Twisted

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven

Alice's POV

I collapsed hard onto the sofa. Ugh. Exercise is hard. But you know, if it helps Gabriella practice, so be it. I personally think that she just likes to beat me. She seems to like that. Winning, that is. Gabriella's always competing in something, whether it be track, soccer, arguing, grades, you name it, she'll be competitive. That girl just can't sit still. I could never just get out there and run. For fun. Like, she doesn't even have to do it. She just does. Whenever I ask her how she tolerates it, she just shrugs and gets this whimsical look in her eyes and says something stupid, usually along the lines of, "It just clears my head. You know, you get out there, it's just you and the air. You get this amazing feeling when you run. Like you're free or something." Then I usually tune out, so I'm not exactly sure what she says after that. But it's probably something stupid.

I was suddenly struck with random hunger, so I got up and strode to the kitchen on my toes, just 'cause I'm a freak like that. I hopped around, humming musicals to myself, and grabbed a pack of Cheez-Its. Delicious. The food of champions.

I was startled by the sound of something fluttering that disrupted the usual silence that hung in the air. I looked down, and lo and behold, laying beside my Toms was a note of some sort. Curious and somewhat intrigued, I picked it up. It was made of an off-white, thick stationary. I didn't have a return address; it simply bore an "A" in super fancy, black cursive writing. Well, alrighty then.

Shrugging, I ripped open the letter as delicately as I could. Inside I found a piece of thick paper, adorned only by the few words that were written. I read the sentence again and again, really confused. It only read, "You have until the fifteenth." Today was the sixth. Well darn. That seemed pretty ominous to me. Underneath the basic handwriting was a sequence of numbers that made no sense whatsoever.

18 76 56 35 49 12 29 13

What in the name of Broadway did those numbers mean? I sure as heck didn't know. Sighing, I tossed the letter to the side, thinking it was the wrong address. I mean, there were billions of people whose name starts with the letter, "A" weren't there? I thought so too.  

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I don't think people understand how devestating it is to get a phone call out of the blue detailing that your best friend is missing. That's how I felt when Megan went missing. Devestated. I was so relieved to know that she was alright, only a minor concussion to the head, and a few small scrapes. That was what the doctors had said.

I got a concussion once. I was climbing the gigantic oak tree in our backyard. At least, it had seemed gigantic at the time. I was probably six or seven, and really dumb. I guess I thought I could fly or something. I don't know. Well, you could probably guess what happened. Yeah, I fell down about ten feet and hit my head. It didn't feel too good. But I think that the concussion wasn't the only injury that Megan had sustained.

No one had taken into account the mental injuries as well, the ones that lay burrowed underneath a facade of strained smiles and forced laughter. I could tell she was... different. Like something had gotten to her. I was pretty amazed, I mean, nothing ever gets through to Megan. It's usually a one way in and out of her head when it comes to information. But I knew something had caught her attention. Whether it was good or bad was the real question. I prayed that it was something good. The poor girl's life hasn't been too easy. First, there was growing up without a mother. Her mom had died giving birth to her, so she never had a maternal figure at all in her household. Then there was the fact of her being an only child. Sure, I was too, but it was harder for her. Her father had comitted suicide when Megan was thirteen.

He set it up to look like he had passed away from natural causes, but such wasn't the case. Megan was devestated, but she still doesn't know the truth about her father's death. She just goes through life, blissfully unaware of the truth, and rather accepting of the comorting lies instead of the cold, hard truth. The guilt rides on me every day, but I promised myself I would never tell her. I would never want to be the cause of her sadness. I've never even seen her cry. Even when her father died, she was just silent. She would simply stare out windows, twirling her hair and wearing a lost expression on her face.

She didn't break down at the funeral, either. Megan still stood there with that blank expression. her father had been her rock, everything that kept her going. So, orphaned at thirteen years old, and afraid of social services, she took up residence at my home, albeit somewhat reluctantly. Always the polite one.

Anyway, we lived together from he time she was in seventh grade to when she turned sixteen. Megan managed to get her own apartment by lying a bit. When she wears heels, she can almost pass for eighteen. She's been there ever since. She's grown out of her numb stage of loss, and instead transformed into the strong-opinioned girl I know. However, under all that personality, there still lies just a hint of the loneliness that all the friends in the world couldn't cure. 

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A/N: Sorry for how long this chapter took, and I know that you're probably like "OMG all this waiting for like a page?!" Well, I have the next ten or so chapters planned out, and the next thing that happens in the plot wouldn't fit very well in this chapter. So, you know the drill. Fave, share, and keep reading! :)