Roots [Completed]

Chapter 4 - Part 4

\\tw: suicide, ptsd\\

It's like my story is being rewritten.

From the beginning. That day, summer sun on the back of my neck. Pretty boy in the trees.

It's about time.

Promises and fast friendships.

I found you first, and you found me first.

The look of awe, the way it was so easy, right from the beginning.

You will love me, Jane.

Mate. Werewolf.

I wish I were just crazy.

-

The details of this day are blurry.

I just know that I don't sleep. Eventually, I watch the sun turn the sky the color of a corpse, sitting on the edge of my bed and staring out the window.

Then I stand up. My parents are still asleep, I think. I walk downstairs. My school backpack - half littered with supplies from senior year - is still hanging on my hook in the hall. It's heavy in my hands, but I think it's because I'm weaker than I was before.

There's a window in the living room that faces towards the north, giving a perfect view of the forest a mile away. Such a familiar outline, the pines in uneven tufts like the wild movement of the ocean.

I stare at the trees. They seem so impossibly far away, towering into the sky.

I drop my bag onto the floor. My feet move, but my mind is empty. It's windy outside, a piercing kind of wind that pushes under my skin and makes me feel numb all over.

I walk until I can't feel my feet any more. I must look so clumsy, my feet tripping over each other, but there's no one to see, because I'm already up against the tree line that was once so far away. My hair is dripping - but how did it get so wet?

And then I realize that the roaring in my ears is the sound of violent rain. Every part of me is drenched in rainwater and it makes my limbs feel strangely heavy.

For a moment, I clog my ears, the sound becoming too much - and through my hands, it sounds as if I were listening to the ocean through a seashell. I close my eyes and sway on the spot for a moment, pretending that I'm on the beach.

But when I open them, it's the forest, again.

I know that forests and lightning storms don't go well together. But I keep walking. The trees take some of the rain, and it feels like an umbrella over my head. Whenever a rain drop hits me, I feel like it forms a small bruise, but I don't check to see if my bare arms are littered with purpling dots.

I wonder how long it will take for me to die.

Not right now, maybe. I haven't made up my mind about dying right now. But if I survive today, how long will it take for me to die? Weeks? Years? Decades?

I begin running, but I don't know where I'm going. I close my eyes, pretending that I am flying off of the edge of the balcony, in that second before Sam's hand caught me at my wrist.

It is so dark, here, but I know that it isn't nighttime. The sun is just muted through such a canopy of clouds and trees that it dissolves in the air. I see a brightness up ahead, and I steer towards it.

It opens into a clearing, only about ten feet wide. Without the cover of the trees, the rain washes in like a waterfall. I step into the small open space. I hold out my hands in a miniature bowl, and within a few minutes they are overflowing. The sunlight is gray, but it seems to make the colors brighter. I examine the tree tops, and how they bend in the wind, their branches flailing for support. Like the trees, my limbs are shaking. I collapse on the ground, burying my hands into the mud.