Chapter Text
On the night she left, I already missed her. In fact it was more emotion than I would feel in the months following. Still, after the last of my screams echoed through the town square I had no tears left to shed. It was like no one else was there, and the only person I could see was someone who I should’ve known wasn’t there; the outline of her body had stained my eyes.
I stayed kneeling on the ground, head in my hands, until some unknown force plucked me up and took me away. I didn’t want to leave, but I didn’t know what to do other than to give in, so I went limp and let my mind stray from my body. Her words echoed in a loop for what felt like hours, but it really couldn’t have been more than a few minutes. I noticed a change in the air, which told me I was in my house, and that I was now with someone new, although I barely recognized the feeling of my mother’s gentle hands.
She placed me onto my bed and pulled off my shoes; I must have looked disgusting, but she never did ask me what happened. She slid me under my blanket and tucked its corners under my feet and shoulders. Maybe she sang a song to me, but by that time I don’t think I was capable of anything other than breathing and letting my heart beat. Before I knew it I was laying in my room alone, something that would soon become all too common.
I was used to being alone, but I couldn’t feel her presence anymore; it was disturbing. For all the years I had known her, I could always feel her if I let my mind go quiet enough. If I just stopped thinking, I would feel her, sometimes all around me, but that didn’t happen anymore. Thinking about that for too long led me down a spiral, so I avoided having my mind unoccupied. I played video games constantly, and my parents even let me bring the TV up to my room.
I couldn’t feel her presence, but if I thought about it, I couldn’t feel much of anything, actually. That first night I rolled myself over and dug my nails into my back, but I couldn’t quite feel them. I dug hard. And then harder. I didn’t feel anything except for something cold and smooth dripping down my back. Subconsciously I knew what I was doing, but it felt like release, and I just wanted to feel.
After a while I fell asleep, although I didn’t want to be; the dreams started that night. All my good memories of her flashed by before I could begin to grasp them, but the memories I had created of her, the bad ones, lingered and stabbed.
We had never talked much about her time in the lab, which I regretted for years. I wish we would have; maybe if she had someone to process it with she would have seen none of it was her fault, and that it was never what she deserved. I know even she couldn’t fully understand what happened to her, let alone anyone else, but maybe I could have helped her to realize what was so wrong about what they had done to her.
What she had mentioned - spying, killing, isolating - took hold of my mind, and it was all I could see. I dreamed of her all alone, screaming for help; I was right outside the door, but with no way to get to her. She couldn’t hear me in these dreams, but I would talk to her. I would soothe her, tell her everything I hadn’t when she was here. That only helped for so long, and eventually we would both be screaming for help, to get out.
In the beginning someone would save me from that nightmare. I would wake to the feeling of someone shaking me and repeating my name soothingly, but my screaming wouldn’t stop.
I would plead for them to leave me, to let me sleep, to let me go back to her. In time they learned. They would let me sleep, and they wouldn’t ask what I had dreamed of; they already knew.
The shower was terrible. Water rolling down my back made me notice when I got bad; the stinging was worse every time. I had gotten into the habit of doing what I had the first night every night, of making myself feel pain just so I could feel something more than empty. I didn’t need anyone seeing that though, so I limited myself to places I could hide.
I went back to school after Christmas break, although it was against my will. I’d begged my mom to let me drop out, explaining to her that it hadn’t even been two months, that I just needed more time, but she didn’t understand. No one understood. The rest of the party had gone through the same things I had, yet they all seemed fine. I didn’t want to seem weak, so I just avoided them, which I couldn’t do as well once we were all back in school.
People didn’t really look at me any different than before, but I think anyone who cared could tell something was off. Max and Dustin offered to talk the most; I think they understood the grief and knew I needed help, but I didn’t want it.
Weeks passed by with failed tests and missing assignments.