I clenched my fists on my lap. Not anymore.
4
Lila
First, I heard my mom scream.
Then, there was silence. It happened within a nanosecond.
The world tilted suddenly, my vision blurring, before everything went black. I sunk into a very dark place. For the longest time, I stayed there… awake… fading… heart beating… numb… lost…
The silence slowly faded away, a buzzing noise replaced it, filling my ears. It felt like the only thing inside my head was static.
My throat was dry, scratched raw from the inside, and I couldn’t make a sound.
Mommy? Daddy?
I couldn’t see anything. Everything was so dark… so empty…
I remembered the sound of crushing glass, mixed with the distinct cracking of bones breaking. I remembered my mom screaming, and my dad… I remembered…
Pain came next.
My bones and fragile organs felt like they were being crumbled and smashed into a tiny, suffocating box. I couldn’t breathe. It hurt so much. My torso burned like acid was being poured on it. There was a knife dug, painfully, into my chest… no, not a knife… I didn’t know… but it hurt. It felt like a knife or a hammer being pounded into my chest.
I blinked… forcing myself to breathe. I couldn’t. My lungs contracted with such force that I was afraid they would fold into themselves. When I coughed, agony strummed through my body, and my cracked lips parted with a silent scream.
Mom… Dad…
I couldn’t speak. The buzzing noise wouldn’t stop in my ears.
The taste of coppery blood pooled in my mouth; it tasted bitter, and I could feel it soaking my tongue and the inside of my mouth. Blood…?
No…
How…
What…
I remember…
The fight…snow outside… in the car… mom… dad… me…
I remember the screams…
My bones felt like they had been mangled together, and my chest, it was being carved open. I lifted my head up a bit and looked down at my chest to see… blood. Everywhere. So much blood.
I sucked in cramped air and tried to scream, tried to breathe, but my lungs refused to work.
No. No. No. Please. No. Oh God, no.
MOM, I wanted to scream. DADDY.
The pain never ended. The darkness never faded away.
I woke up with a gasp, my mouth open in a silent scream. Drenched in a cold sweat with my heart beating way too fast, I tried to suck in desperate breaths.
Ten. Inhale. Nine. Exhale. Eight. Inhale
I didn’t die. I wasn’t dead.
Seven. Exhale. Six. Inhale. Five. Exhale.
It was only a dream, I told myself.
Four. Inhale. Three. Breathe. Two. Exhale.
My chest hurt; the pain was almost crippling.
One. Breathe, damn it.
Hot tears stung my eyes as I held them back from spilling over my cheeks. I rubbed my chest, trying to alleviate the hammering ache. A whimper escaped past my chapped lips, and I choked back a sob.
Don’t cry. Don’t you dare cry.
I breathed through my nose, the fear slowly receding back, and I locked a cage around it. The pain and the taste of coppery blood faded away, and my senses came back to me.
Just a dream, I told myself.
Except…
My eyes closed, and I sniffed back my unshed tears. I did as my therapist had trained me to do--count backward from ten and breathe. So, I did, and while doing so, I locked the memories away.
Once my racing heart calmed to a soothing beat again, I got off the bed and started my morning routine.
While combing my hair, my eyes fell on the picture frame on my nightstand. A picture of me on my thirteenth birthday. I stood in the middle with my parents on either side of me. We were laughing; our faces smudged with cake icing.
My lips twitched at the memory, a phantom of a smile as I reminisced our time together.
I laid the hairbrush down beside the small frame. My fingers slid over the picture, caressing their faces. “I miss you,” I whispered to them. “But I’m okay. I promise you. I’m okay.”
They kept smiling back at me.
“Lila!” My grandma’s voice broke through the moment. “Breakfast is ready.”
“Coming!”
I grabbed my bag and strode out of my room. Sven Wilson, ex-military man and now a retired veteran, my dearest grandpa sat at the breakfast table. With a newspaper in his hand and Grandma Molly making us pancakes, it was a typical morning.
“Good morning,” I greeted them with a smile.
“Sit, sit. You’re going to be late.”
“She’s fine. Lila is rarely late for her classes,” Grandpa said. He winked before taking a sip of his tea.
I winked back because I knew he had my back. Always.
Grandma handed me a plate and patted me on the cheek. “How’s school, sweetie? You’ve been holed up in your bedroom or the library. We haven’t had time to talk.”
“It’s going good,” I replied around a bite of my pancakes. “I like my teachers. Do you guys need help at the store? I can come over during the weekend.”
Grandpa waved a hand, shaking his head. “No need. We can handle it.”
I held back a smile. He refused to acknowledge that he was getting older, and they did, in fact, need help. Both of them were in their seventies, and they could no longer run the grocery store on their own. But Sven Wilson was stubborn.
“How about we put a hiring sign up? I’ll do the interviews and even train them for a few days.”
“Maybe that’s a good idea,” Grandma agreed, a tender smile on her lips.
“Got it. I’ll put the sign up this weekend. I’m sure you’ll get plenty of students who want to work part-time.”
I quickly finished my pancakes and stood up. “Thank you for breakfast.” After quickly pecking them both on the cheek, I waved goodbye and ran out of the house.
The cold breeze of October hit me, and I breathed in the morning scent. It poured last night. The smell of grass after the rain teased my nostrils, and it soothed me.
If it were any normal day, I’d say today was going to be good. But my days were no longer normal. Not since Maddox decided I was his plaything.
It’d been a week since the Medusa argument, and Maddox was still irritating as always, if not worse.
God give me patience.
I was standing in line in the cafeteria, waiting to get my food, when I saw him. Our eyes met, and Maddox stalked closer, as if he was on a mission. Shit.
I quickly put my earphones in and stared hard at my phone. Maddox came to stand behind me, the heat practically rolling off him. I could sense people staring at us, again… waiting for another dramatic scene. I’d quickly become everyone’s favorite joke.
Berkshire Academy was a shark tank.
You see, in Berkshire, only the strong survive. The weaker are preyed on, chewed up, and spit out like garbage.
Maddox was on the top – the pack leader. He was the King, and he wore his crown with a cocky grin. He was untouchable to his rivals, and he was every girl’s favorite dick to ride.
And I wanted nothing to do with him.
His body brushed against mine as he slid closer to me. Maddox nudged me with his elbow.