Dust ✔️

Chapter Sixteen -- Cordial

Chapter Sixteen -- Cordial

Without the ability to breathe, the mind will lose consciousness. My stomach tightens, clenching and unclenching as my throat begins to spasm, begging for a gust of air to be entered through. I feel motionless, paralyzed, completely immobile. Even though I can't move, my body convulses, my eyes staring up at the sun while I choke out silent pleas for help. My arms reach above me, reaching for something to save me, coming short. Skin is turning blue. My mouth foams and froths while my body jerks violently. Is this panic mode, or a subtle sign to liberate myself?

"Hey, E," She peeked her head through my bedroom door after giving it three gentle knocks from the other side. "I heard the shower turn on," She commented, referring to her knowledge of me just arriving from a long days work.

    "Hey, Milly," I said, and scruffed my hair up with my towel to dry it faster. My eyes drooped from my lack of sleep. "Is everything okay?"

    "Milly," she muttered back to me, contemplating if she likes the nickname or not. For a second, I actually almost mistook her last name for her first name, calling her Miller.

I was damn tired.

Lacey looked at me for a long moment which normally would make me uncomfortable, but I was so used to her lack of personal space that it was almost just a routine now. "Oh, yes, everything is fine with me. I was just saying hello is all..." She wandered off with her thoughts, over dramatic as usual.

    I watched as she tiptoed through my room, looking for anything that's out of place, whether I've changed the pictures on the wall, did my laundry, hid a dead body under my bed, the usual. She wasn't even looking at what she was going through, it was just an added affect to her dramatics.

She'd never dare rummage through my things.

"Lace?" I finally cut her useless snooping short.

I really wasn't in the mood.

She looked up with me with wide eyes, as if she's forgotten that I was still in the room. My room.

"What's up? Are you bored?" She shook her head no. "Lose something?" No to that too. "Well I think I know you well enough to know that there's something on your mind so spit it out."

    Lacey sighed dramatically and flopped herself onto my bed, sprawling herself out and staring at the ceiling. "There is something on my mind, you're right," she babbled.

I stared at her.

"What's on my mind is that my best friend is ignoring me and I don't understand why," she cried out to me - or better yet, the ceiling.

    "Oh," Was all I managed to say. I cleared my throat. "I'm sorry to hear that, why is she ignoring you?"

    "He. Why is he ignoring me," She rephrased. "Eli, did I do something wrong?" She looked up at me with a wrinkled forehead of worry.

    It came to a surprise to me that she still thought of me as her best friend. I thought for sure my place was taken. "Of course not, Lace," I lied back on the bed beside her and stared at my ceiling as well. Popcorn freckles, why are ceilings formed that way?

    "Did Tyler?"

    "No, why do you think that?"

    "You've been locking yourself away in your room for a few weeks now, E," She turns on her side and faces in my direction. I don't do the same. "You say hi, sure, and you occasionally will watch a show with us, but otherwise you've been keeping to yourself, and I just want to know what's happened to make you not want to be around us as much..." She trailed off, with a hint of hurt in her voice.