Imbalanced

Chapter Four

        I woke with a start. My head was pounding like crazy. I squeezed my eyes shut, willing the pain to go away. Everything hurt, my head, my neck, my nose, and now to top it all off, my wrist had an aching feeling to it. I must have fallen on it.

          I slowly opened my eyes one at a time, blinking against the little light that was filtering into the room. Everything seemed to rush back to me at once; running, the door being slammed in my face, the pain. The knife. It was all because of that stupid knife.

At least I was back in the girl’s room, I thought to myself. All my limbs seemed to be intact. Slowly I sat up, testing the waters. My stomach rolled with nausea. I leaned over the bed, heaving, but nothing came out.

Sitting up straight, once the nausea had left, my stomach growled. I almost laughed. Leave it to me to feel sick and hungry at the same time.

“Here.” A small voice made me almost jump out of my skin. Kylie stood next to me with something in her hands. I hadn’t realized anyone else was in the room with me.

“Take it.” She urged me. I eyed her suspiciously but took the two pills and cup of, what I hoped to be, water she had in her hands. I didn’t swallow the pills though. We were never given pain pills here and I didn’t trust them. I hadn’t a clue where Kylie could have gotten the pills.

As if reading my mind Kylie said, “Some new guy gave them to me for you. He said they’d help with the pain.” She shrugged as if it were no big deal.

Holding my breath I decided, why not? I had nothing to lose. It was probably my dad who gave the pills to her anyways. Swallowing the pills, I chugged the water, almost chocking. I hadn’t realized I was so thirsty.

I glanced around the room. No one else was in here and it was eerily quiet. “Where is everyone?” I asked.

Kylie smiled and jumped onto the small cot, making my head hurt from the sudden movement. I held my breath, trying not to groan from the pain. Kylie didn’t seem to notice my struggle.

“They’re all eating dinner,” She said. “I waited for you.” She held her head up, as if proud of her self. I smiled at her, she was so sweet. If she wouldn’t even leave me to go to dinner, how could I ever leave her?

 I frowned once the realization of what she had said hit me. “I’ve been asleep for over six hours.” I hadn’t meant to say it out loud.

Kylie suddenly looked really sad and I wished I hadn’t said anything. She nodded, “They hurt you bad, didn’t they.” It was more of a statement then a question. It was at times like these where I wished I could just hold onto that scared little girl and say ‘No, of course not. Everything’s okay, we’re going to be okay.’ But I couldn’t. I couldn’t give false hope, because to me that was worse than having no hope at all. At least with no hope you wouldn’t ever be disappointed with the outcomes.

I didn’t say anything; instead I stood up and walked to the restroom that was adjoined to this room. I was determined to act as if my head didn’t feel like it was about to explode, if not for my sake than for Kylies. I may not give false hope but that didn’t mean I had to mope around.

Looking into the small bathroom mirror I realized I’d never looked so bad. My hair was a matted mess and in bad need of a haircut, my eyes looked like they were sunken in with dark circles around them, and my face was as pale as a ghost. I quickly looked away; I wasn’t sure how much more of this place I could survive.

The building we were kept in was a lot like a school rather than a house, aside from being all wood and brick. The bedrooms were about the average size of a classroom and our bathrooms were a lot like the kind you’d find in a gym; we had stalls on one end of the room and showers on the other.