I Don't Really Know...

Chapter 41: Eye For An Eye?

I hate this place.  Looks disgusting, smells disgusting, feels disgusting.  A place meant to heal people couldn’t be more stressful for myself.

 

A knock on the blech-smelling door alerts me, quickly smoothing the blankets onto my body.  The shuffle of feet outside my door tempts me to call out, but I can’t.  My voice box is refusing to work.

 

“Hello?”  Someone on the other side whispers in unison of opening the door.  Before she stepped in I could recognize her voice and sweet voice.

 

“Ms. Lasdon?” I whimper hoarsely, throat dry. She grasps a water bottle, standing at the doorway, but not entering the actual room.  Her eyes are averted, refusing to make contact with anything near me-including myself.

 

“Please come in.”  She avoids my gaze as she stares at the ground and lumbers in.  

 

“I brought you some, uh...water.”  She mumbles, setting it onto the table next to my bed, backing up and sitting in a large couch at the other side of the room.  I fidget in the bed, wincing when my foot starts throbbing.  

 

As we both sit there silently, almost like a picture instead of an actual live scene, yet my mind is anything but still.  Memories flash through at record speed. The first day Ms. Lasdon invited us to her house...forever. The day she mentioned our move here. The days I actually felt comfortable being in her presence.  

 

The day that changed.

 

Now, I shudder, even without her gaze on me.  I...I can’t do it.  

 

I shrug the covers off, sitting up, back perpendicular to the floor.  Setting my feet onto the marble floor, grunting as my cast has the slightest touch against the ground.  I limp towards the couch as she watches me with pain and guilt.  As soon as her eyes meet mine, pain makes me blink in surprise-mental pain.

 

I collapse onto the couch, relieved of the pressure on my injured foot now gone.  She doesn’t move.  I stare straight at a wall, seeing her turn to me in a sideways look.  Her lips open.

 

“I’m s-”

 

“Don’t even try.”  I reply harshly.  I’m done with this screwed up world.  “Just don’t.  Please.”

 

“Oh, so now when I TRY to apologize, you can’t even…”

 

My chest crumples, as I listen to her words.  But I know it’s true.  I soften my voice dramatically.

 

“It wasn’t like you were able to, either,” I say, if possible, quietly.  She gets up from the couch and stands in a different area, as if I had a poisonous aura. Her tone changes to an ambivalent sound.

 

“Well… Why did I come then?” She says flatly.  I shrug my shoulders.