The First Step

Chapter 10.

Put the phone down. Lay there. Wait. Pick up the phone again. Check the group chat for any information from Gwen. Realize there was nothing. Put the phone down. Lay there.

Wait.

It was routine at this point. Even if every single minute of every single day from the past week and a half had all been the exact same, some part of me kept somehow thinking that one of the times I pressed my thumb against the scanner, there'd be a little bubble in the corner telling me that he'd finally been found. Or maybe I wasn't thinking that at all. It was a routine, after all. I was just doing it to do it, really.

The screen lit up again, showing the same picture of Dustin, Blyke and I all standing around, his arms over our shoulders with the same huge grin he always gave, and this time, my fingers found their way into my contacts, opening up the chat between him and I.

"Hey. How's Gwen been do—"

No. That was too casual, especially when this was my fault.

"Can you tell her I'm sorry?"

Also no. That was pathetic and borderline begging. I kept tapping at the screen, the words forming one message, then another. None of it sounded right. I backspaced all of it before rolling over on my bed.

There was a wrinkle in it, my bare foot scraping against the rough fabric of the bare mattress where the sheet had been pulled aside. All I had to do was sit up and fix it. Easy. So why couldn't I move? Why was it easier to just pull the blanket over my head and click off the phone?

It's so bright in here.

I was back in my dorm now. Had been for two days when my mom said I should try going to class again. Not that I had. The very idea of it made my body feel heavier, like most things, I was starting to notice. That meant hours on a crumpled in bedframe, staring up at the same, round lights on the ceiling. The ceiling fan was right in the middle of them, blowing just a little too cold, the light spreading across the back of my eyelids just a little too vibrant.

I want it to stop.

All I had to do was sit up and click them off.

A scent hit my nose, heavy and damp. I sat up, peeling off my shirt even as the sweat clung to my skin, flinging it across the room. All my energy went with it, and as it flopped onto the hardwood, so did I back onto the mattress. The smell was still there though. It was probably me again: my hair, my skin... things I couldn't just take off and move on with. All I had to do was sit up and fix it.

I just did it! I sat up. What's a few more steps just to get myself to the bathroom? But I was so tired, my eyelids aching and muscles heavy. It was hard, but I didn't know why. My throat felt tight, and then I breathed out, and it was gone, leaving me back in a room with nothing to do and nowhere to go.

A song filled the room, making me flinch for a second before I realized it was just my phone.

"Gwen?" I snapped to attention, lifting up the phone, but instead of her contact popping up on the screen, instead it showed an empty profile, only labeled: Odette.

Oh.

My finger slid across the red line at the bottom and I laid down again. The snake that had become my organs recoiled again, but not as much as it did at the idea of picking up the phone. Granted, I was thankful to her for feeding the fish sitting only a few feet away from me, but once I'd said that and went to pay her– or tried to, anyway– that was it. I did my part already.

So I laid there, staring at nothing, doing nothing. If time passed, the light didn't show it, beating down at the same, never-changing frequency. My eyes closed, but when I opened them again I was still alive.