Butterflies

Chapter Thirty Four

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'We'll never be those kids again.'
~ Frank Ocean ~
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Welcome Home
~~
Isabelle

The room shifts almost immediately. Tension seeped through the bottom of the door, through the cracks of the window. As if it's being sucked in by my words. Yet, through the tension, somehow I feel lighter. My body feels more open to sharing everything that I've been through.

My spine straightens almost immediately, feeling confidence flutter throughout my arms and legs, leaving a tingling sensation where it came from.

Luna, though, looks absolutely and utterly destroyed. Her body deflates, and tears glisten against her face. "What?" She whispers, yet her voice is still higher pitch than normal. A tear slips.

She clears her throat, and pays no mind to the tears rolling down her cheeks. As if she doesn't even feel them. "Luna–"

"You were...raped?" She interrupts, and I can hear the hesitation in her voice at the word rape. Yeah, that took me a long time to say too.

I feel my hands shake slightly. It's one thing to regain, and contain your own emotions, it's another thing to ignore someone else's.

"Yes, I was," I pause. "It was too hard to be here. This town was suffocating me, making everything ten times worse. Was I going to see him at the store? Was I going to see his..." My voice trails off, but not because of what I was going to say.

A strange assortment of memories flood my mind, smacking my face, and knocking me backwards. A sharp pain flows throughout my head, and then the memories are gone, like they were never there.

"His what?" Luna askes, her voice weak. I blink rapidly, twice, and glance over at her. What the hell just happened? I shake my head, and open my mouth to finish what I was going to say, only, I can't remember.

"Um, his–him, see him." I finished slowly, knowing that wasn't what I was going to say. What was I going to say? I shake my head softly again, and regain myself.

My body sags further into the chair, and I blow out a long sigh of relief. Although my relief is short lived, because a loud, quick beep fills my ears. I look over, and see Luna's heart monitor rising rapidly.

My eyes scrunch up, and dart towards my sister. She's covering her mouth with her hand, and breathing heavily. "Luna, hey–Luna." I stand up, and sit on the edge of her bed.

My hand lightly rubs up her back, and I slowly remove her iron grip from her face. "Hey, I'm ok." I whisper. She falls against me, her breaths coming in short pants. "I–no. I was so mean." Her voice cracks, and a sob fills the room. Her sob

My eyes cloud over, fog taking over my vision, and it occurs to me that I'm tearing up. No, hold it together. I clear my throat, and pull her into my side. Lying myself further into the bed.

She quickly hugs me back, and cries, hysterically, into my shirt.

"It's ok. It was three years ago. I'm ok now." I whisper, trying to soothe the ache that I feel vibrating off of her. "No, no, no. It's not ok! I was awful to you, and you were–" Another sob. "I should've listened–'' Her voice cracks. "I'm so sorry. Please forgive me." A tear falls silently down my face, and I don't have the hands to swipe it away.