Talking to the Moon

Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

 Three months, one week, and five days later...

“Lena McClure, I know you're awake.”

I've been lying in my bed for nearly ten minutes pretending to be asleep while my best friend attempts to get me out of bed. And by get me out of bed, I mean force.

“I am not kidding, Lena! If you don't get your butt out of this bed right now, I will drag you out! And by the way, I know that's not what you look like when you sleep. You're mouth is usually hanging open and you snore. So don't even try to fool me.” she threatens.

For a moment, I do nothing and hope she'll take the hint and leave. But the second I feel her make her move, I pop up. “Okay, okay! I'm up!”

Pulling the covers off of my legs, I stare at Kyra crossly. “Was that necessary?”

“Yes, Lena. It was.”

“You'd think you'd be a little bit nicer to me.” I say in a low voice as I get out of my bed slowly, not meaning for her to hear me. But Kyra was blessed with her mothers hearing.

I hear her sigh as I make my way over to my closet. Her entire demeanor has changed. “Lena, I'm sorry. But I have to do this. I'm worried about you.” She pauses and looks at me sadly. “No one is forcing you to do anything since...” She doesn't say what I know she means to say. The accident. “And I'm afraid if I don't, no one else will. I don't want you to lose everything because of this.”

I turn away from my closet and stare at her. My throat starts to tighten. “I already have lost everything.”

Kyra's mouth opens slightly, but she quickly closes it. I can tell she regrets her words. “That's not what I meant...” Kyra takes in a shaky breath. “It's just that since no one is making you come to school, and I'm worried you're gonna fail.”

“Maybe you should stop worrying so much.” It's harsh, I know that before the words ever leave my mouth. But lately, I've been doing everything in my power to avoid school. I know Kyra means well, so I can't help but feel terrible for saying that to her.

And she's right. No one is making me do anything. Not my parents, not anyone. Except Kyra. I've been going to school in consistently ever since I got out of the hospital. This month, I've been to school a grand total of six days. No one seems to care though.

My parents aren't forcing me for the more obvious reason. They feel sorry for me. As they keep telling me, they want to give me all the time I need to grieve. My school, on the other hand, hasn't made any efforts for a reason they would never admit to.

They don't want me back.

* * *

“Remind me again why you're making me doing this,” I ask Kyra as she puts on her turn signal to pull in to Falls High School. More commonly known as my personal hell.

“So you can get a good education and go to college!” Her voice is high and upbeat. Her obvious intentions of putting me in a better mood are failing, and in all honesty, making it worse. This school is the last place I want to be right now. Even before the accident, I did not want to be here like every other student. I have no idea why she thinks she can make me excited about it now.

Kyra looks over at me when I don't reply and sighs. “At least try, Lena. Please? You will be okay, I promise.”

“I've heard that one before, and look how that turned out,” I say, referring to what Debra had told me that night in the ambulance.

“Please, Lena? Just give it a day, and if it you still feel the same by the end of the day, I will never bother you about this again, I swear.”

Narrowing my eyes at her I say, “Yeah, I've heard that one before too. But fine. One day. That's all. I have one rule though; I reserve the right to leave when ever I want with out protest from you.”

“Yeah, fine. Whatever. You'd probably leave without telling me anyways.”

“Most likely,” I agree.

With that, I turned my head to look out the window at the school looming in before me. Taking a deep breath, I push open the car door. But before I have the chance to pull myself up, Kyra jumps quickly out of the car and says, “Stay put, I'll get it for you.”

I hear the back door open, and Kyra pulls out something that I hate almost as much as I hate school right now.

My cane.

Without it, I can barely walk right now. When I got to the hospital, I learned I had done more than just break my arm. Much more. I had suffered many complications during my stay at the hospital. Even almost died. But everything healed in it's own time. Everything but my hip.

Like an old lady, I now need a hip replacement. The doctors wanted to wait to see if it would heal, and it did. But not correctly, making it painful to walk. And now, I'm scheduled for hip replacement surgery next week.

As Kyra and I make our way slowly to the entrance of the school, I look around the parking lot and see its empty of people, but full of cars. “What time is it?” I ask as Kyra goes to open the door for me.

“Almost nine thirty.”

“Just great.”

“Hey, we would've been here on time if you had got up when I first told you,” she says as we make our way through the empty halls.

As if coming to school wasn't bad enough, I had to draw attention to myself by being late. Even worse, I was late for my second period class. The class I hated the most. Anatomy.

It's not that I hated the subject, I was actually really good at it, it was that I hated the teacher. And she hated me. Before and after the accident.

I had never understood quite why she disliked me so much, I was probably one of her best students before I started missing school so much. But instead of it getting a little bit better after the accident out of pity like you would expect, it got worse.

“Kyra!” I moaned. “Can I at least skip second period? Ms. Ellis hates me enough. I don't want my being late to give her more reason.”

“And you think not going at all will help that?” she asks, raising her eyebrows at me.

Knowing shes right, I groan miserably and head towards my locker to retrieve my book.

Slamming my locker shut, we make our way to my class.

Five minutes later, after having to endure the stairs that took time to conquer, I stare at Ms. Ellis' door, too scared to touch it. From the other side I could hear her voice lecturing. The sound of it was making my stomach hurt.

“If you need me, I'm just down the hall, okay?” Kyra says in a soothing voice.

Without saying anything, I nod and swallow, but not making an attempt to go into her room. “Just breath, and ignore anything she might say to you. There's only thirty minutes left for this period. You can make it.”

Ending her short pep talk, she opens the door for me and I step in. Just as I expected, everyones attention was on me at once. Their eyes were wide, obviously not expecting my arrival. Then the looks turned to glares.

“How nice of you to finally decide join us, Ms. McClure,” said Ms. Ellis as she turned away from the board.

But the way the words came out of her mouth, it obviously wasn't nice.

“Please take your seat.”

Turning to look one last time at Kyra, she gave me an encouraging smile and closed the door quietly.

 That was the last smile I got the rest of the day.