Page 147 of Ominous: Part 1
“Uh huh.” Seb keeps staring at me, and I feel like he can see right through me.
I kind of wish I could tell him the truth. About the fight with Eli yesterday. How I’m worried he hooked up with Luna. The way I feel like I’m drowning with him, and I can’t really keep my head above water. But I know I can’t tell him because I know this is all fucked up.
I haven’t spoken to Eli though, not since yesterday when he texted to ask if I was okay. I’ve been writing, and yesterday I ran on the treadmill at the gym during a lull in my shift. Anything for a distraction.
“Your light has been on pretty late the past few days.” Seb keeps going with his assessment of me, and I shift from one foot to the other, grinding my teeth.
“You literally get high in your room. I don’t think you can judge my bedtime choices.”
He pulls his lip ring between his teeth, glancing up at the ceiling. “I never knew having a sister was going to wreak such havoc on my ego.”
I smile despite myself. “Shut up and let me go to bed.”
“Seriously, E…” He trails off, scrubbing a hand over the side of his face before he drops it, looking down at the white linoleum between us. “You were like this before, you know? With that one dude.”
That one dude.Like Nic didn’t fuck up my whole junior year. My face flushes hot, and I want to say something to cut Sebastian down, tell him to mind his own fucking life, but he keeps talking, and I stay quiet.
“Staying up all night, skipping meals, going out to parties. I just… I don’t know ifElihas you all twisted like that dude did, but I just don’t want you to—”
“It’s not like that.” I’m whispering the words, but I feel every black rubber bracelet against my skin with Seb’s judgment. “It’s not like that at all. I…” I swallow a lump in my throat as Sebastian brings his eyes back to mine. “I’m done with him anyway.” I don’t know if I mean it, but I haven’t answered his last text. “We’re done.”
Sebastian narrows his eyes. “You’re done.” He repeats the words with cynicism.
I shrug, rocking back and forth on my heels. Sebastian tracks the movement with his gaze, but he doesn’t comment. “I’m done.”
I can tell he doesn’t believe me, especially when he says, “You think you’re gonna take your mom up on the offer?”
Therapy.The offer for therapy.She mentioned it again just this morning over breakfast. I sat in the living room and read the paper before I took a walk outside. When I got back, she asked about it.Fucking. Therapy.
I shake my head, annoyed. “No.” Then I step past Seb, and he lets me go, but once I’m out into the hallway, he speaks.
“Let me find out he hurt you, E, I’ll fucking kill him.”
His words make me bristle. “Why don’t you worry about applying for jobs before you get involved in homicide, all right?” Then I slam my door after I walk into my room.
I writeuntil my pen runs out of ink. Then I swipe a new one from my nightstand and keep going.
My inner world has always been louder than anything I could say on the outside. When I don’t get enough time to focus on my imagination, everything in reality seems too much. Like my make-believe characters need tending to or else my internal garden wilts and I alongside it.
Maybe that’s how I lost myself in Eli so quickly.
I’ve been wilting.
My phone vibrates but I don’t look at it. I’ve texted Manda today a little about classes back at Shoreside, some chick who found out she was pregnant, a teacher who quit, and she’s sent me photos of the beach. She never mentions Nic, and I’m grateful for it, but every time I communicate with her, it’s like I can feelhimanditjust there below the surface of our conversations.
I keep writing in my notebook, the blue lava lamp the only thing on. I can barely see with it, but it means I can’t go back and correct any spelling mistakes or grammatical errors. I write until my wrist is throbbing, but I push past even that.
Inside my head, my morally gray characters dance along, like a movie playing behind my eyes, and I just have to transcribe it. It’s like getting lost, except I never want to be found. It’s like living in a daydream, where everything is possible, and anything could happen. And sometimes, when I get to the touchy subjects, the hard parts, it’s like expelling every negative emotion I’ve ever had but never had the chance to scream about. It’s like living that day again, the day I got suspended. I’m in the bathroom and I’m screaming at Nic and everything is black and fuzzy and it’s a little hard to piece it together, and I have a knife in my hand, one I took from Sebastian’s room, and Nic’s fair skin is flushed pink and he has his arms up, and his wide eyes keep darting to the blade and he’s telling me he’s sorry and he’s telling me he’ll do it too, and he’s telling me he loves it and me and—
I drop my pen, my fingers shaky.
I can feel my pulse in my wrist. I close my notebook, swipe it and my pen onto my bedroom floor and bury my head in my hands.
I got too far in again. Eli lied to me, right to my face, about his mom, then he spent all day yesterday flirting with his best friend’s girl, or ex-girlfriend, whatever the fuck mind games they play.
I got it all confused inside my head again. I fell too fast again.
But there’s a reason he lied to me about his mom, isn’t there? There’s a reason I cover my scars. Sometimes we don’t want to go backwards. Sometimes it hurts looking in the rear-view mirror.
