Stuck In The Traffic

Chapter 13

They've changed the way I see Lana. Our relationship has gotten really weird. It's like because of our situation our relationship has become stronger because there's no body else here that can relate to us. Yet, at the same time our situation seems to be breaking our relationship. Lana has changed so must and I find myself changing to accommodate her changes. She sleeps all the time now and she doesn't come and wake me up anymore. She doesn't smile and laugh near as much as she used to. I however can't seem to sleep at all anymore. I just lay awake at night listening to Lana breathe beside me. Now I'm the one that's waking the other up, and it takes alot more coaxing that I ever thought it would. When Lana knows I'm around and looking she tries to act like nothing's wrong but I can see it in her eyes. The eyes that can look through all the bad things to find the good in people, are now filled with terror and pain. At night when she thinks I'm asleep I can hear her cry into her pillow sometimes shouting into it and it's killing me. I know she won't be able to take much more. I've seen it before. I've lived it before.

"Marie, are you going to come out of your room? It's supper time. At least come down and sit with us if you don't want to eat," my father was talking through my door but I didn't want to hear it.

I covered my head with the covers and ignored her. Eventually he went away. I just laid there in my bed wishing I could disappear. I wanted to scream, punch a wall, and cry all at once but I couldn't. I'd cried myself out and my knuckles were already bloody from where I'd punched a tree. My voice had left me and even if I wanted to I don't think I could talk.

"How could she do this to me? How could she leave me? Why didn't I notice something? Why wasn't I there?" I screamed these thoughts in my head, looking for answers.

I blamed myself and even though people said it wasn't my fault I knew it was. I was only just 13 but I was already a murder. I should have been there. I should have been able to stop her. But I wasn't. Because I had been out with stupid Tyler and his friends. She had begged me to stay with her, that she needed to talk to me. But I had just turned into a teenager and I had my first boyfriend. I felt like I was on top of the world and I just couldn't pass up the chance to be with him and our friends. So I left her sitting there on the doorstep. I knew that my sister, Emily, had problems and she only talked to me about them. She only talked to me when she was feeling really bad and felt like she couldn't handle it anymore. She had a rough life, I knew that but I still left her when she needed me the most. She had watched her parents and brother, be brutally murdered. Not just like a shot in the head either. They cut her family up while they were still alive, and made her watch. She couldn't turn her head. They made her watch and listen to the screams of her dying family. After they had finished butchering her family they proceed to rip off her clothes and rape her. She was only 6 years old for crying out loud. What kind of men could do that a young child? They left her for dead in that apartment where her neighbors finally came home and found her. She was a mess when they brought her from china to us. She used to never speak and she still didn't really speak to my family. I don't know why she decided to open up to me, but she did. I would have to listen to the story of what happened to her and her family while she cried on my shoulder. I didn't mind it really, I knew she needed someone or she could probably go insane. There's no way that a girl that young could keep that all in to herself. She was seven by the time my family had finished up the adoption process, but she acted like adult. She was endlessly polite, sweet and caring but she was having trouble adjusting to her new life. Jon of the other kids at school understood her and her situation. They just kind of treated her like a mutant freak. The fact that she couldn't speak English really well didn't help either. My parents tried to help her but it was hard.

"They're not my parents. They're really nice but they're just not them, and they could never be them," she once told me.

"You're the only one I can't talk to, Marie. The only want that understand or even tries to understand. I know you don't always say the right thing at the right time but you're always there. And that's all that matters," she had said to me with tears glistening in her eyes.

I pulled her into a hug, "And I'll always be there for you, kiddo. I promise."

But I didn't keep my promise. I had left her all alone when she needed me most. I broken my promise and I'll never forgive myself for that. My last image of her burned in my mind and I couldn't see anything else. Her sitting on the steps with the wind slightly blowing her black hair, a tear silently falling down her cheek, as I waved and got into the car with Tyler and his mom.

A note had been waiting for me on my pillow when I got home. I was the only one to get a note. It was written In sharpie and the page was covered with her tears I'll always be able to remember what it said, word for word:

Marie,

You promised me. I'm sorry but don't blame yourself. I know you have a life you want to live. I should be stronger than this, but I don't know how to do this anymore. I don't know if I want to do this anymore. Thank you for being my friend, and being there for me when no one else was. This isn't your fault I want you to know that. I just miss my family too much. I need to be with them. I just don't belong here.

Love,

Emily

They found her broken, mangled body at the bottom of the river three days later. She had tied rocks to her arms and legs to guarantee that she wouldn't change her mind. She had jumped from a small bridge where hardly anyone went. Her body was caught and tangled in the maze of rocks and weeds at the bottom of the river. We would have never found her if she hadn't left me that note. It was a well planned suicide for her age, meaning that she had planned it. Probably ever since I started dating Tyler she had been planning where, how, and when to do it. Maybe she was hoping she wouldn't ever have the when part to do it. Maybe that's why she wanted me to stay with her so much. So she wouldn't be alone. So she wouldn't have the chance to even think about it. But I had given her the chance. I had given her what she needed to carry out her plan.

We had flown back to China to bury her with her parents. It's what she would have wanted and I knew it.

It was a small funeral. Just the three of us and the preacher. A small funeral, in a small graveyard, with a small casket. No one spoke during it. We just watched silently, and placed flowers on the casket. She'd only been with us for 8 months but I felt like I had grown so close to her. When she died she took a part of me with her that I could never get back. I had taken one last look at her grave and tombstone before we left. The dates on it stood out like a sore thumb to me. Seven years old. She had only been seven years old.

Her image had filled my mind and my dad had to carry me away from her grave.

Her straight, black hair. They way her lip quivered and her hands shook in the cool night air. The way she was sitting. The cutoff blue jeans and white t-shirt she was wearing. The way her eyebrows furrowed, deep in thought, but what I remember most was her eyes. Those coal black eyes that looked after me as I left. And although she had managed a slight smile her eyes showed her true feelings. They seemed to pierce into my soul, filled with sadness, hurt, and pain.

I blinked and Emily's face was replaced with Lana's. Lana was completely different from each other but the way that Lana resembled Emily was startling. She had blonde hair instead of black, pale skin instead of tan, older, and green eyes instead of black, but they resembled each other. They way Lana sat was the same way Emily had. Like there was nothing left and she just couldn't hold herself up anymore. And her eyes. We're filled with the same sadness, hurt, and pain as Emily's had been. But things were different now. This time I wouldn't leave her. This time I would be here for her. As the resolved builded in me I knew. I had to get Lana out of here.

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Hey you guys!! So I feel like I should apologize for Marie's sexual confusion but I'm not going to. :) I like it and I think it makes an interesting story. Hopefully you'll understand more when it's finished.

Anyways comment and vote and share if you like it :)

Shout out to Rebekah!! just because she enjoys my story so much :)