Paper Birds

Chapter Thirty ; Trapped Inside Your Own Skin

Smile on her face. He kissed her, for the first time. Love.

She doesn't know what it means to feel love.

Flash.

Smile on her face. He hands her the money. Defeat.

She doesn't know what it means to be defeated.

Flash.

Top of the world, untouchable, unstoppable. In control. Dead on the inside but so, so alive on the outside. Freedom is the sweetest revenge. 

She's trapped in glass. A glass wall, blocking her from her only source of sanity. He yells and bangs on the glass, but she doesn't hear a thing. He's panicking, but she stares at him, cold and empty. 

She made this glass.

She isn't alone in the glass. He's large, dangerous, her only source of power.

The other still bangs on the glass.

"He is weak," her company told her, referencing to the one outside.

"He wants me," she protested.

"Anyone can want, Clarissa, but only few who are strong enough to have."

"Have what?"

"Power. And when you have power, you can have anything you want."

She smiles. She wants power.

Yet he still pounds on the glass, tears falling from his cheeks. She can't hear him.

"All you have to do is say it, and you can have it all. All you have to do is get rid of him."

She wants power. Her mouth opens to say it, to kill her only source of sanity-

My eyes snapped open, my phone buzzing on the other side of the room. Harry groaned quietly but remaind asleep in the bed next to mine. To not wake him, I carefully tip-toed out of bed and over to the dresser where my phone lay. It was still buzzing and shaking the whole dresser, so quickly I picked it up and said in an irritated tone, "Hello?" before walking into the kitchen. 

"Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday, dear Clairedy, happy birthday to you!"

"And many moooore!" I heard Max add in the background. 

I couldn't help myself but laugh softly. "Thanks, guys." I glanced at the digital clock. 12:26 A.M. I've been eighteen for twenty-six minutes and haven't even realized it. "But you're twenty minutes late."

"Hey, be grateful we even called," Luke replied, not sounding tired at all.

"What are you guys doing up at this hour?"

"Partying," Max said.

"No, really, we are," Jonah admitted.

"Sounds rather quiet for a party," I told them, raising my eyebrow.

"We stepped outside specially to call you," came Robbie's voice.

"Here, I'll prove it," Luke said. There was a bunch of shuffling before my ears were broken by blasting music.

 "Okay, okay!" I hissed into the phone, faintly hearing Harry from the other room. "I believe you! Now can you please go back outside?"

Wow. My brothers are having a party on my birthday, and I'm not invited.