Page 100 of Apathy
I constantly spoke about leaving Winworth after graduation, but if I was being entirely too honest with myself, I could’ve left months ago. I could’ve found a place to call my own, without leviathans flying over my head.
I could’ve left Winworth, but something held me here. Something couldn’t let me go, and maybe it was destiny, or maybe it was a fucked-up game life was playing with me, but whatever it was it had to let me go.
“You’re going to be okay, Sky. You’ll see.” He pulled away from me and hugged me around the shoulders, slowly pulling me with him as he started walking toward the bonfire, toward the voices and the music in the night. “I promise. This darkness can’t last forever.”
This darkness can’t last forever, echoed in my head as we approached the rest of the guys. And even when we stopped next to Lauren who already had a drink in her hand, Danny didn’t remove his hand from around my shoulders.
“Happy fucking birthday, Sky!” Rowan shouted, bringing the attention of the rest of the people gathered around the bonfire to us. He hurriedly closed the distance between us, and the next thing I knew, I was airborne, held tight in his arms as he started turning me around, singing the “Happy Birthday” song to me.
Others joined, the clapping of their hands echoing around us, even while the scenery became blurry and my mind fuzzy.
I heard Lauren’s shouts and Beatrice’s melodic laughter, and for the first time in weeks, I felt happy.
But then as if the shadows felt my happiness, they brought it down, bringing back the memories of the one person I didn’t want to talk about tonight.
He wasn’t here.
Even though all my friends sang and laughed, cheered and celebrated, my mind kept going back to Ash. To the stricken look on his face when I told him that our relationship wasn’t working for me anymore.
My mind went back to just minutes before that, when he told me he loved me, when everything seemed perfect and the world around us didn’t matter.
It went back to those nights spent in my room, when he held me in silence, drowning out the noise in my head. And those dark, filthy shadows, they gripped my chest, clawing at my heart, until the tears gathered in my eyes.
I placed my hands on Rowan’s shoulders, willing him to stop, but he couldn’t hear my cries.
None of them could.
“Ro!” Danny shouted. As Rowan slowed down, the world around me started spinning. “Put her down.”
Wetness coated my cheeks, while my stomach churned from all the turning and the lack of food.
“Shit,” Rowan exclaimed as he finally put me to my feet. “Are you okay?”
I stumbled away from him and placed one hand on my face, hiding myself from them. And then it came all at once.
When we found Zane.
Megan’s lifeless eyes.
The first time my father tarnished my soul.
The midnight blue of Ash’s eyes.
The golden mask in the night.
The pain ricocheting through my body as he carved that symbol on my arm.
It all rushed in, like an avalanche, a volcanic eruption, all colors and feelings. My tears and the poisonous Winworth rain. My pain and their ugly words. My heart shattered in a million tiny pieces while the entire town watched.
The picture of a perfect family that was anything but perfect.
Our mom’s constant absence and the vicious words my father spewed at me.
I started shaking my head, taking a step backward, while they all threatened to erupt, to escape from my body. All these things I was keeping inside. All these depraved little secrets I couldn’t say out loud.
The poetry of my life, the fucking misery. The unholy invisible hands wrapping around my throat, choking me, suffocating me, forbidding me from saying all these things I wanted to say.
And I just wanted to forget.
