time on her phone. It was nearly ten-thirty in the evening. She sighed, sitting down at the end of her bed, instead of preparing to sleep. Olive knew that sleeping after the day she had wasn't going to be simple, if possible to begin with. Playing over every event in her head from earlier made Olive's mind feel fuzzy and numb with all her thoughts crashing against her cranium.
  She felt exhausted, tired enough to pass out then and there; but her mind wouldn't release her from its grasp. Olive got up to walk toward her dresser to pick up her backpack. She decided to get some homework done to settle her brain as much as she could. Olive pulled out her notebook along with some of her textbooks. At least half of her teachers sent home simple packet work for the students to do that would be turned in by the end of the week, so Olive knew she'd race through the packets fairly quickly if she tried hard enough. Olive walked back to her bed, sitting in the middle of it so she could scatter her work in front of her. Completing such a task was surprisingly freeing her mind bit by bit. Olive had guessed that her restlessness through the past couple of days was caused by working herself too much. She needed time to herself to unwind and concentrate on one thing at a time. Her acquaintanceship with Damian took away her ability to feel safe any longer—yet, she refused to let it distract her.
  She couldn't shake the idea of Damian having her complete another embarrassing task. It was like a piece of gum she couldn't remove from the bottom of her shoe no matter how much she tried to scrape at it. With Olive and Damian's involvement being an incredible burden weighing over her every second of the day, Olive couldn't stop thinking about how her cello time had been greatly altered. To add to her mess, the year just began and Olive already received disciplinary action for violence on school grounds.
  As her racing thoughts swarmed around, Olive had slowly succumbed to her doubts. She had seemingly given up on her accomplishments, letting go of her hard work, stability and intelligence. She knew that none of that mattered with someone like Damian constantly breathing down her neck; forcing her to take a step back out of fear. Though, they were utterly unwelcome, tears streamed down Olive's face, then falling onto her papers and the pages of her English textbook. Olive resentfully wiped them away, trying to pull herself together. It was as if all the desolate thoughts crowding her mind were trying to come out in any way they could.
  "Why the fuck am I crying?" Olive spoke through sobs. She tossed her papers to the side, letting them scatter onto the floor as she aggressively rubbed her fingers across her forehead in an exhausted manner. She was frightened, yet annoyed at the same time. She stood up from her bed and onto the carpet floor. She paced back and forth around her bedroom until she calmed herself down. The pain in her chest had began rising in her throat. That very sensation made Olive feel as if she were going to choke to death at any moment.
  While finding it difficult to breathe and think clearly, Olive also found herself completely breaking down on to the floor. She slid down against the wall near her bedroom door, completely unable to control her misery from leaking out. Her tears turned into ugly sobs while her limbs laid motionless. Her legs bent against her chest and her arms crossed at the top of her knees. Olive grit down on her teeth, trying to control her cries; tilting the back of her head upward against the wall. She stared at the ceiling until her vision became blurred.
  Olive covered her mouth and started to breathe in and out through her nose. She wiped her tears once more, struggling to stand up. Olive calmly put her school work away and decided to force herself to fall asleep. She zipped up her backpack before heading to bed. She took deep breaths in through her nose and out of her mouth until she felt her eyes become heavier by the minute. She finally closed her eyes and fell asleep, her mind allowing her to be free, slumbering in the unlit silence of her bedroom.