Comment. Vote. Enjoy. :)[[Okay, this is really soon, but I already typed it out a long time ago, so I thought I'd might as well just put it on here, because it's Friday night right now ... And I'm hyper. LOL. Enjoy!]]
CHAPTER TWO
At first, when I woke up, I thought I had to go to school still and I didn't really remember anything of the day before, so I jumped up and I felt my heart beating really fast. Why didn't Mom wake me up? my brain screamed at me. But then I remembered Ethan. Remembered the accident, the hospital, the blood, the bathroom, the car, my parents, it all came rushing to me all at once. Oh, no, this is all too much, I thought. I put my hand to my forehead and fell back down onto my bed.
"What time is it?" The thought randomly came to my mind and I slowly sat up to look at the clock. 12:52 P.M. How could I have slept that long? I wondered while I sleepily got up and walked down the stairs. Mom and Dad should've woken me up way before then, even if I didn't have to go to school. My head hurt so bad, and I figured it must have been from all that "non-thinking" before I went to bed.
I walked into the kitchen and saw I very odd scene. Dad was sitting at the table with some cereal in front of him and a coffee cup to his mouth with his eyes stuck to the TV. And Mom was at the stove obviously cooking me some eggs and bacon for breakfast because I knew she never ate or drank anything in the morning besides coffee. It all seemed very fake to me, like something out of a movie or commercial. I mean, you never see this kind of scene in real life. I knew something else, too. Mom never cooks me eggs and bacon unless she has something very important to tell me, usually something bad. I remember one time she made me eggs and bacon when I was six and I sat down to eat and she started to tell me how good I was to my pet goldfish, Lion (I thought it was a cool name because he was the color of a lion, but then I figured out most goldfish are gold). Then she looked at me all sad and she took my hand, and I remember her exact words. "Hun, Lion is with Gramama now. He went to see her." I knew what she meant by that, even though I was six. She meant that he was dead. I hate it when people do that, I wish they would just come out and say it because it just makes me feel worse. They think they're helping you. And I just kept on staring at her for a minute or two, and then it finally sank in and I looked down and started to cry. "You mean he's dead, Mama. Lion's dead." I didn't even mean it as a question, either, but she nodded. I'll always remember that day. Just like I'll probably remember this day . . . Oh, crap.
Then I came back to the present.
"Hey, Mom?" I said as I sat down at the table. "Dad, what are you watching?"
"Uh, nothin'. Just the news. There's nothing good to hear about this city anyway." He pressed a button on the remote and the TV shut off. I wanted to see what was on the news, but Dad wouldn't give me the remote when I reached for it. I thought I saw I quick picture of a boy with dark brown hair on the screen right before it was turned off. Oh, jeez, my mind must be playing tricks on me. I hope. Well, that's a first.
Everything was too quiet now, and I was getting uncomfortable, so I had to say something. "Why are you cooking breakfast, Mom?"
"Oh, shoot!" Mom said as she accidentally burnt herself on the pot as she was trying to pick it up. I think she just did that because she didn't want to answer my question, though. Then she came over to me and pushed some burnt eggs onto my plate. She never was good at cooking.
"Uh, yum?" I said awkwardly and took a bite. I think Mom thinks that we love her cooking, because me and Dad never had the heart to tell her that she sucks at it. And I definately couldn't tell her now, that's for sure, I thought. I took another bite.
"Wow, Danette, that looks delicious," Dad said while Mom scooped some greasy bacon onto my plate along with the burnt stuff.
"So . . . ? What do you want to tell me?" I asked through a mouthful of bacon.
"Why do you think we want to tell you something?" Dad said, and I just realized something else. Usually MOM was the only one to sit here and tell me the bad news, but since Dad was here, it was probably doubly bad. I gulped and tried to force the bacon that suddenly tasted more like cardboard than ever before down my throat.
"You always have to tell me something when you cook me . . . this."
"Okay, hun." Mom said. Then she pulled the chair next to me and sat down. "There's no easy way to tell you this, so I'm just going to come out and say it. Uh . . . Kailynn . . . honey . . . I, uh . . .," Mom stuttered, and I could tell that this was going nowhere. Then she said, "Mike, tell her." She wasn't good at telling me things. Especially not bad things. I took another bite of the eggs so I wouldn't have to think about anything except chewing.
Even before Dad said it, I had a feeling I knew what the bad news was. "Well, Kai . . . Well, Ethan's, well, Ethan's gone."
I knew what he said, but I just couldn't grasp it. I guess it was some kind of defense my body put up that wouldn't let me understand the words he said, so I wouldn't go insane, at first. "What?" I said cluelessly. Then it sank in. Then I understood. Then it all came into place. They didn't wake me up early so that they didn't have to tell me right then. Mom cooked breakfast to butter me up and so I wouldn't feel as bad, but I knew her tricks. Dad came here to tell me, too. They told me that . . . Ethan . . . that HE was gone. Dead. That I wasn't going to see him alive ever again.
I can't let them see how broken I am without him, I thought. They can't know. It'll just make everything worse, and they will be sad, too, and I don't think I can live with that right now. I can't live with upsetting another person because I'm already upset enough for the whole world. I don't need to drag them down with me. I won't. I can't.
"Oh." I said. I looked down at the floor and then back up at my parents. They didn't seem like the movie-commercial family anymore. They just looked real sad. "Oh," I repeated. I looked down at my food and it didn't look like food anymore, it looked like some foreign objects that I should never even try to eat. Moms cooking never looked THAT bad. I grimaced. "Well, I think I'm going to go up to my room now. Uh, thanks Mom for the breakfast, it was great. And I'm sorry I didn't get to eat it all, I'm just not that hungry. See you later, Dad. I know you have to go to work and all, I'm surprised you even stared here this long, you know, with you never being late in your whole carreer and such. I'll be down later, Mom. See you." I kept on babbling in a false-perky voice because I knew if I stopped talking for just one second I'd dissolve into tears right there in front of them. And I didn't want that to happen. All while I was walking, I was backing away from Mom and Dad so that when I was done with the last word I could whirl around and run up the stairs.
Just as I thought, when I turned around and stopped talking I burst into tears. I made sure that my parents couldn't see any of them and I tried to run up the stairs, hopefully they'll think I'm fine. But I wasn't. I knew I wasn't. I could feel my heart breaking inside my chest, and I knew that this was too much. How much could one person take? How much misery can one person handle without going crazy?
I ran straight to my room and locked the door, making sure that Mom couldn't come up here and see me like . . . this. "Oh, no. Oh, no. No no no no NO!" I kept saying over and over and over out loud. This couldn't be happening! Even though I already predicted that he would die, I never imagined it would be this bad. This hurtful. I just SAT there for a few hours, just crying, just letting all my mysery seep out of me until the tears wouldn't come anymore. After that, the day just seemed to zip by without my permission. I was numb. More numb than I was the night before because I didn't want to feel the hurt anymore, I didn't want to cry. I didn't want Mom to see me like I was, either. The whole day was really just a big blur. I remember leaving my room and going downstairs and Mom told me that Dad left for work hours before and that he said he loved me. I could tell that Mom knew that I was really sad underneath my "okay" facade. But she didn't know HOW sad I was, and she didn't metion anything Ethan-related. Boy, I was sad. I don't even know if you could CALL it that. Sad. It seemed like such an understatement.
After a few more hours of just sitting there with Mom watching TV (I didn't even know what we were watching, I was just staring, unseeingly, at the screen, hoping Mom wouldn't notice) I couldn't even FEEL anymore. I didn't feel sad, and I didn't feel happy, and not normal. Definately not normal. I didn't think about . . . about him, not about anything. I didn't really DO anything. Now I was completely and utterly numb. I didn't even notice when Dad came home. Something in the back of my head whispered that I shouldn't stay here with these people, I need to be by myself. Somewhere alone.
And I knew instantly that I couldn't go up to my room, I've been there enough for one day, and my parents would get suspicious. It would have just reminded me of . . . of HIM. So I decided that I should go for a walk. It was nearly nine thirty P.M. so it couldn't be a long walk.
"Mom, I'm going to take a quick walk, is that okay?" I said in a too-bored tone and I worried for a second if Mom noticed.
She didn't. She was too busy talking to Dad about some problems at his work. She said, "Sure. Don't be long, it's a school night." And then she said something else about . . . about a guy that I didn't need to hear the name of and I just tuned the rest out. It was sort of disturbing how easy it was to do that, to tune things out that completely, when I was that numb. Now it's really like I seriously don't care for anything anymore.
Then I remembered that tonight was only Thursday, and that I would have to go back to my Evil High School tomorrow. I hate school, my brain muttered. No, I realized, no, I don't hate school. I like it. I have all my friends, my teachers are really nice, and I get straight As. But then I understood. Now that I'm numb, nothing matters, so why not hate school? Okay, so now I hate school, I just hope I don't turn Goth. I thought that that inner-joke would make me laugh, but it didn't. There's nothing wrong with goths. Jeez, what's wrong with me? I like goths, they're awesome. Oh, yeah, that's right. Numb. Nothing's funny. Nothing. Nothing matters. Nothing. No ONE matters. No one. . . . But, why can't . . . someone . . . matter? He's the reason why I'm like this.
No, don't think about that, I told myself as I walked out onto the side walk. It was surprisingly warm for the beginning of June, and it didn't make me feel any better at all. It actually made me feel kind of claustophobic because there was high humidity and it felt like it was surrounding me.
I just kept on walking, looking (hopefully) normal.
I was only walking for what seemed a few minutes when I heard my cell phone ringing.
I took it out of my pocket and looked at the caller ID. It was Becca. I opened the phone. "Hello?"
"Ohmigosh, Jenna? How's it going?"
"Fine."
"How's Ethan? I heard from Austie that he got hit by a car! Is that true? Oh, please don't let it be true."
"It's true." I expected to feel some kind of reaction to her words about Ethan. But I didn't.
"Ohmigosh! How is he?"
"He's dead," I said flatly.
"Oh. My. Gosh. What?"
"He died." No change at all.
"Are you okay?"
"I already told you. I'm fine."
"Are you sure?" She was crying now.
"Yes."
"Ohmygosh, Kailynn. You can't be okay. You're boyfriend . . . he's . . . he's . . ." she couldn't finish the sentence but I knew what she meant.
"Yes, I know. I have to go, Becca. I'll talk to you later, bye." I hung up.
I kept on walking for some time before I stopped. Someone's watching me, I thought suddenly. I was surprised at myself, I never used to be able to know when someone was watching me, but this time I KNEW. I don't know HOW I knew, but I just did. I looked around, there was nothing around, but I suddenly realized how late it was. Was I really walking for that long? I looked at the clock on my phone and saw that it was . . . 11:37 P.M.! I looked around again and realized that I was REALLY far from home and it would take about thirty minutes for me to run back home, so I dialed my moms number into my phone and waited.
"Hello?"
"Hey, Mom."
"Where are you? It's eleven thirty!"
"I know, sorry. I just sort of lost track of time. I think I'll be home in a half an hour."
"Honey, then it'll be midnight!'
"I know. I'm sorry."
"Well, hurry up. When you get home you head straight for bed."
"All right, Mom. Bye."
"Bye, and I mean it, hurry up. Love you."
"Love you, too," I said right before hanging up.
I turned around and headed back toward my house. All the way home I felt those eyes staring at me, following me. A couple of time I would look around and then run a little faster, trying to get away from them. But I couldn't. They followed me. They only went away when I walked through my door, like they couldn't come into my house. Good.
"Hey, I'm home!" I called from the door while I was taking my shoes off.
"It's midnight, go to sleep!" Dad called from his bedroom.
"Turn the lights off when you come up here," Mom added.
"'Kay," I said.
Just then I got this feeling, it was really strange and really sudden. The thought didn't even sound like me, it sounded like someone was in my head, thinking for me. I had no idea if it was true or not, but the voice in my head sounded pretty sure. "Something is going to happen, something big, something that's going to change everything. Something's going to happen soon," it said.
I tried to push the ominous feeling out of my head and did what my parents said and went straight to bed. I didn't even brush my teeth, I could do it in the morning.
I fell asleep quickly. Which was odd for me. Usually I would've sat there for about twenty or thirty minutes just thinking and trying to get to sleep.
I don't remember when the dream began, but I remember everything else very clearly, just like it really happened, which was really weird. Because I usually forget everything but the most important details in my dreams. I guess in this dream I remembered everything because EVERY detail was important.
I remember walking down a long, dark hallway, and then stopping and looking around. There was a window, and I could see the full moon outside it, and there were no clouds. There were little pictures all over the hallway with pictures of young-but-yet-old looking men and women in them. But I just stood there, like I was waiting for something, someone. But I didn't know what. I looked around, and sure enough, there he was. Ethan. He was walking towards me. I didn't feel at all surprised, because I had been waiting for him there. Something was off about him. Something I couldn't quite put my finger on. At first.
It seemed like it took forever for him to reach me. He stopped about three feet in front of me. I tilted my head, and THAT was when I figured out what was different about it. Well, it wasn't just different, it was ODD.
His hair was more light, but I don't know how to explain it, because it was still dark brown. It seemed more full, too. His eyes weren't green, either. I couldn't tell that from far away because my eyesight wasn't that good. His eyes were golden in the dream, very beautiful. He also moved with a grace that I've never seen before, it was something . . . I would say unhuman. But it was also very beautiful. And he was so pale that it looked like I could almost see through him, but even that made him more beautiful. He was wearing a black tee-shirt with black jeans that made him look EVEN better.
"Hello, Kailynn," Ethan said.
"What took you so long?" I said. I didn't know how I knew it, but I could tell that he was late. Something in the back of my mind told me.
"I got . . . held up," he said with a mischievious grin.
"Again?" I didn't know what he meant, but my dreaming self did. Yet the real me didn't understand. It was like I was watching myself without really being myself, kind of like I was floating above the whole scene, just watching.
"Yes, I'm sorry. But you know I have to." He took a step toward me.
"Really? You're sorry?" I tilted my head the other way.
"Yes, I am. I'm sorry," he said sadly, like there was something behind his words that I didn't see. But the me on the ground that I was watching apparently did.
"Okay, I believe you." I smiled slightly, sadly.
"Really? You believe me?" he said, kind of mimicking my words, but it wasn't mean, not really. Then he took another step closer to me. Now he was really close to me. I could feel the coldness of his skin.
Wait, coldness? He was always so warm, he was never, ever cold. I realized this, but the me that I was watching didn't seem to notice at all. Either that, or she-me already knew that, and it didn't surprise her-me.
His eyes lingered down to my neck, for a reason I didn't quite get. But then he looked back to my eyes and he leaned forward . . .
Then I woke up. Okay, I didn't really wake up on my own, because if I were in control I would have stayed there and asked him how in the world he was still alive and would've stayed there the rest of my life. But something had to have woken me up, I thought. I looked around, it didn't look like anything could've woken me up. I looked at the clock . . . 2:07 A.M. Ugh, I need more sleep! I was just getting settled back into my bed when I heard the noise that woke me up.
TAP, TAP, TAP! I looked quickly around. It wasn't a knock on my door, because it was a tap. Uh, my window? What could it have been, a tree? Possibly, but it didn't sound like wood, and I don't hear any wind. TAP, TAP, TAP! This time I got up and went to my window. I pulled away the shades and waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. At first all I could see was a dark figure in the tree that was darker than the other shadows around it.
I opened my window to get a better look at it, not having a clue of what it could be. Then I recognized it. It was a person. I blinked a couple of times, not believing my eyes. Then I thought, I'm still dreaming. There's no way it can be. There's no way. But I wasn't dreaming, because I felt really exited, unlike the me in my dream who just simply looked amused, and wasn't all surprised to see him alive. Yes, it has to be. It's Ethan, I thought.
But then I realized that I was just standing there staring at Ethan, who was kind of awkwardly sitting on one big branch of the tree, and thinking about things and not saying anything. "Uh . . . E-Ethan?" I stuttered.
"Kailynn," he said, and I think he smiled, but I couldn't tell in the darkness.
I stepped back about three feet, and I thought he was going to jump in the room or something because the window was open, but he didn't move one inch. It was actually kind of creepy how still he was, it was like he was . . . dead, but alive at the same time. His eyes searched my face.
"Can . . . Can I come in?" he asked calmly but yet nervously.
"Uh . . . yeah? Yeah, you can come in." Such a weird thing to say, you would think that he would come in on his own, because he had to know that I would never deny him of anything.
Then he jumped into the room. ETHAN! Ethan jumped into MY room. My boyfriend, who was supposed to be dead, that EVERYONE thought was dead, jumped into my room just like everything was all right and nothing whatsoever was wrong.
I looked at him, I mean really LOOKED at him. He looked EXACTLY like he did in the dream. Except for two things. One, he didn't have golden eyes; now they were red(red?!), and, two, he didn't seem as amused, I guess. He seemed truly sad.
I could kind of understand that, I mean, he just got hit by a car, but it seemed like it was more than just that . . .
And now that I thought about it, I realized that he looked healthy. I mean, he was still pale, but it wasn't a SICK pale. It was just a kind of natural paleness, even though he was never THIS pale while he was ... alive ... I guess. And he didn't have a scratch on him. When the doctors at the hospital described him they said he had scratches all over his face, arms, and stomach. Now I couldn't see any scratches on his face or arms. OKAY, I squinted and I DID see ONE LITTLE scratch oh him. But it didn't look new, it looked old, and it was just a red mark, like a scar. That was the only thing left from the hit on him.
He looked down, and he went to my bed and fell into a sitting position. He looked about to cry, probably like I was right now.
"Are you okay?" I asked him.
"You're asking ME that? After all you've been through, you're asking ME that? I should be asking YOU that."
I made a weird face, just so I wouldn't start to cry, and said, "I'm sorry."
"Kailynn! Why are you sorry?" He stood up quickly and I could see that he was mad. Not at me, I could tell, but at himself.
"I don't know! I don't know anything anymore!" This time I started to cry.
Ethan stepped toward me and hesitantly lifted his arms and hugged me.
The hug was wonderful and special and over way too quickly. But something was off about it. I didn't know how I knew it, but it felt like he was holding something back from me. Kind of like he was trying to hide something that he was afraid that I'd figure out. But that didn't really matter to me, I was just so happy that he was alive (or whatever he was right then) and here, and he still loved me.
It was kind of weird that I was "all right," just like my mom had said I would be.
[[Haha, this chapter kind of went by quickly, but I like this chapter. :) Haha <3 Thanks for reading! ]]
Comment. Vote. Enjoy. :)
*****Sorry about if you find any places that you see 'Jenna' instead of 'Kailynn' it's because I changed her name at the last minute to Kailynn and I didn't get all of them. --As in the comment I replied to-- . So sorry! Tell me if you find any more!! D: *****