Sacrifice

Chapter Twenty-Six

Crybaby woke up and remembered nothing for a few seconds; she only thought of how much her face was hurting. She looked down and saw her brother's note under her arm, a slight red mark on her skin from laying on it. Replaying the entire scene from earlier in her head, her heart skipped a beat as she remembered that she was supposed to call Ben at three o'clock. "Please don't be three, please don't be three," she whispered to herself as she crawled over to the other side of her bed to look at the clock on her nightstand. It read 4:02 P.M. "Fuck," she whisper shouted. She stood up, grabbed the note from her bed and put it back in her nightstand drawer, then left her bedroom. She looked around the quiet house and creeped up to the telephone, then picked it up and started dialing.

"What do you think you're doing?" she heard her mother's voice from behind her. She jumped and turned around to see her standing in the hallway. "I- I need to call someone," Crybaby nearly stuttered.

"No, you don't."

"Yes, I do."

"You're not calling anyone," her mother decided coldly. Crybaby's eyes began to water. "Mom, please, just give me a minute!" she pleaded.

"I said no," her mother said through gritted teeth. And with that, Crybaby groaned into her hands and began to cry, the feeling of helplessness coming over her. She trudged back to her bedroom and laid on her bed, occasionally trying to do something productive just to distract herself from the situation. Meanwhile, Ben hadn't stopped thinking of her. He was anxious, thinking that she'd forgotten about him. Or even worse, that she was hurt. He laid on his sofa, the television just serving as background noise as he was hoping to hear the phone ring every second.

~Evening~

It was almost nine o'clock. Crybaby was still in bed, laying on her back and looking out the window. The sky was dark blue, some stars scattered throughout. She was admiring the sight, sadness still in her eyes. She hadn't heard much noise from outside her room in a while, and suddenly she heard a door shut. She turned her head and looked at the air vent above her door, seeing no light from it. She sat up and waited a minute before pushing herself up to stand, then exited her room to look around the house. Almost nothing could be seen in the total darkness. She walked down the hallway cautiously with her hand on the wall until she found the light switch. She switched it on, and the light revealed the emptiness. Her mother's bedroom door was closed and there was no light under the doorframe, so Crybaby figured she'd gone to bed. She went to the telephone and quickly picked it up. She was just about to dial but stopped with and let out a gasp. The dial of the phone had been removed. Crybaby swore under her breath, then tried to quietly look around and see if she could find the dial somewhere. She opened a few drawers in the living room and kitchen, but stopped when she figured she would make too much noise if she continued to look, and that the dial was probably in her mother's room. She looked down at the ground, now truly hopeless. With a dispirited sigh, she walked back to her bedroom to sulk. Once again, she was laying in her bed, now with the lights off, trying to think about anything but the frustration and confusion she was feeling. She thought to herself, 'If I can't reach Ben tomorrow, at least I'll get to talk to him in school on Monday.' She felt a bit of relief, but only for a short moment; 'Wait,' she thought, 'No, I won't. Fucking Angelita.'