Kid in a Locker (REWRITING)

17. Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile

By the time we get out of school for Thanksgiving, Nick is still not talking to me. I've tried calling and texting him, with no reply. I even tried going by his house once but only got lame excuses from his mother for him not being there. I could understand why he was avoiding me. Betrayal hurt. I knew this.

But all of my understanding still didn't make it hurt any less.

In desperation I tried Troy's cell, which went straight to voicemail. I couldn't understand how he got all those messages from Nick, when it seemed like he was ignoring me. And then I tried to text and remembered that even if he got the message, I wouldn't know. When he showed us messages from his cousin, there was never one that he replied to.

Thanksgiving was a very uneventful one. We had tenderloins and mashed potatoes because Dad didn't believe in the traditional Thanksgiving day dinner. My brothers and I had cinvinced him to buy cranberry sauce from the store however, claiming it was our favorite part about the whole holiday season.

We did keep the tradition of going around the table and say what we were thankful for, but of course there was always a twist to the classic tradition when it came to my family. After we said what we were thankful for, which could never repeat or Mom would come after us with her cookbook, we had to say one hope we had.

I had been thinking over my own hopes, ignoring everyone else as they went around the table. The order always went Dad to Mom to Romul to me to Peter, so I knew I had some time to think about what I wanted.

This year had definitely been a hectic one. With a move from a place I thought I would live forever to here, trying to get over my douche ex who recieved instantaneous karma, going on a manhunt for a boy that was more gone than here, and starting to date his cousin. I was in such a weird spot at my life that I felt like I was burning and drowning all at the same time.

The nightmares still insist on haunting my mind. Lately new characters had been involved. Now Ben, Hanna, Troy, and Nick were in the car when the Nissan jumps the median and crashes into them. I would climb out of my own car and go over to them, expecting to see them dead. Instead I find Montana in the backseat, going at her melatonin pen like it was a cigarette. Her head would snap towards me in the way that a doll's head would move and she would starting talking out of a puppet mouth, taunting me for not buying a pen.

That's when I would wake up in a cold sweat, disoriented and wondering where I was. Restlessness would come for hours after that, until I got tired enough to go back to sleep. And then it all repeated.

I have tried everything I knew of to keep that from happening. I tried vigorous exercise before bed, yoga, showers, essential oils; anything and everything no matter how weird. Nothing seemed to work. This caused me to start having an unhealthy obsession with caffeine. At first, it gave me extreme migraines, but now it was my savior.

"Ophelia?" My mom asks, her voice sounding a thousand miles away.

"Mhmm?" I look up from my steak, noticing that I have been stabbing a knife into the meat absent mindedly, creating tears through it. Everyone else is looking at me, or more specifically the gleaming knife in my fist, uneasy and concerned expressions on my face.

I let the utensil clatter on to my plate and sit back, rubbing my hands on my jeans as I do. I look over to my mom.

"You've been zoned out for a while, honey. Is everything okay?"

"Oh yeah, just uh..." I scratch the back of my head, trying to come up with an excuse. My mind blanks. That was another thing I had discovered with my new found addiction. My mind tends to drop all human thoughts and emotions any time I tried to do anything even remotely above average functioning. Making up excuses was exceptionaly hard, as I was finding out.