Hello!
So here's the new chapter. It's probably the longest one I've ever written. I hope you like it.
And just to avoid any confusion, the part written in the present tense narrative is the flash back part.
Enjoy =)
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In the silence of my room I can feel chaos outside. It's past midnight but no one in the house has any sleep in their eyes. It has been like this since the past two months. We all are just wide awake forever.
I take out another pill on my hand and gulping it down, I hide the small container under my mattress again even though I know I don't need to. Mom and Dad already know of my habit but are just clueless what to do about it. It's not like I take the pills for fun or to gain attention. No, I just can't allow myself to sleep again. The nightmares are getting to me and I prefer the sleepless nights over the haunting images that my brain cooks up.
I hear the opening and violent closing of a door but I'm just too exhausted to care. I crawl over to the side of my bed and rest my head on it, staring at the picture that is getting illuminated by the lamp placed above it.
It's a picture of my family. Or rather what we used to be. Only happiness shines in their eyes as we posed for the camera in my grand dad's backyard.
I look down, not having any more tears to shed.
Loud rolling of wheels harshly against the floor piques my interest and make me to leave darkness of my room.
Not going down the stairs, I hide behind the wall and tilt my head to look at my parents who are standing by the front door.
My mom frantically moves her hands and says, "I can't do this any more, Roy. Please let me go."
She has a tight grip over the handle of her roller duffel bag. Her hair is flying everywhere and her eyes are red and puffy. She looks tired.
"Please Ella, you can't leave," my dad begs. "I need you, Norah needs you."
I feel like crying again hearing my dad's vulnerable voice. It has so much sadness in it.
"I have to. The past two months have been a complete hell and I thought I could somehow get through this but-" her voice breaks- "but I can't. If I stay here anymore, I think I might end up killing myself."
I want to run down to her and tell her that I don't want her to leave but my legs don't allow me to do that so I just keep standing there like an invisible spectator.
"What about Norah?" Dad asks with more strength this time. "What am I gonna tell her when she asks why her mom left, huh?"
"Tell her that I love her but every time I look at her, all I can see is my other daughter that I am never going to get back!" Mom's words feel like knives to my skin and for a moment I feel like I am dead, which I'm hoping I were.
With her last words spoken, Mom opens the door and storms out, the duffel bag following her like a rag doll.
I watch still as my dad falls on his knees and breaks down crying.
Like an emotionless freak, I drag myself back to my room and lock the door. Reaching the corner of the mattress, I pull the Adderall bottle back to my hands.
Opening the white lid, I empty the contents in my palm.
I have two choices now. Either I can throw this mound of evil or I can swallow it all and end everything once and for all.
My fingers close around the pills and the force crushes some of the capsules. My heart drums in my ear as my brain gets ready to make it's final choice.
I bring my hand closer to my mouth but at the exact moment my phone goes off.
I look at the caller ID.
Nathan
What a timing.
"Hello?"
"Norah, are you okay?" he asks and for a moment I get scared that he can see me through the phone.
"I don't know."
"What do you mean? I knew I felt something wasn't right. What's going on?" Nathan asks in a panicked manner. He seems worried.
"I can't think straight, Nathan. I think I'm going to kill myself," I reply in a flat voice.
I don't know why I told him that. Guess my brain wasn't ready to die so soon.
I hear some shuffling.
"Norah, don't do anything stupid. I'm coming, okay? Stay with me on the phone until I get there," he says in a tone as if trying to convince a child.
"Okay," I reply in a low voice.
I close my eyes and open my fist, letting all the capsules tumble down and scatter on the floor like beads of an ornament.
"I'm not letting anything happen to you."
A tap on my car window pulled my thoughts back from reliving a burried past memory. I looked outside to see Shay and Abbey standing there in the dark. I unlocked the door and both the girls slipped inside.
"Hey, thanks for coming," Shay said with a smile.
After roaming through the streets aimlessly, I had gotten a call from Shay asking me to pick her and Abbey from the local grocery store.
"No problem," I replied and started the car again. "So where to?"
"Umm to Liam's house," Shay said and I could sense a nervousness in her voice but I was just too distracted to care.
"Alright," I said and then started driving towards Liam and Daniel's house.
The encounter with my mother had brought back memories of the night that I had forgotten long ago. It was one of the weakest points in life and if Nathan hadn't called that night, I would have ended up overdosing on the pills. I kind of owed my life to him.
I know my behavior couldn't be justified with any argument but the burden of secrets and my mother's words had pushed me to a point of no return.
"Umm, you took the wrong turn," Abbey stated from the back seat.
"Oh sorry," I said and then turned the car around.
I shook my mind to get rid of the memory but it just wasn't ready to leave. It didn't feel like the events had taken place three years ago. It seemed as if I had lived through all of that just yesterday.
"Here we are," Shay said thinking that maybe I hadn't noticed that we had reached the massive white and blue house which honestly, I really hadn't.
"Park your car over there." Shay pointed to a spot at a little distance and on the opposite side of the road.
"Why?" I asked.
"Just do as I say," she said irritated which was really easy for her to be.
Without any more questions, I drove to the spot where she had asked me to. As soon as the car stopped, Abbey got out but Shay waited for me to look at her.
"What?" I asked when I found Shay pretty much staring at me.
"You're coming with us," she ordered in a light manner.
I ran my fingers over my temples. "Look Shay, I'm not in a mood to hang out right now."
"Who said anything about hanging out? We are going to be egging Liam's house," Shay said in a mischievous tone.
"But I-" my eyes shot open wider, "Wait, what?"
And for the first time then I noticed the egg cart in her hands and the 'Taylor Swift- the girlfriend out for revenge' look in her eyes.
Oh god, how could have I missed that? I questioned my brain capability.
"You know he cheated on me with another girl so it's only a small punishment for him," Shay said bitterly.
"But it's-"
"No buts. We are doing this and you are coming with us," Shay told me and I knew that she wasn't looking for any further argument.
I sighed. It had been a stressful day and maybe this was what I needed.
"Fine, let's do it."
Shay smiled victoriously and got out of the car. I followed her to the dimly lit lawn of the poor house which was going to be the victim of Shay's rage.
Opening the cart, Shay picked up an egg and threw it at the large glass window while mumbling, "You cheater!"
"Umm Shay, what if his parents come out?" I asked.
The last thing I wanted was to have another serious talk with anyone else.
"Don't worry. They're out of town," she answered and threw another egg. "You asshole!"
Abbey and I looked at each other and by the look in her eyes I could tell that she too had been dragged in the situation like me. Both of us gave each other a look of pity as our black head friend kept playing angry birds with the eggs.
"You heartless monster!" Shay yelled and the lights of the living room switched on and that was followed by a voice which I was sure didn't belong to either Liam or Daniel.
"I thought you said his parents weren't home!" Abbey hissed at Shay who looked panicked beyond words.
"Well, I thought so," Shay replied in a sheepish manner. "Anyway, no time to talk. Run!"
As a unit, we started to run but then I noticed something. I felt the absence of something in my pocket.
I had dropped my keys!
"Oh no! I think I dropped my keys," I turned around and my eyes immediately zeroed on the shining silver keys lying just near the porch steps.
"We've got no time!" Abbey informed me hastily. "I'm not going back."
"I'll be back," I said quickly and ran back towards the house but with the lack of my luck, the door started to open at the exact moment so I immediately lunged towards a huge tree nearby and behind it while hoping that all my stunt work had been fruitful.
Both the adults of the house came out and were followed by Liam.
"Did you see who it was?" Liam's mom asked both of the males standing there.
"No," Liam answered.
The door opened once again and Daniel walked out barefoot, his left arm in a sling. "What's going on?"
"Someone egged the house," Liam's mom spoke again and pointed towards the artwork done by Shay.
He turned to look at the house and then he caught a glance of me and after a look of surprise, his face immediately lit up with a mischievous grin.
It didn't take him much time to notice my keys lying in the grass either.
"Please don't say anything," I mouthed to him with pleading eyes and then immediately pulled myself back behind the tree when I saw Daniel's dad turning around. I pulled my knees closer to my chest so as to occupy as less surface area as possible.
Looked like all of Shay's yelling had also attracted the neighbors attention and a few of them had come out of their houses too.
I couldn't resist myself so I peeked from behind the tree again.
A smile immediately appeared on my lips as I noticed that Daniel was standing near the keys and had hidden it with his feet. He gave me a sideways glance and then with a slight movement of his hand, he gestured me to stay back.
"I think you should look around. Maybe they're nearby," Daniel suggested like he meant it but I could tell otherwise.
"Yeah, Liam, you look this way and I'll check there," Daniel's dad said and walked away.
A few ladies gathered in front of the house and started asking Liam's mom what the matter was. That gave Daniel a chance to pick up my keys and slowly make his way to the tree.
"Hello Norah, didn't know you hated me so much that you would egg my house," Daniel said in almost a whisper while standing on the other side of the tree. "By the way, nice work. I give you an eight."
"I didn't do it. It was Shay," I whisper-shouted back to him.
"I know. Here take it." He passed me the keys.
Picking them up, I said, "Thanks."
"Anything for you, my butterfly," he said in a overly sweet tone.
I would've asked him why he had called me butterfly again but then figured that it wasn't the appropriate time for it.
"Come with me," Daniel said, kneeling in front of me.
"Why?" I drawled, shifting away to make room for him as well.
"Because Miss Bishop, you can't leave in front of all these people. Now, can you?" he asked in a fake sweet voice but it wasn't offending.
"No"
"So unless you want to hide here until everyone leaves, I suggest you follow me, kay?"
I nodded. "I guess."
"Good. Now come on," he said and then wrapping his fingers around my wrist, he led me towards the back of the house.
"Where are we going?" I asked still cautious to keep my voice low.
"You know I long for a day when you can go without asking a question for more than 5 minutes," he said rolling his eyes at me.
"That's not the answer to my question," I said. It was sort of entertaining to bicker with him.
"Slaughter house. Happy?" he said sarcastically.
"Ecstatic," I replied with just as much sarcasm.
We reached a large window and Daniel made an abrupt stop in front of it. Daniel pushed it upward to see if it was unlocked and the wooden window pane opened. "Thought so."
Pulling himself up, he jumped in with a slight difficulty because of the sling.
"Hurry up. Get in," he said offering his right hand but I gave him a dubious look.
"I'm not breaking into your house."
"Yes, you are." Daniel gave me a quizzical look. "It's not like you have any other option."
I thought about whether to get in or not but Daniel was right. It wasn't like I had any other alternative choice so taking a deep breath, I took his hand and got in.
The window was located in a hallway of the house which was really long and looked never ending.
"So you wanna tell me why you had a sudden need to decorate my house at this point of night?" Daniel asked walking up the stairs in front of us.
"I told you it wasn't me. I'm just the unlucky one to get stuck while Shay and Abbey ran off," I said waving my hands.
"Ah, true friendship, huh?" he remarked sarcastically, turning his head back.
"Yup!"
We walked up another flight of stairs and then down a dark hallway. There were no rooms on the either side; just walls. The place looked so lonely.
"Where're we going exactly?" I asked however I expected another sarcastic reply from Daniel.
"My room," he answered honestly discarding my expectation.
There was a door in front of us made with dark wood, easily getting lost in the darkness of the hallway.
Twisting the knob, Daniel got inside while I kept standing outside. He turned around. "Do I need to invite you in too?"
I rolled my eyes at him and got inside and immediately felt an overwhelming sensation. It was huge and the first thing I noticed was the giant book shelf standing against the front wall. Like the door the furniture was all in dark wood too, contrasting against the light blue painted walls.
You know I've always felt that every room has a soul of its own which is developed by the people who live in it. You can tell a lot about a person by their room and as I roamed my eyes around the room with walls painted in a perfect blue, I could feel that it held a special place for Daniel. I could sense that he had made the room his hiding place for whenever the outside world went a little insane for him.
"So will burning the sage make the spirit leave?" Daniel's voice came from my side.
"What?" I asked registering what he had just said.
He smiled. "The look that you had on made me think you had sensed a evil spirit or something in the room."
I chuckled without a sound. "Well there's only so much space for another devil in this room besides you."
"Couldn't agree more." He smirked sinisterly.
I heard him shut the door after me and I walked towards the bulletin board hung near the book shelf. The mustard yellow surface of the board was almost hidden behind the large amount of photographs.
I ran my eyes across all of them, searching for nothing in particular. Majority of them were nature photography while some were of random areas of the town. One of the pictures caught my attention. It was of the place behind our school with the tree and the old swing. The swing wasn't broken in the picture and the whole area looked lively with the light drizzle falling from above. A few drops had fallen on the camera lens too making the image a little hazy but that had ended up adding a new beauty to the scenery.
"Something interests you?" Daniel asked walking up to me from behind.
"Umm yeah, this photograph." I turned to face him. "It's really beautiful."
He surveyed the picture.
"Yeah, it's kinda special too," he said looking down at me with a far off expression and that's when I noticed that the blue of his eyes wasn't as dark as I had thought it was. In fact it was the kind of like the crystal clear swimming pool water blue through which you can see the bottom surface.
Realizing the lack of space between us and that I was pretty much staring in his eyes, I looked down and think he realized it too because he took a step back and sat on the couch lying nearby.
I briskly toured the rest of the room, running my fingers over the countless number of Java, Python and other computer programming languages books neatly arranged in the book shelf with several works of fiction as well.
You remember when you were a kid and your parents took you to a toy store and you just couldn't decide where to look first and what to buy because you were afraid that you might be missing something amazing in some other part of the store. That was exactly how I was feeling about Daniel's room. There were just so many things to look at.
"Do you box?" I asked pointing towards the black leather punching bag hanging from the ceiling via chains.
"No, I rent it to people on weekends," he said sarcastically rolling his eyes at me.
I ignored his sarcastic comment. "So let me put this straight. You're a computer geek, you do photography, you're the shooting guard of the school basketball team and you box too! Is there anything that you can't do?" I asked walking towards his working desk on which several electronic components were kept. It looked some kind of unfinished project.
"For your information, I'm not on the team anymore and I can't box for a long time until my arm is completely healed," Daniel answered with disappointment in his voice.
"Why? I mean the try outs for the team still has time. You might be able to play by then," I said turning to look at him.
"I don't know." He shrugged and I nodded and turned around back to survey the room.
Unknowingly, I made my way to the bulletin board again to see the picture again. I just couldn't get enough of it. In my mind, it seemed like a reminder of my past, one in which things made more sense.
"Norah?"
"Huh?"
I whipped my head around to find Daniel looking at me with an eyebrows raised. "You kind of zoned out for a minute there."
I shook my head apologetically. "Sorry, what were you saying?"
He shook his head too. "Nothing. Forget it," he said and raised his legs to the couch as well which made me notice what he was wearing.
"You're wearing pajamas," I stated with a chuckle.
A puzzled look covered his features. "Yeah so?"
"Nothing, it's just a little strange."
"Well then, I'll remember to put an Armani next time you come over," he replied in a flat voice.
"You know you're being way too much sarcastic after the accident. You've changed," I said leaning against the work station.
Daniel frowned. "No, I haven't. I've always been a mean person. Why do you think I don't have any friends?"
Now it was my turn to frown. "You have friends."
It kind of felt bad that he didn't consider even me as a friend.
He looked at me raising his eyebrows. "Yeah? Name one."
"Well there's Mike and Chad and-"
He cut me mid sentence, "Those are all Liam's friends not mine."
I shrugged. "Well I just thought that since you were popular, so you must have many friends."
He scoffed as what I had said was the most absurd thing in the world. "What has popularity got to do with having friends. I thought you'd know."
"What do you mean? I've friends," I said confused.
"Who? Shay? Who just left you here alone. Or Abbey? Who has a million things to say about you behind your back," he questioned and made a curious face as if really interested to know the answer.
I wasn't unobservent. I knew Shay and Abbey talked behind my back but I just never let it to effect me.
"Well I've you," I answered confidently smiling.
I was already prepared for Daniel's comment to knock my answer down but instead he smiled.
"If you think that's something to be happy about, then you clearly don't know me very well," he said shaking his head and looked up at the ceiling.
Even though he meant it use it as a comeback, I didn't take offence in that 'cause atleast he hadn't denied that we were friends.
"Or maybe you don't know yourself very well," I retorted back. Within a second his eyes snapped back to me. "Cause I see no problem in being friends with you."
He looked at me, not saying anything but as if registering something in his mind. I thought he was about to say something but he didn't so I did.
"I think it's time for me to leave. Everyone must've left by now," I said standing up straight.
"Yeah, okay. I'll walk you to your car," Daniel said getting up from the couch and followed me to the door.
I walked out in the hallway and then Daniel said, "Wait a moment."
And then he quickly ran inside his room and remerged after a few seconds.
We retraced our path in the opposite way from which we had come. Everyone was already inside their respective houses but we still walked keeping an eye on our surrounding.
I was about to get into my car when Daniel stopped me.
"Here, take this with you," he said while reaching for his backpocket and held something for me to take.
I looked down towards the colourful paper.
It was the picture that I had suddenly became so fixated on.
I shook my head. "I can't."
He moved it closer to me. "Yes, you can. Now take it."
"But you said it was special for you," I reasoned.
Shrugging, he answered, "It is. But it obviously meant something to you so you can keep it."
"Thank you." I smiled taking the photograph from his hand.
"It's just a picture," he replied with a sweet smile. "Goodnight."
"Bye." And then I got into my car and started to drive towards my house hoping that Mom had left by now.
The streets were empty as I passed one after another. I still had my mind on the photograph now kept on the dashboard. Being half under darkness of the shadows of the car and half under light of the street lamps, the picture held a strange effect.
Clutching the picture to myself, I unlocked the front door and crashed down on the couch, not bothering to walk up the stairs fearing that mom might still be there.
With my legs dangling down from the edge of the couch, I stared at the ceiling, holding the picture close to my chest. I knew I was going to fall asleep any moment now and then I would wake shortly with a nightmare in my head, but for the time being I was at some sort of peace within myself that was soothing. The storm inside me evoked up by mother had calmed down for the moment.
I had returned home with a much better mood than I had left with and I knew who I needed to thank for that.
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