White

Chapter Eleven

I can’t breathe.

Officer Carson is going to kill Adrian’s sister.

This is my fault.

The realization throws itself at me, and I can’t see anything except red again. I can’t stop crying, and the red doesn’t go away. I am so scared, for me and for that girl somewhere, held by someone who will stop at nothing to get to me.

“It’s all my fault.” I sob. “I’m so sorry, Adrian. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry.”

I keep crying and apologizing, but the red still fills my vision, and I am suddenly aware of the knives on the counter above the mini fridge.

“Do it.” I hear the whispers of the ghosts, and they have surrounded me. “Use it. It’ll make the red go away.”

And, for a terrifying second, with the red overwhelming my vision and the ghosts pressing in, whispering their horrible suggestions, I want to. I want so badly to stand up and grab the knife, swing it and not stop until someone is dead, whether Adrian, or me. I want to so badly that it aches, and I can feel the others inside me.

But I shake my head, and keep crying. I keep my hand in my lap, and it doesn’t reach for the knife.

Why? Why me? Why was it me that the ghosts always chose to torment?

I put my head in my hands and try to remember back, years ago, to before they put me away in that horrible white building.

It started out with just one friend. I always had her.

She has purple eyes and shiny black hair. Despite how young we are she is startlingly beautiful. Her voice is as smooth and soft as silk. I adore her. But I don’t understand why she chooses to hang out with me, the outcast, when there are so many more friendly and popular kids.

I ask her one day.

“You’re special.” She replies, and refuses to say anything more on the subject.

I don’t think I am. With my dull brown hair and green eyes, I am painfully ordinary. I don’t know why she likes me, I just know she does, and I am so grateful for that.

“Why don’t the other kids talk to you?” I ask.

She smiles. “They do. Just not when you are watching. I speak to children other than you, you know.” She sighs. “They don’t listen to me as well as you do.”

In my six year old mind, I think that this means that I am her best friend, and I beam.

She looks me up and down. “I think it’s time.”

I blink. “Time? Time for what?”

“Don’t you feel alone all the time?” she asks. “Don’t you wish you had friends other than me?”

I nod. I am the outcast, and the other children all ignore me, except to call me freak.

“I have other friends I can introduce you to.” She says. “But they won’t be enough.”

When I meet her friends, I disagree. She has six of them, and they are all startlingly beautiful, although none quite as exquisite as she is. They are all just as nice, and fun to play with, and I am blissfully happy for a while. I have friends.

Then my birthday comes. I am turning seven. I invite every kid in the kindergarten, and in my neighborhood.

Only the seven friends I have always had show up.