Page 30 of Apathy
“Don’t leave me, Dylan. Please don’t leave me.”
His hands tightened around my shoulders as he settled down, keeping my body draped over his.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he croaked. “I’ll always be here.”
Good, I wanted to say, but it was as if my mind and my mouth weren’t in sync anymore, and instead of trying to talk more, I let myself fall into the sweet oblivion, knowing that he was going to be here to keep the demons at bay.
If I had my brother, I didn’t need anything else.
* * *
I had no idea how long I was asleep for, but when the loud voices woke me up from my peaceful slumber, I knew it was longer than I initially planned for it to be.
The morning sun was illuminating my room, and as I turned around looking for my phone, I realized I was alone. Dylan must have gotten up before me. The clock on the phone showed eight in the morning, and my eyes widened, remembering the time we came back yesterday and how long I had been asleep for.
I slept for almost fourteen hours, when usually I wasn’t able to get more than four hours during the night.
Doors slammed in the distance, and I pulled myself up, slowly stretching my body and wincing as the pain ricocheted from my lower back, through my entire body.
“Fuck,” I moaned as I threw the comforter off of me, and slowly stood up and walked toward the mirror in the corner of the room. The jeans I wore yesterday were haphazardly thrown on the floor next to my wardrobe, and the white SpongeBob shirt I had on definitely wasn’t the one I wore yesterday.
“Of course.” I slapped myself on the forehead. Dylan changed me last night, just before we went to sleep.
I turned around and started lifting the shirt, only to be welcomed with an angry-looking bruise, slowly turning purple at my lower back.
“Shit.”
I thought that the soreness I felt last night was only a temporary issue, but as I walked to the bathroom, I knew that wasn’t the case. My head still throbbed, probably both from that slip yesterday and the amount of sleep I got.
“You can’t fucking go there!” Dylan’s voice traveled through the house, and I rushed to the bathroom, locking the door behind me. My heart thundered inside my chest, and Megan’s lifeless eyes flashed in front of me.
“No, no, no,” I moaned and gripped the sides of the sink. The glass I left yesterday was still on the floor, and the hair ties were still scattered over the stand next to the sink. “This can’t be fucking happening.”
But as I looked up, taking in my disheveled appearance, the gruesome pictures kept filtering through my mind, reminding me of the sickening scene in the forest.
No, I couldn’t let this happen.
I turned to the bathtub and turned the water on, letting it fall freely, as I stood there, transfixed, watching it disappear into the drain. I didn’t have time to take a bath, and if I wanted to make it to school today, I had to be quick.
I pressed the switch to direct the water flow into the shower head and took off my panties and t-shirt. The steam started filling the bathroom, playing around me. When the first stream of water hit my body as I stepped into the bathtub, I started feeling more like a human than the corpse we found yesterday.
Knocking sounded on the door, but I didn’t answer as I kept the shower head above me, letting the water wash over my hair, my entire body, ridding me momentarily of the filthy feeling I was enveloped in. I washed my face, my body, and after soaping myself and washing it all again, I turned the water off and slowly took a step outside the bathtub, careful not to slip on the tiles.
My lower back ached, and I would have to ask Dylan to put some cooling gel on it. I just hoped it wasn’t anything serious because I wasn’t up to another visit to the doctor this year. Those two days after the fire in May were enough to last me a lifetime.
I wrapped a towel around my body after dragging it through my hair, and unlocked the door, stepping inside my room.
Only the room wasn’t empty, and a boy—a man—I least expected to see today was sitting on my bed, staring at the bookshelf on the opposite wall.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I bellowed, anger taking over my body. He had no fucking right to be here.
Ash turned around, his eyes lazily going from my naked legs, over the towel hiding the important parts of my body, to my face.
“Good morning to you too.” He smirked.
After the crypt and the mess at Lauren’s house, I avoided Ash like the plague. If he was in the room, I would walk out. If he was in the cafeteria with the rest of the guys, I would eat in the garden. The only place where I couldn’t avoid him were classes, but I was trying.
It also didn’t help that every single person kept bringing him up during our conversations. And then there was Kane, who went from being obsessive to straight out deranged, starting that night at Lauren’s place.
