Triple Dog Dare ||z.m

After

You know that part in New Moon where Bella sits blankly in her chair staring out the window and the days, weeks, months, seasons pass around her? That's exactly how I felt at home. Except it was only a week. My mother came home not long after Liam had left and rushed over to me because she thought I was hurt or something. "Sweetheart what's wrong!" She cried out kneeling beside me and smoothing back my hair. She took in my red puffy eyes and the dead look they held in worry. "The school called. Said you had completely disappeared. They figured you had gone home during lunch because you felt sick. Are you sick honey?" She asks continuing to stroke my hair.

"It hurts." I murmur.

"What hurts? Do we need to take you to the hospital?" I shake my head lazily and just mumbled out it hurts again. My mom purses her lips and manages to coax me up into a sitting position. She sits me down on the couch and leaves. She tells me something but I'm not listening properly. A couple minutes later or maybe it was an hour a bowl of soup is in my hands and she's telling me to eat. I don't remember doing so but I've eaten it and my mother is telling me to take a shower and get ready for bed. One minute I'm on the couch, then I'm in the shower. The next I'm lying in bed and closing my eyes.

My alarm doesn't go off the next day. Or maybe it does and I just don't pay attention to it. Either way I sit up slowly and lift my eyelids lazily. I feel like a robot or a puppet. Someone's pulling my strings and I just don't feel it. I end up in the bathroom somehow with my hands gripping the edge of the porcelain staring at myself in the mirror. There's a knock at the door. It's my mother, probably, which is weird because she's usually gone by now. Or I'm really early or it's the middle of the night. She must have moved me into the dining room because that's where I am next. "Honey. I've called work and I've called school. I'm going to be with you all week. I don't know what going on but.." She says more after that but I stopped listening. I'm a horrible daughter.

I move sluggishly from room to room not saying a word, never feeling satisfied with where I end up in my house. Everything reminds me of Zayn. We shouldn't have spent so much time at my house, I should have insisted we go anywhere else. Then I wouldn't feel like this. I've turned off my phone. It kept buzzing and beeping and annoying me. Instead of throwing it against the wall and breaking it, like I really wanted to, I turned it off. My mom worked her ass off for that phone and the bills to pay for it. I wasn't going to break it. I wasn't going to break anything. All this bent up anger and nothing to release it upon.

At one point when I was in the shower during that long, long week I glanced down at my feet then over at the tiles over my right shoulder. The black swirling ink on my collar bone caught my attention. The tattoo. I think I got out and wiped the mirror clear of the fog that had built up in the room. I stared at the small bird imprinted forever on my skin. Zayn was right. If I did end up hating him I wouldn't like that it was there forever. I was wrong. I hated him and I hate it. I think I was in there for too long and didn't lock the door because my mom came in and saw me standing there naked and dripping wet staring at the mirror. "I didn't know you had a tattoo." She says lightly.

"Zayn and I got one together." I think that's me talking but my voice sounds too far away to be mine. "He has one just like it on his hand." My mother doesn't say anything. She doesn't scold me or get angry that I got a tattoo underage and without her permission. She doesn't even look disappointed as she stares back at me through the mirror. Instead she takes my towel and wraps it around my body. Smoothing back my hair that has curled slightly from the water she tells me to get changed and come out for dinner because it's almost ready. Dinner? I just had breakfast. Or did I?

At one point during the week I'm sitting blankly in front of the TV. It's not even on. I'm just staring at it. My mother walks in and sits next to me. She hasn't asked me what's happened or what's wrong since she found me lying on the floor but i get the feeling that's she's about to ask now. "Amelia sweetheart." she says breathing in deeply. I cringe at the use of my full name. She pauses but i know she is going to continue to pry. "Will you please tell me what's wrong?" i don't say anything. If i open my mouth too much I'm afraid I might scream and never stop. "That boy keeps calling." she wasn't specific. If it was just Zayn she would say Zayn. If it was Niall she would say Niall and the same goes for Liam. Instead she was generic about it. She said that boy.