No matter how much she runs, Laura is stuck in an endless loop of her past. With a transfer of school and a curly-haired boy who seems to be wherever she goes, it's a matter of time she realizes that her universe ceases at the sight of him-and runni...
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NIGHTMARES WOKE ME UP IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT, and I found it impossible to breathe for a while. I thought that I would've gotten used to them by now, but they flashed the scenes painted in a different light every time—mocking all of what I was, and what could've become of that day. It was a muddle of smiles turning into eerie gazes until I felt like I was being crushed by the weight of all of Jupiter's moons, death itself looming in the inky shadows surrounding me.
Sweat broke around my neck, chest heaving and eyes wide. The urge to cry was overpowering any other, so I brought my knees closer to my face and let the tears out.
I hadn't thought I would be audible. It was midnight, and everybody was sound asleep; I couldn't have possibly woken someone up. But when my door slowly opened with a light click, I furiously wiped my cheeks and looked up.
It was Liam—eyes wide and hands clenching the doorknob.
"Laura? You okay?"
That statement alone did the trick. More of the tears I was trying to hold back landed on my cheeks, and he had already rushed in to sit beside me. I hated feeling this way—feeling like my heart was being crushed into a million pieces and all I could do was watch. Watch as it got shattered and trampled on, feel it happen, and see it take place. It was like a spiteful mayhem, a maze I were to be forever trapped inside.
He held a glad of water for me to take which I pushed away. So, he hugged me. He held onto me for several minutes before uttering, "It's okay. Cry it out. Everything will be okay. I'm here with you."
I closed my eyes, blinked, and shut them close again. I'd lost count of how many times I had cried in his arms now, and how many times he'd recited those exact words to me. Summer was just winding up when the crash happened. The day before, it had rained. I remembered it so clearly that my whole body convulsed—because we were hanging out together and he was begging us to go to karaoke over the weekends, right after his basketball trial finished. Right after he would've made it.
"Laura," Liam rose a hand, eyes troubled. "Laura, look at me."
I smiled. The room wasn't blurry. My pulse remained quick, but it was something subsidiary. Memories—memories always came first. "I'm okay."
He wasn't convinced. "Are you, though?"
No, I wanted to shout. To scream, to cry. And I'm terrified I'd never be.
I nodded.
"You scared me," he said, and then wrapped his arms around me again. I was becoming surprisingly good at lying straight through my teeth in front of him. For all my life, I had always been terrified of him—ever since I was little—because he knew exactly what was up just by looking at my eyes.
"I was collecting my books from the adjacent room when I heard you. You. . .you told me you were still having your medicine."
"I didn't need it," I rubbed my eyes, which now stung for a reason unknown. "Haven't been since we moved here."
