Hannah.
"Hannah I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to leave you." A voice called to me from behind as I closed my locker. The voice made me jump, and the chilling feeling that trailed down my spine registered in my brain the voice speaking.
"Austin?" I turned stiffly, and there he was, there they all were. All the guys stood there, almost in a line up, staring at me with pleading eyes, begging for forgiveness.
Phil broke out into a smile and made the first move towards me, arms open in a hug. I broke out into shy grin as his arms found their way over mine and clasped around my back. I buried my face in his chest and a could hear the rest of them filing in after him, circling up the hug.
"I've missed all of you." I mumbled, and I could hear a chorus of boy's chuckles around me.
As we stood there, the circle began to feel tighter, like they were squeezing me tighter. "You guys.." I mumbled into Phil's shirt. "You're squishing me." I tried unclasping myself from Phil, but they continued to squeeze me into him. My breathing quickened and my heart pace spiked up. "You're making me-" I choked out as the feeling of claustrophobia started to sink in.
I tried wiggling out of the circle, but the more and more I tried moving to free myself, the more they were like quicksand, sucking me under. "Guys! Let go! Help!" I attempted to scream out, but no words announced themselves. I lost my voice and no attempt was bringing it back.
I rolled and smacked myself right on the face as Austin's floor and I made full contact. In the midst of thrashing around in my bad dream, I ended up on the floor, sweaty and hyperventilating. I pulled my damp, sweaty hair back and stared up at the ceiling. My heart was throbbing and I felt like my body had landed on a pile of Legos during my fall.
"Hello?" A deep, gruff voice called out from another part of the house. I froze, and listened out. No one should be home right now. Austin's dad should be out at his day job till at least 3:30. So who the fuck is here? I attempted to control my breathing, and started to hastily wrap my hair up in a lopsided bun an scramble up from the floor.
The new silence in the house was beginning to sound thick with something else, something unknown and the feeling was beginning to sink under my skin. I pulled myself up from the floor and in my fumble of movements, I believingly tossed my body into the wall right next to the window. My hip bone smacked into the edge of the window's ledge, and the howl I released broke the thick silence in the house.
"Hello? Who's here?" The voice showed itself again, this time closer to the room, and as my hand smacked my mouth shut, making a suction cup popping noise in the process, the voice was outside Austin's door. "Is someone in here?" The manly voice sounded angry, and I was in no position to fight anyone in Austin's house. I would not allow a memory like that to be in my best friend's house.
I turned to open the window, successfully prying the cold glass up enough to start to move my body when the doorknob turned. I refused to look back as I continued to edge the window up and wiggle my way out, the clicking of the door as the intruder came in scaring me quicker out.
"Hannah?" This was not the gruff voice I'd heard earlier during my fall. This was a voice I was all too familiar with, a warm, thick voice that could read me anything and put me to sleep.
"Daddy Carlile?" I stopped and turned in my extremely uncomfortable position between the window and the cold wind lapping at my twisted skin.
"Han- Hannah, hi." He fumbled for his own words and I stayed in my twisted stance. "You don't have to leave you know." It was like he could read my mind, but then again it's always felt that way with Daddy Carlile. "I didn't know you were in town still."
"Should I have moved?" I came back inside, gingerly shutting the window, focusing on the dust spectacles floating around the sill. "Does anyone want me around anymore?"
Daddy C sighed heavily from behind me, and I could feel his footsteps shifting on the carpet behind me as he tried to think of what to say. I should've just left, even when he came in. Saying, even for this long, was a mistake. It'll just be worse when I leave..
"I'm glad you stayed. I'm even more-so glad that you came here. To be honest, I expected you to have come months ago, but I guess that's what I get for assuming." He moved over to the bed and as he sat I could hear the creak of the bedsprings. I turned away from my floating specks and half sat on the windowsill, leaning on the heels of my hands and looking over at him looking at me.
"I wish I could've, but so much has happened since then.. And maybe that's why I came now. Another crazy crash into my life and I ended up at the place where it all started. Isn't that weird? How so much can happen to a person, so much destruction and grief, but you still crave that person or place who put you through it all.. Like it was suppose to have made you closer. We secretly crave the things that always seem to hurt us most.." I trailed off, my brain spacing out to a new scene. Staring up at a guy who I ran right into on my first day. The most cliché way to meet someone, and it of course had to amount to something.. It just had to have happened to me.
"I'm not sure I understand.. I know you and the guys have been through a lot, both good and bad, but I think you came back for the good." He was studying me, I could feel it, and the stare was dissolving my makeshift scene and taking me here again. "If it was bad enough, no matter how much, I don't believe we go seeking out the things that hurt us most. Unless for the slightest thought of revenge." He tore his gaze and buried his eyes into the floor. "Is this your revenge scheme Hannah?"
I bit my lip to keep from scoffing. "Revenge? For what? I came because I wanted to be comforted in a place that I loved being in. I was hoping to escape from the black and white shattered movie that's my life, and be here. So many good times here.. So much love, and happiness, and strength to keep me going.. I loved being here." I felt my eyes get heavy. "I came because I've missed everyone, and even though I can't be near them.. Or speak to them right now, I wanted to sleep in all the leftover energy. I wanted to live vicariously in my own past memories of living here."
Daddy Carlile stood when the tears started to fall, and wrapped his strong arms around me. His clean scent filled my airways and I caved in, all the tears flowing and the silence in the room drowned out from my tears. "You can come here whenever you'd like. No one has even made on offer on the house yet, so you can come back whenever you'd like."
I nodded.
"I'd like having the good old company of you being here again too.." There was a smile in his voice. "If you'd like that I mean."
I nodded again, harder.
"There has to be conditions though.. Same rules as before when you were living here, but also, you have to let your family know. They can't think you're out running the streets. I know what it's like to make a family worry and that's the worst possible feeling to have."
I tensed, and then nodded, stiffer... Shorter. Maybe.