Kiss me: Kill me [Complete]

19- After

When I was little I used to curl into a little ball on my bed whenever I was sad. I used to creep into the duvet covers and cocoon myself in. Warm, dark and snug- I was always protected. That night, I crept back into my duvet cover and curled into a tiny ball. My heavy breathing filled the space and I felt like I was suffocating from my own breath. I squeezed my eyes shut, willing it all to go away, wishing I never got involved in the first place and at the same time wishing I could go through it all again. Anything but feeling this aching emptiness, this void of nothingness that was swallowing me whole. A black shadow surrounding me and sucking me in.

My hopes and dreams had been dangled in front of my face and then trampled on for public viewing.

I twisted so my body would scrunch up even smaller, imagining what it would be like to disappear into the duvet, then the mattress, the floor- then deep deep down, to fade completely to nothingness. To be forgotten.

Knock knock.

I jumped from side to side like a contortionist trying to escape.

"Alyssa..."

She can't see me like this! Frantically I threw my body from the duvet, gasping for air as I left the stifling hot cocoon.

The door creaked open as I sat up and forced a smile on my face.

"Alyssa there's a young man downstairs for you. Shall I let him in or is he the one who's been... causing some... problems for you..."

Her eyes whizzed around my room like an anxious inspector looking for answers. She was looking in all the wrong places.

"It'll be Joe," I said as I forced a smile across my face, "he's been a great friend Mum, send him up."

She paused then, hovering while she seemed to stutter over an unspoken worry, then she shook her head and smiled,

"OK hunny I'll send him right up."

She didn't catch my eye once.

I sucked the air in around me, hoping it would keep me calm. This needs to work. I need him. I glanced at my white, blotchy face in the mirror and quickly rubbed some foundation across my skin. A bit of colour will do the trick...

The door groaned open and Joe's face peeped around the doorframe.

"Can Alyssa come out and play?"

Playfully, I threw an old teddy in his direction.

"Get inside!" I called in what I hoped was a carefree tone.

He edged over to me, with a wary look in his eye, the look someone gets when they're around a wild animal; unsure what it could do. I knew I had to amp it up.

"Sit closer silly!"

I leant across the bed and squeezed his hand while pulling him onto the bed. He perched awkwardly at the end of my bed and then dropped my hand as he turned and faced the wall. Not catching my eye once.

"Lyss, I'm worried about you-"

"You don't need to worry silly, I'm fine," I crept over to him and wrapped my arms slowly around his shoulders but he shrugged away from me.

"No Lyss listen," he turned and looked at me then, just for a second before his eyes dropped, "you're not OK..."

That's when I did it. The worst possible decision I could have made. I leant forward and kissed one of the nicest, sweetest, most desirable boys at school.

He looked at me properly then and whispered, "You do like me? Don't you Lyss?"

I traced my hands slowly across the back of his neck then brushed them through his hair.

"Yes, Joe," I smiled slowly and titled my head, before he pulled me in for a kiss.

I didn't feel a thing. The emptiness hummed inside me.