The following day, I don’t go to class.
I don’t know how I got back to the house last night. I vaguely remember Asher carrying me, and that’s it.
He asked me who did it, but I found no words. If I’d said anything, I would’ve let the tears loose. I chose silence instead.
Silence is safe sometimes.
Silence is also when the gloomy cloud strikes. You can feel it, you know, those thoughts occupying your mind and refusing to come out.
Thoughts like last night’s.
I felt that yearning to fall and end it all—but Asher stopped it. He…breathed life into me again—against my will.
I didn’t know how much I needed life until my heart kicked into gear, its beat filling my whole being.
It was almost as if it screamed at me to stay alive.
To ignore the gloomy cloud.
So today, I decided to do just that. The pull to remain in bed all day grips me like a vengeful ghost, but I manage to push the covers off and stand, to shower and freshen up.
The only thing I can’t do is look at myself in the mirror.
Baby steps.
I come down the stairs around ten. I stop in the vast living area with all its flawless marble and sweeping staircase. For some reason, it feels vacant and so…wrong.
Wrong place. Wrong life.
Those thoughts from when I first woke up at the hospital assault me again.
I flop down on a chesterfield sofa. The need to lie down and sleep surrounds me like a lullaby, but I don’t surrender to it.
A disaster happened the last time I did that.
Who would do that to me and why?
If I want to find answers, I need to know more about myself.
I pull out my phone and google my name. Several pictures come up, in cheerleading uniforms, at fundraisers alongside Alex, and at parties.
The smile on my face is so sickening and fake. I hate that smile. It’s not me.
There are a few articles about my disappearance for a month when I was twelve, some speculate there was a kidnapping. Others say, it was a runaway case. The picture where I was shot as Dad held me showed me in dirty clothes, my hair in a disarray and my face blank –so blank it’s frightening.
I run my fingers over the picture. “What happened to you back then?”
Dad’s name appears as a related search: Gareth Ellis. I googled him before and spent hours looking at his pictures. They always brought me a sense of safety and calm.
Gareth Ellis was a tall, fit man like Alex. He has that all-American look with blond hair, bright blue eyes, and a squarish jawline. He always wore English-cut suits like he was born in one.
I run my fingers along his face, feeling the pressure building behind my eyes.
Miss you, Papa.
According to his Wikipedia page, Dad was a bachelor his entire life. There isn’t a single picture of his wife—my mother—anywhere. No matter how much I dig, I only come up with gossip articles speculating that my mother could be a whore my dad impregnated.
My nose scrunches. From what I’ve gathered about Dad so far, he was never caught in a scandal about women. In an article, he told them, “I have the only girl I need by my side, my Rei.”