The Fallen |BxB| ✓

18 | Strings That Bind

↞[Ken]↠

Two days. Only two days were left until homecoming. And everyone walking by in the hallway had their hands full with banners, ribbons, and posters. Excitement exuded from their voices as they discussed the theme of homecoming. The elation was higher because our school had won the basketball game. I was supposed to be a part of that happiness. I wanted to.

And at the same time... I did not want to be here. I didn't want to think someone would be putting their arms around Luke on Sunday. He'd take someone to the dance, and that someone won't be me. The thought felt so... wrong. But it was the bare truth; there had been people before me. There will be people after me. I was just another one in the line.

I stopped in front of my locker. The same place I heard him tell a girl that he and I were not together — only a running line of deserted judgments in my head. Luke pushed me away every time he reeled me closer. I felt nothing more than a doll attached to his strings. Even now, he was controlling those strings, because even now, all I thought about was him.

People lied when they said that things got better with time. To put it plainly, I felt empty, a strange disassociating numbness. I was too tired to give more and think more.

The human brain reaches a weird exhausted stage when you over-push it, beyond the boundaries; I had reached that stage. I simply didn't have any energy left to feel anything.

I opened my locker door, staring at the books, and the timer on my watch went off. I pushed a button to stop the irritatingly loud beeps and took out my pill bottle from my pocket. Christie and I decided to change the pharmacy from time to time to avoid "mistakes" on the refill. But I knew better. I knew store-hopping would make it harder for them to alter anything. Luke thought he'd be saving me by breaking away from me. He was saving no-one, only putting us in more danger.

Placing a single pill on my palm, I examined it between my fingers to make sure it was the same one. Maybe, just maybe, I can convince him to work together to get to the bottom of his nightmares and this stalking.

I popped the tablet in my mouth and gulped it down without water. Its corners jabbed my throat and dryly went down, leaving a bitter aftertaste. I kept reasoning with myself to go back to Luke. It was getting old now. But how was I supposed to take out the images of his bruises forming? Or the feeling of his arm around me that whole night we slept together?

I guess I was just supposed to live with it.

I closed the locker door without taking out anything. I had forgotten why I opened it in the first place. I had no class, and the last bell had rung for lunch-break.

"You're stupid if you expected it to last forever," a voice behind me called out, making me turn around.

Her shoes made no sound as the girl twirled the pink string of her hoodie on her forefinger. "You shoulda' kept an extra battery," she spoke into her panda-cased phone, stuck to her ear. She walked past me without paying any attention.