Darkest Fears

Chapter Nineteen

Okay so I fiddled around a lot with this chapter and I'm not completely happy with it, but it's better.

This chapter might be gotten rid of at some point, I'm not sure but there it is for now :) let me know what you think and how you think it could be improved, that'd be really helpful!

Chapter Nineteen:

 

Christmas day.

I sat with my legs stretched out in front of me, staring blankly ahead at the front porch steps. I didn’t know why I was thinking about it. I hadn’t let myself do that for years.

I clenched my eyes close, leaning against the wooden banister behind me.

It was hard to imagine that I’d ever once fallen asleep here. The wood was uncomfortable and cold, and there didn’t seem enough space to fit me, even if I had been a lot smaller back then.

I twisted my phone around in my fingers. The same phone I had planned to leave. Sitting in the same place that ten years ago I thought I’d never see again.

I clutched my phone tighter.

One text message.

I’d woken up to see my phone lit up with the announcement. I wasn’t used to seeing it. And for one moment – one ridiculously stupid moment – my mind had jumped to her. Ten years later and I was still waiting.

I hadn’t realised it, but I was.

How stupid could I be?

I almost wanted to laugh, and maybe I would have if it wasn’t so sad.

Of course the message wasn’t from her.

It had been from Jayden, wishing me a merry Christmas.

The thought shouldn’t have even crossed my mind. But it had. And now it was stuck there. Taunting me for being such an idiot.

What had I thought? That ten years later she still thought of me? That ten years later she would suddenly decide to come back and take me with her this time? It was too late for that anyway.

A few more months and I’d be finished with school. I’d be making me own way out. I wasn’t the same eight year old girl I’d been before, waiting desperately for someone to break me free of this hell hole.

I was still on my own - it just didn’t bother me anymore.

I’d gotten over it.

So why had I thought it was her? Why had my heart literally stopped in my chest when I saw the message? Why had my stomach dropped in disappointment when I woke up enough to realise it wasn’t her?

Why had I been so stupidly hopeful?

Just why?

I snapped my eyes open again, a bitter taste entering my mouth.

The answer was so simple. I’d been stupid, because I was stupid.

Because if I wasn’t stupid, my hope would have been long since dead. If I wasn’t stupid I would have never let anyone in as close as I had let Jayden in. If I wasn’t so stupid I wouldn’t still have this phone, just in case.

I wanted more than anything to throw my phone against the wall. Smash the screen in with my heel. Destroy it beyond repair. But a part of me wouldn’t let that happen.

I was still holding back on losing that one last thing she had given me.

It was frustrating to the point of painful that I couldn’t do it.