Forever Dreaming
Ch. 4- Home again, then gone
It only took a few minutes for me to wander back to the strange slivers under both of the girls' left pupils. Edward looked at me thoughtfully, "I don't know why they have them either, it doesn't make sense, but hopefully after we talk with them it will." I was half mad at him for eavesdropping again, half jealous of Bella that she didn't have to deal with Edward's crap and half glad I wasn't the only one in the dark about that... Wait that's thirds; oh well, I was never good with math. Jasper just started laughing at me and I childishly stuck my tongue out at him. He raised his blond eyebrows at me and then got a devious smirk on his face, "Oh is that how you were taught to take an insult? That's just disgraceful." He then proceeded to give me and Sarah a very long winded and joking instruction on how to "lift one's middle finger to show you thought their words were rude" and also on which curse words to use in which situations. By the end of it, everyone in the car was in hysterics and even with vampire reflexes, Edward almost crashed into a tree. It wouldn't have hurt us, but that was part of the problem, because no one could know we were vampires, and stepping out of a totaled car with not so much as a bruise would be a bit of a giveaway. I walked across the wide lawn, and into the house where my room was located at the top of the lesser known spiral staircase we found in the corner of the house, and dropped my plain brown backpack on the little ottoman I kept by the bathroom door. My room was exactly the way I wanted it; plain with just enough personality to make it mine. I had a plain tan bed colored bed in the corner of the room with a dark black headboard, the customary wall of windows on the right side of my room, a dark navy blue couch that bent to fit in the corner, a long flat table that was about a foot high, and a huge fish tank on the left side. The couch I had because I felt like it and my room looked empty without it. The table was for the nights when Sarah and I wanted to play cards alone; we had known how to play most kinds of poker by the time we were eight. I had a bed because sleeping on a couch in my own house would be strange, and I had a fish tank because... well, I don't know, but I like having pets, and I can't get a dog because it was a mammal. Darn them being warm-blooded! I sat down and took out my favorite set of cards even though I knew it would hurt. They were tall and skinny in comparison to the standard sized deck and in place of face cards they had delicate flowers and gorgeous illustrations of my family on them. Mom was the queen, dad was the king, I was the jack and Sarah was the joker. Mom had made them for my tenth birthday. I felt my throat close up in grief and I curled up on my side not caring that I looked like a helpless little kid. If anything that was a great description of me; a poor little kid who was forced into a life he didn't want and had his family dragged away from him. I never told anyone this, but I saw what my mother looked in the morgue. It was awful. She didn't look like she'd just been through a fatal car crash; that if anything made it worse. She had been dressed up and wearing makeup she would never have even touched had she had a say in it. It was like they thought she was some sort of rag doll; mom was never like that. She was independent, but she also loved us all and kept us together when we thought everything was at its worst. She would always say, "Relax honey, it could be so much worse. As long as I have you with me it will be okay." But now she was gone, and I couldn't be there with her; things were at their worst. Sarah waltzed in to my room so quietly I almost didn't hear her, and said gently, "Nick? Are you okay?" I shook my head no even though I could tell she wouldn't be able to see me from this angle. She took a few steps further and just hugged my still form. I was shaking from the power of my grief at this point and I heard Jazz scream, "What the hell?" from the doorway. Soon everyone was in the room and Sarah pried the cards from my frozen
fingers. She put them away in their special wooden case and she didn't say anything. Bella asked Edward what was going on and he whispered something back, but I didn't hear. I saw mouths moving asking me if I was okay, but I didn't hear anything other than the soft buzzing in my ears. I saw the room darken a little; I wanted to be alone in the darkness so badly. I wanted it to come over and envelope me entirely; I wanted to beckon it over and take me off to the sleep that had evaded me for ten long years. To my surprise, it did. It followed me and swarmed around my head, and I remember thinking it seems so inviting... before I was gone.