Are You Awake?

|A carefree ball of sunshine|

There was no other choice in Cari's mind that day. She had to get away. She couldn't be there anymore, so she left. She didn't go back to the rest of her classes. The second the bell rang, signalizing the end of lunch, the blonde-haired girl ran out of the huge school building and down the streets as fast as she could and didn't stop until she was laying in her bed, hidden under her duvet and all her pillows, tears streaming down her cheeks the entire time.

Cari closed her eyes, trying to stop the tears from falling. But they never stopped. It was like her eyes could produce enough water to fill the Pacific Ocean. Three times. She thought about the short text conversation she had before she left school. She wondered what they had answered, if they even had answered, after she had sent her last text, 'Why can't I just be normal, like every other girl?'. After Cari had sent that text, the bell had rung, so Cari hadn't gotten the time to check if she had received an answer. But she didn't know if she even wanted an answer. What if she had said too much? What if they didn't want to text her anymore? She wasn't prepared for that yet. She didn't want to lose her only, potential, friend. She didn't want another bully, telling her she wasn't the way she should have been. She couldn't, check for an answer, not yet. So, she didn't.

Later that day, Cari's mother, Noreen, came into Cari's room and found her daughter asleep, buried in her bed. Noreen had gotten a call from the principal and knew Cari hadn't been at school after lunch. It wasn't the first time she had received that call. She would come home to find her daughter like that almost every day of Cari's first year of high school. After she got the call she would hurry home from work to make sure Cari was safe, only to find her in the exact same spot as the day before. She tried to talk to her daughter about it, but Cari would never tell her anything other than, 'I just didn't feel well.' And even though Noreen didn't believe her, she didn't pry. She decided she would just be there for the brown-eyed girl and hope that someday, she would come and tell her what was going on.

But gradually it stopped. Noreen stopped getting calls from the principal, letting her know Cari, once again, had left school. She stopped finding Cari asleep in her bed with tearstained cheeks, cuddling her knees to her chest. The blonde-haired girl stopped running home from school because she 'just didn't feel well.' She never saw her daughter cry after the calls stopped coming and therefore, assumed Cari had found her way back on track.

But now Cari was back in her habitual spot in the middle of her bed, hidden under her duvet with her knees held tightly to her chest. What Noreen thought was in the past was back and it broke her heart. She hated seeing her only daughter, her only child, be in the amount of pain she seemed to be in. Cari's mother knew that if she could, she would take all the pain herself in a heartbeat, just to see Cari's beautiful smile all day, just like when she was little.

Noreen missed the little, seemingly carefree girl Cari had been before she started middle school. She missed their trips to the park where her daughter would smile so brightly at every stranger that passed by, occasionally waving at them or greeting them with a confident, yet shy 'hi' or ''ello'. That little girl had an amount of light in her bright, brown eyes, she hadn't seen in anybody's eyes before. Love and happiness were radiating from them.

She remembered the little girl asking her why strangers smiled at her and Noreen had told her exactly what she saw each time her daughter smiled at a stranger. She told Cari about the love Cari's heart seemed to have for every single thing in this world and the way she never stopped sharing it with people. Noreen told her about how Cari seemed to genuinely want to brighten people's days with her smile, without being told to do so. Noreen knew this wasn't true for everyone, she knew most people did it because they felt they had to or was told to do so. But when she witnessed Cari's smiles of pure love and happiness each day, she couldn't help but describe her daughter's smile, wishing everyone could see the world through Cari's eyes. Her daughter's eyes seemed like something everybody should be able to borrow for just one day. That one day would, for sure, brighten so many people's hearts and open just as many people's minds. Noreen was sure of it.

But when Cari started middle school something changed. The smile her little girl seemed to have engraved in her soul, gradually lost its power. It no longer seemed to spread love and happiness anymore, just as if Cari's heart was empty, like there wasn't more love left to share. Her brown eyes gradually lost the light they once were in possession of and seemed to grow darker and darker for each day that went by. Something was for sure happening to her little ball of sunshine and Noreen didn't know what to do.

Then, Cari started high school and the love and happiness that once filled the little girl's heart, was exchanged with tears of sadness. The trips to the park filled with wide smiles and laughter turned into calls from the principal, letting her know Cari had left school, again and again and again. The small private concerts Cari would have in the middle of the living room, dancing to and singing songs from High School Musical, Hannah Montana or a mix of them both, when she came home from school, turned into Noreen rushing home from work with her heart at the bottom of her stomach, finding her daughter curled up in her bed, alone, with dry tracks of tears down her red cheeks. Their talks about why people Cari had never met before would smile at her, was exchanged with Noreen asking the blonde-haired girl how she was doing and what was going on, only to receive a dry 'I'm fine' or 'I just didn't feel well' in return.

Not knowing what to do, Noreen just took her shoes off and climbed into her daughter's bed. She laid down in front of Cari and lifted the duvet to let herself underneath. She laid as close to Cari as she could and carefully placed her arms around the girl, pulling her into her own body. She held Cari as tightly as she could, wishing all her pain away. Noreen placed her forehead against Cari's and closed her eyes as the first tear rolled down her cheek.