'Dysfunctional: not operating normally or properly'
That was one way to describe Clara Campbells family. Dysfunctional; not operating properly. That was just what happened when your older siblings leave you.
Or that's what Clara had always believed...
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| Clara Campbell |
I had been sitting in the fire escape of the apartment I had grown up in, feeling a sense of normality while I could hear the distant murder of the intruders, moving about, taking what they pleased from my apartment.
They had somehow gotten in, and I wouldn't be surprised if that was the duty of Marilyn. She would of been too nice to them, not knowing the entire story that had happened. No one knew the entire story, starting with how I felt after it all.
I grazed my swinging legs along the black, metal grate, feeling a slight satisfaction at the burning feeling I got when it cut my feet a little. I didn't care, rather preferring the pain over not knowing how I was feeling.
"Clara?" a knock on my bedroom door could be heard from where I was sitting, but I made no move to get up. I was content with sitting out in the cold, with just a pair of jeans and a crewneck on, not bothered to move into the warmth of my bed, but even then it wasn't that warm either.
I adjusted the cigarette that was barely hanging in between my lips. "Clara, I know your awake" stupid Kaiden and his fucking knowledge. He knew that I couldn't sleep; it had been a problem since the day I was born.
Fuck me and the little girl that always ran to Kaiden when I couldn't sleep. I blinked back the tears that clouded my vision, not bothered to think about when I wish those times never ended. I wish we had a better ending, but we didn't, and I just had to be okay with that.
I was the one that had to deal with it all and be okay with it all, because who was I to tell? Them? Levi? Hazel? everyone all had something else to deal with, and I was not going to be the one that added to it all because I couldn't grow up and understand that others had grown up and moved on well and truly before I had.
I heard my door creak open, hearing the familiar groan of the floorboards as someone had entered my room without my permission. The pros to having a bedroom door that had a dislodged lock on it.
That's what happens when you have a family of 13 people living in a tiny apartment; it is bound to happen that an argument will occur, leading to someone trying to beat the shit out of one another, but missing and hitting the door that was supposed to keep you safe that night.
I felt someone swing their legs over my bedroom widow, sitting on it, as I scooted further away from the window and closer to the railings, swinging my legs in between the broken railings, leaning my head against them. I wish I had brought my headphones out here, so I could listen to anything but the deadly silence that wasn't really there.
The cars were bustling below the two of us, but I didn't feel like they were loud enough. My mind wasn't even loud enough to deafen the eerie silence that had been brought with him. I was shocked that he was here, yes, but I didn't think Kaiden would have bailed on me so quickly. I had hoped it would have been Kaiden that entered, giving me some form of comfort, knowing that more people weren't going to be crowding my small apartment.
