Eternal

I headed out of my room once I was ready to go and tentatively approached the stairs. I strained to see if I could hear anything coming from below. I was sure that the coast was clear and slowly made my way down, slipping my imitation army boots on over my faded jeans, which of course had rips in the knees. I had accompanied that with a black camisole top that had two yellow demon eyes on my chest surrounded by ominous grey fog. Teamed with my leather jacket I must say that I think I looked pretty badass. I made my way to the front door when a hand clamps down onto my shoulder. I suppressed a shudder that tried to work its way up my body and slowly turned around.

“Must you continue dressing as though you’re one of Satan’s rejects?” She spat the words at me, and I consciously bit down upon my tongue to prevent myself from a retort. She circled me, a lot like a bird of prey circles its victims from above.

“I understand that it must be difficult to become your own person with the way your mother died. Truth be told, it was a rather selfish way to go. And obviously, you do not want to spend the rest of your years being known as the poor orphan girl whose own mother would rather end her life then spend another day in her daughter’s presence.”

She grabbed hold of the front of my top and pulled me up close to her so that my face was only inches away from her own. “I will not have you continuing to show me up the way that you do; with the clothes that you wear, the constant late nights, and fighting. While you are under my roof, you will respect my rules. I have taken care of you from the moment you landed on my doorstep, so I demand that you give me the respect that I DESERVE,” she shouted that last word and I could feel her hot breath smothering my face.

I stared straight back at her, just letting her words seep down into my pores. I then placed both my hands upon her shoulders and slowly pushed her a few steps back from my personal space.

“I will be gone in seven months. You could always give me your blessing to leave now, but then you won’t have access to the money that dear old mum left me. I will wear what I want, act how I want, and do whatever the hell I want. I have no respect for you. That is one thing that I refuse to fake. Also, I may be trapped here for the time being, but do not act like you have done anything in the way of looking after me. Ever since I got here, at the age of fourteen mind you, I have washed my own clothes, tidied up after myself, and cooked my own meals. I mean seriously, can you be any more of a deluded bitch?”

I felt her fist connect with my face as I fell to the floor; the vision in my right eye was hazed in red as it proceeded to swell. I could see her smirking down at me, itching to see tears pour down my face, to see me grimace or flinch, but I didn’t do any of those. Her expression turned to one of rage as she brought back her leg and connected her foot with my ribs. With two more kicks to my face, she finally stepped back.

I got up onto my hands and knees and proceeded to dry heave for a few moments before spitting blood out onto her new cream carpet. I slowly got to my feet, returned my gaze to hers, and just simply smiled. I swear her head looked as though it was going to explode with her fury.

“You are a freak Unya! You are going to live and die alone, and no one would ever deserve that fate more than you. I always wondered what had finally pushed my spineless sister to do what she did, and you are just proving my suspicions were right all along. Who would want to carry on knowing that they gave life to an individual such as yourself, you disgusting little freak? And you better pay to have my carpet cleaned.” She took one last look at me and then stormed off into the living room, slamming the door shut behind her.

I stole a quick glance in the mirror hanging off the hallway wall. I marvelled at my swollen, blackened eye, my split lip and then just shook it off. I knew I should have been in tears or something along those lines, but it was tiring having to pretend that I was a normal person, so I didn’t bother until I actually had too.

Chapter Two

Unya

I sat on the wall outside Jackie’s house when a black fiesta came screeching around the corner I jumped up and practically fell into the car as my best friend took one look at me and flung her arms around my neck.

“Addy I’m fine, truly. She was just pissed off at my choice of attire and I may have called her a deluded bitch.”

Addy’s eyes grew wider and wider until I honestly thought that her eyes were going to pop right out of their sockets. “So, what did she say to you this tim

e, to cause you to lose your cool?”

“She said that mum basically killed herself to get away from me and all she has done is basically take pity and care of me since I turned up,” I tried not to look as I explained this to her. I knew that she would expect to see tears at this revelation, but I just didn’t have the energy to make myself cry at this precise moment in time.

“Do not hide your face from me, we have been friends for the past three years. Do you honestly think I am that stupid?”

I had to look at her after I heard the pain in her voice. I mean, this is how I know that I am not a sociopath. I can understand sympathy and I can recognise how others are feeling, I even know how I should feel. Hell, my emotions worked perfectly fine until the Dark Day. It’s not my fault that something obviously broke deep down inside of me, maybe something that can never be fixed.

“Look, I don’t know what it is you’re hiding, but I know that you don’t react the way that most people would. You smile when you are black and blue and bleeding from numerous places and I do not for a moment think that it is because you are happy. But maybe you’re trying to trick yourself into thinking you are. You are a great actress and you have a lot of people fooled with your performance, but not me. So, you either tell me what is really going on or I’ll stop fooling myself into thinking that you actually give a damn about our friendship. Because I do not hide anything from you,” Addy said it with such conviction that I decided to risk finally telling someone the truth about me.

“Adrianna, you have been the most amazing friend to me, and I don’t deserve you. And even though I will probably lose you, I’ll tell you the truth, because it is the least that you deserve. Obviously, you know what the Dark Day is, but you don’t know the real reason that I refer to it as that. The reason I gave it that name is because it was on that day that I stopped feeling anything. I can feel the pain that my face is in right now, but it has no effect on me. I don’t feel sad, angry or happy. I have spent so much time on perfecting my act that no one can even tell, at least that’s what I thought until you called me out just now. Damn it Addy, I didn’t even react when I saw her. I just didn’t care. So, you can call me a freak if you want, everyone else does anyway.”

I stared straight at her as she tried to make sense of my words and then the strangest thing happened. She smiled.

“I don’t think you are a freak; you made my last couple of years at school bearable. No one dared mess with me after you got your hands on Katrina, and if anyone was stupid enough to try you set them straight too. You were there for me through the death of my parents and you have been there for me through everything else. I’m not going to turn my back on you. And who knows? Maybe one day whatever happened will right itself out and if not, then who the hell cares.”

I smiled out of habit as I knew that would be the right reaction for this situation, then I pulled her back in for another hug. I said to her, “If I could feel anything right now, I know that I would feel happy.” And with that weight lifted from our shoulders, she threw the car into gear and set off.

I asked her what had given me away and she said that it was back when her parents were killed in a hit and run. They had been run off the road and ended up upside down in a ditch. Unfortunately, it had been filled with water and their seat belts had jammed in place, ensuring they had drowned to death. I had been with her when her sister told her about the incident and she had crumpled to the floor with heart wrenching sobs. She explained I seemed so thrown by her reaction that she knew something weird was going on with me. At the time she couldn’t think about anything else as she was consumed in her grief so she let it go, until today that is.

I answered all the questions that she had for me until she asked the one thing that I didn’t want to face, she asked me about Darren.

Let me explain, Darren is my boyfriend of a year and a half, and it is the most tiring relationship I have ever been involved in. He’s a sweet guy for sure, at least I think he is, but I always have to be in actress mode with him. I knew that he wouldn’t be able to comprehend the truth about me, so I just played my part. I hated every moment of it, honestly for the past month, I’d been thinking of ways to end it with him. The only issue was I didn’t want to hurt him, but because I couldn’t feel that myself, I had no idea what would be considered cruel or not.

“Why did you even agree to go out with him?” She asked after ten minutes of complete silence had passed at just the mention of his name.

“Ever since it happened, I have been trying to come up with ways to make myself feel anything. I thought maybe if I said yes to him it would sort of jump start them. I laughed at his jokes, responded to all of his cues, I faked the feeling of utter giddiness when he was near and I even faked annoyance when I felt it was appropriate. Obviously, I’ve been spot on because not once has he ever sensed that something is off about me. I do not want to have to explain about how I am broken and to be fair I don’t really believe that he deserves an explanation anyway,” I replied to her.

“Unya you’re not broken, but I don’t think you are being fair to Darren by staying with him. Besides, why do you feel that he doesn’t deserve an explanation in the first place?”