Hurt
It was a Wednesday during a Save the Citizen period when my luck failed me.
Lash had spotted my tiny frame cowering by Warren's side and had called me out, also selecting Tory, a girl with sonic screaming, in the process. I wasn't excited about my villains nor my partner in battle. Warren had to coax me for a good minute to be able to pry my fingers off of his shirt, and at that point I was still trembling as I made my way into the locker room to change into my protective gear. I didn't exactly feel like walking around deaf for the rest of the day, and I wasn't sure how the hell I was supposed to contribute to this match when the only thing I could do was heal wounds. I would be an easy target, but Speed and Lash didn't know that quite yet. Unfortunately, this didn't exactly work to my advantage, and just as I suspected the minute that Boomer's whistle went off I was trapped in Lash's winding mess of stripey arms. I didn't even bother struggling, just waited for a chance for my partner to get hurt so that I could begin my struggle at the opportune moment.
"Not even gonna struggle?" Lash sounded slightly confused as he stopped wrapping layers of arms around me.
"I can't," I shook my head as we both flinched – along with the rest of the gym who was lucky enough to be able to cover their own ears – when Tory defended herself against Speed's tornado tactic by releasing one of her screams.
"Well why not?" He seemed slightly put out by the fact that I wasn't fighting back. "Don't you want to Save the Citizen?"
"I can't!" I repeated, getting frustrated. I didn't exactly want to scream to the whole gym that my power's didn't let me defend myself.
"Oh," The bully caught on, a knowing tone taking over his voice. "I get it – you're one of the useless ones."
"No I'm not!" I argued, trying to look up at his tall figure behind me. "I help."
"Oh really? How, pipsqueak?" He countered, tightening his grip and making me wheeze just like Mike used to do. The rage after feeling that familiar feeling, mixed in with the anger I felt as I watched Tory get tossed to the ground unconscious in front of me after letting out an ear splitting super scream, caused me to land a swift kick to Lash's un-padded groin area and have him release his grip on me. I dove towards Tory, ignoring Speed's large figure – stumbling with both hands on his ears after so many sound waves affecting them – looming towards me and tried to focus on healing Tory. It only took about five seconds – bringing someone's brain back from a coma wasn't very difficult nor time consuming at all – and a couple more beats of collective silence until Tory was back up on her shaky feet. It was safe to say that several of the kids were shocked.
"Cheater!" Someone yelled out from the stands. "That's cheating!"
"Coach!" Lash yelled from the ground, still in pain from the kick I had delivered to his family jewels. "That's not fair!"
"No foul!" Boomer disagreed, whistling twice and continuing the match. Speed had finally made his way over to us, and continued to build the tornado around us even though it was slightly shaky after his eardrums had taken so much damage. Tory let me know in advance to cover her ears, and then let out the loudest scream I had ever heard in my life causing glass to shatter somewhere in the distance and the entire arena to cover their ears. Unfortunately, her tactic only worked against getting us out of Speed's whirlwind, but not to save the fake human being tied around a piece of rope that fell straight into the whirring metal blades.
Our citizen had been mulched, and with a whistle and a bang, the last thing I remembered seeing was Layla's horrified face in the stands before I face planted onto the ground.
I woke in the infirmary, bright lights shining in my face and an old nurse snapping her fingers in my face. Coming to abruptly, I immediately snapped into a seated position and basically fainted all over again, only staying up for enough time to catch the faces of Warren, Layla and the rest of the gang we ate lunch with. Perfect – now the entire school not only knew that I was a healer, but also that I had the one weakness I could hold on out them. I came to the second time with the same nurse shining her lights in my face and his time pinching my cheeks, causing me to lift a hand to shove her fingers away as she began to speak to me.
"Eleanor? I'm Nurse Spex," Her voice was gravely, yet kind despite her fuddy-duddy appearance. Two pigtails stuck themselves on either side of her head, and two bright red earrings sat on hear ears. It was the cutest old nurse I had ever seen. "Eleanor, you're at the nurse's office. You had an accident during Save the Citizen. Do you remember any of this?"
Slowly but surely, my memory was returning with no other signs of brain damage besides wooziness, and I nodded my head up and down whilst trying to avoid plastering a grimace on my face. I was unsure if my inevitable companions were still here – but if they were I would definitely need to thank them for coming to my aid. It was clear that Speed had knocked me out after the match; despite his victory he was clearly pissed off about his perforated eardrums and how Tory and I had somehow gotten close to beating him at the game him and his best friend championed.
Suddenly, my thoughts were abandoned as a burning smell hit my nose; one that I could only assume was coming from a certain hothead nearby.
"Mr. Peace," Nurse Spex cleared her throat, glaring across the room. "Stop smoking."
I turned my head slightly, granting me the view of Zack, Ethan, Magenta, Layla and Warren – who was the only one pacing angrily with fumes of smoke drifting off of him. He was absolutely furious, and if I knew him well at all I would also know that he was likely to burst into flames at any moment.
"Warren," I muttered slowly as I watched his head snap towards me, finding that it took all of my energy to speak. I had never been knocked out by someone like the likes of Speed before; clearly his powers made the injury all that worse because I had never had side effects as bad as these when Mike had beaten me. Everything felt like molasses and sluggish; like I needed extra effort to do everything but was still going twice as slow. "Please stop. You're making the entire room spin."
He stopped with a scowl, and simply settled for sitting on the chair beside my stretcher, placing his head in his hands and trying to control the heat rolling off of him in waves. Nurse Spex simply gave him a short glare, helping me up into a sitting position after conducting a series of questions and then asked me some more once it was clear that I was going to be somewhat alright. She toggled on her laser vision – which didn't help at all with my shock – and examined me for any internal damage. Finally, she wrote several things down on her clipboard and fixed me with a strange look.
"A healer that can't heal herself," She twiddled her pencil in between her fingers. "That's strange..."
I didn't have the energy to do much more than nod, feeling the stares of my companions as they looked towards me and tried to decipher what was going on. I was certain that I would be faced with many questions not only from them, but most likely from the rest of the school when the word spread around. From what it seemed so far, the gossip here traveled on an information superhighway, and whether it was in between classes or in washrooms, word spread faster than you could say 'that bitch!'. So inevitably, I was screwed, and so was my secret keeping.
"Speed's suspended for a week," Layla mumbled from her spot in her chair, trying to clear the tension but obviously not helping Warren's case. "Warren almost killed him."
"What?" I scrunched my face up towards the hippie, still trying to wrap my head around the incident.
"Almost burnt him alive," Magenta cut in, staring at the black lump that was Warren. "Alice Jenkins had to step in and stop him."
"Who's Alice Jenkins?" I made another face and trying to stop the spinning in the room by watching Nurse Spex stack medical kits into a drawer.
"Ice Queen," Zack clarified, arms crossed over his bright yellow shirt. It almost made me faint all over again looking at it. "Total bitch."
"To be fair," Magenta shrugged, countering her crush's insult. "She did help."
I looked at the boy sitting on the chair nearest to me, and watched the way his shoulders tensed and relaxed, over and over again. He was still trying to calm himself down, using muscle relaxation tactics he had most likely learned from his mother. It was no wonder that he was so well controlled around her; she was the one person who had taught him how to control the ball of anger inside of himself. What I didn't know, however, was that Warren's protective feelings towards me had gone this far. I hadn't expected him to nearly explode with rage and kill one of the students simply for knocking me out. I understand anger and malicious tendencies, but I hadn't expected to hear him go full psycho against a student of the same power level. This indicated very strong feelings towards me, but this kind of behavior wasn't acceptable nor sustainable in the long run. If Warren wanted to succeed in defending anything, he needed to learn to control his anger instead of killing anything that laid hands on his loved ones. There was a reason Maxville wanted their villains kept alive, and Warren needed to understand that it was the same reason his father was being kept alive at the moment.
"Warren man," Zack butted in. "Why'd you do that? You didn't have to go all out – now you're gonna get suspended too."
Warren said nothing, only lifting his head up when Nurse Spex had given me the all clear to stand up and made sure that I was ok to stand. As it turned out, I wasn't, and the first step I took resulted in a buckled knee and my entire weight leaned on Warren. He didn't struggle whatsoever, instead patiently helping me to regain my lost footing and picking my bag up off the floor to hand it to me when he was certain that I was alright. He still hadn't said anything, but his jaw was clenched tight and I assumed that meant he was still holding a ball of rage inside of him. Our eyes made intense contact briefly, before we began to walk slowly with our little pod of freshmen trailing behind us. I vaguely registered Nurse Spex reminding me to come back if I felt anything going on, and that she wanted to talk to me about my powers sooner rather than later. I stored that in the back of my fuzzy mind for the moment, trying to figure out what time it was and realizing that only about an hour had gone by since the match. I groaned, causing the group to look at me in question, and was forced to explain myself.
"It's only lunch?" I griped, slouching my shoulders and feeling my body begin to regain some of it's energy.
"Yeah," Warren spoke his first words in a long time, taking a deep yet shaky breath. "My thoughts every day."
"How sad," Layla muttered behind us, grabbing me a tray as we filed into the lunch line. "Do you really feel that way?"
"Yes," His monotone answer responded, and Layla accepted that that was the end of the conversation.
We got our food amidst the random groups of stares, and for the first time ever, actually sat down at our lunch table as a group. I knew it was torture for Warren; he wanted peace and tranquility but never got the hour of it that he deserved with our recent adjustments to the table. Some days we managed to escape to the front lawn to read, but it was difficult to get away from Layla and her keen eyes. I pulled my book out, taking a couple bites of lunch and finding that whilst my eyes were still adjusting to the light, my ability to read was one hundred percent. This set my mind a bit more at ease, and I was pleased to find that the four freshmen gave Warren and I space whilst we read in peace for the lunch hour. Sitting next to the warm pyrokinetic whilst enjoying the silence that was given to us was most likely the best way to quell the anxiety that came with the recent traumatic event. I was going to have to mention what had happened to my therapist; these kinds of incidents were not to be taken lightly and could provide a gateway for old harmful feelings to resurface.
Speaking of old harmful feelings, it was a couple days later that I decided to give my mother a call. It had taken me several days to think about it; I had been eyeing the payphone next to the Paper Lantern for awhile and trying to convince myself that I had given her a little bit of time to heal, but I was still too shaky to pick up the phone. It was slightly ridiculous, in all reality – she didn't have any reason to be angry with me and in fact it was me that should have been angry with her, but still I was too nervous to slide a coin into the slot and dial the number that had been given to me on a card that read 'Maxville Rehabilitation Services'. I figured that perhaps what I was truly scared of was picking up the phone and hearing a distant empty shell of a person instead of my mother, or simply the same one that I had left behind. The situation had caused some minor anxiety for me within the past several days, but it was now after my late night shift at the Paper Lantern, that I found myself dialing the number off of the card.
It rang for a couple seconds, then a receptionist picked up on the other end.
"Maxville Rehabilitation Services," She began with a light airy tone, something that I hadn't expected from a receptionist at that kind of facility. "What can I help you with today?"
"Uh," I paused, feeling a pit of nervousness in my stomach. "I'd like to speak with Sarah Rhodes?"
"Do you know which section she's in?" The woman asked, clacking away on her keyboard so loudly that I could hear it on my end.
"Hold on..." My eyes flitted to the card, where I spotted a little number in the right hand corner that read '4'. "Yes – she's in four."
"That's intensive care," The receptionist notified me, pausing for a brief moment as if I hadn't been aware of the fact. "May I ask who's calling?"
"Her daughter," My tone shifted a bit, and I supposed that the receptionist noticed, because a minute later she was typing even more furiously and assured me that I would get to speak with her.
"It might take a little bit to get through," She continued. "I have to notify one of the nurses that your mother's got a call. Stay on the line and I'll transfer you."
"Thank you," I fiddled with my eyebrow piercing as I waited, stomach twisted into a knot and tension high. A minute later there was a soft beep and a second woman began to speak with me.
"Is this Sarah Dower's daughter calling?"
"Yes," I nodded, even though she couldn't see me.
"Just one second," The woman placed me on hold for a minute and then returned, speaking to someone on the other end in a muffled tone before she granted me contact with my mother. "Here she is."
Although I heard soft breathing on the other side of the phone, my mouth seemed to glue itself shut and I couldn't formulate any words. So many things had happened in this short time span that it seemed my brain was overloading on what it wanted to say. Thankfully, my mother stepped up to the plate and took the first crack at a conversation, causing all of my previous insecurities to melt away at the sound of her normal tone. I hadn't heard it in a very long time and just hearing it made my tears ducts activate.
"Eleanor?" Her shy, completely sober tone was flooded with guilt; it was clear that she was in deep emotional trauma and just hearing her voice made me glad that she was in good hands.
"Mom?" I gripped the telephone until my knuckles turned white, trying very hard not to cry and keep it all together.
"Oh Eleanor," My mother immediately began to sob, causing several tears to fall on my side as well. I, however, had practiced holding in my emotions for years, and had a little bit of a better grip than my mother. It wasn't that the situation didn't warrant tears – heck, my entire life warranted a flood of tears – but since I assumed we only had a limited time on the phone, I wanted to let her know that I was safe.
"I'm so sorry," She continued to cry, and I could almost picture the heavy sobs wracking her tiny frame. "I-I understand if you never wanted to see me again."
I didn't exactly know where to go from that; yes it was clear that behavior like this merited a lot of anger towards her, but as soon as she mentioned it I found myself not wanting to confront that at all. I definitely didn't want to see her for a long period of time; that was certain. The way she had chosen to live her life had caused hell for me, and she hadn't been able to climb out of the stupor she had put herself into even for her own daughter. I wasn't exactly angry with her, but the portion of my heart that felt for her was completely blocked up. There was no affection on her end all of those years, and just because she was sorry now didn't mean she had understood what I had gone through. I had been through hell, and she hadn't done a thing about it. In fact, she had been sitting right beside the devil himself and had continued listening to her own voices telling her that Mike was helping and that although he was abusive and cruel, he got things paid at the end of the day and that excused everything. She had chosen to turn a blind eye to my struggle and mask it with an addiction, and for that I wasn't sure if I could ever forgive her.
"Mom," I began, forming a steel wall around myself and choosing not to comment on my feelings towards what she had let happen to me for all of these years. "I just wanted to tell you that I'm safe – I'm on welfare and living on my own. I got a part time job and I'm still in school."
There was very little noise on the other end besides her distant crying, as if she understood that I wasn't going to talk about my feelings and that only made her cry harder. I didn't know what she had been expecting; there was a lot of healing involved in this process and my mother wouldn't be able to clear her part out just by saying 'sorry'. Words could go a long way, but not after years of abuse. There was no excuse for that.
"I hope you're doing better," I added, my tone now completely flat. Whilst before I had been on the brink of tears despite my strong mental walls, now I found myself totally void of emotion. "I hope rehab is nice."
She didn't say anything, but I heard her cries fade away and someone else pick up the phone. It was the nurse, confirming that my mother had gone back to her room and that she didn't want to talk anymore. I nearly scoffed and suppressed the urge to smack the phone back on the receiver rudely, but held myself back and instead politely thanked the woman before hanging up the filthy phone. Whilst I had been expecting the whole conversation to shake me, I found myself relatively calm as I turned the corner to the building on my way to the entrance to the apartments. The best way I could describe it was a calm after a storm, when all the destruction had been put behind you and the only thing you could do at the moment was take a deep breath and remind yourself that the danger was past.
I approached the door, eager to take a hot shower and rid myself of all of the dirt and grime I had collected in gym class during the past several days, when I spotted Warren. He was leaning on the side of his car – the only one parked in the entire lot – fiddling with his keys in one hand and looking at his phone with the other. I didn't know what exactly he was waiting for; unless he had a friend meeting him here there was only one logical explanation. I approached him, fidgeting with my saddlebag and ready to ask why exactly he was still here waiting for me on a Friday night at ten o'clock.
"Warren?" His head snapped up at the mention of his name, and he rose to a full standing position as I got closer. "What are you doing here?"
"I was gonna ask you if you wanted to go to IKEA," A small smile began to form itself on his lips. "It's open until twelve and I know you really want furniture."
Needless to say I was slightly surprised at his proposal, and slightly suspicious that he had overheard some of the telephone conversation. Him and Cyclone had been nice enough to help me out when I was in need and I would be forever in debt to them for that portion of my life – but from here on out was where I needed to keep things between my mother and me private. At this point she wasn't capable of doing anything more to me, so it was pointless for Warren or anyone else to know about her calls. Nevertheless, I didn't want to think about the situation anymore, so I agreed to take a trip to the furniture store as a distraction.
"What made you think of going to IKEA on a Friday night?" I snorted as I slid into his car, the familiar smell overwhelming my nostrils. "Are you that much of a loser?"
"We," He corrected casually, pulling on his seat belt with a slight grin and looking behind him as he backed the car up. "We are a pair of losers, yes."
"Thanks," I laughed, shaking my head as we sped out of the lot and towards the main district of town. I liked this plan much better than spending a night alone in my apartment; truth be told I had made a trip to the liquor store yesterday and bought myself several bottles of rum intending on drinking them tonight, but was more content with spending extra time with Warren and getting more furniture for my apartment. It was nice being close to someone who was on the same wavelength as you; Warren offered that and much more for me, and being friends with him was more like a nice cool drink on a hot day rather than a bowling ball of anxiousness in the pit of my stomach like the other kids were.
"So," I began once we had been cruising comfortable for a good couple of minutes with Muse playing on the radio. "How's the anger doing?"
"S'ok," Warren grimaced. "Wednesday was terrible."
"Yeah," I nodded my head, glad that he had pinpointed the issue before I brought it up. I was going to shift the conversation in that direction, but Warren had already done that for me. "Did Powers say anything about it?"
"No," His jaw clenched and his hands tightened on the steering wheel. "My mom was pretty upset, though."
I made a little sound of understanding, glad that Speed had been suspended for a short period of time. It was probably enough for Warren to understand that reacting the way he did wasn't alright, and allowed him to regain some control over his anger before the offending student returned and rejoined his buddy. Lash, on the other hand, had taken to hiding away every lunch. It was clear that without his friend he was nothing, and terrorizing the freshmen wasn't nearly as fun when there was only one person laughing. It was especially horrible for Lash to be all alone in detention by himself, so he had taken to stowing himself away instead of performing his little evil deeds. It was a nice breath of fresh air for everyone.
"But it's getting better," Warren assured, pulling my head out of my thoughts again as we pulled into the IKEA parking lot. It hadn't taken us long to drive up here thanks to the lonely late night city roads, and once we pulled into a spot he shut the rumbling engine off.
"Good," I murmured as he parked, eyes flitting around the parking lot to examine what other cars were there. It took a second, but I quickly figured out he was looking out for any suspiciously parked cars. It was a well known fact that a lot of stabbings and robberies took place in parking lots; many crooks would wait in cars until a vulnerable late night customer came by, then take advantage of the large open abandoned area. It was then that I realized just how protective Warren was. I hadn't noticed it before, but each of his little gazes – whether they were to the side during conversation, out of his peripherals when we were walking or around us in the hallway at school – each of them had a motive. He was constantly on guard; his eyes didn't stop searching until we were safe and secure each lunch in the cafeteria, or when we had sat down in class. I couldn't believe that I hadn't picked up on it before.
My thoughts were abandoned, however, when I spotted the bedding section on the first right hand side of the store. I set out towards it with a grin, ignoring Warren's laughter and jumping on the first one that I found.
"I want a bed like this," I smiled, closing my eyes and rubbing myself on the soft sheets. "This is like sleeping on a cloud."
"Well," Warren laid on an even comfier looking mattress and shot me a grin. "You've got a thousand to choose from, so I guarantee you'll find something comfier."
He was right.
I jumped from bed to bed, finding that each one was better than the next and flopping on them all until I found an acceptable, affordable bed. Since I had a limited budget I was going to have to be more cautious the rest of the trip, but managed to find a cheap bookshelf and couch that fit into my spending bracket. Warren stayed with me the entire time, providing commentary when he thought a piece of furniture that wasn't worth buying and simply nodding in approval when I found something he liked. The employees didn't look too excited to be organizing a furniture delivery right before closing, but we managed to work the details and it was then, whilst I was signing the last delivery form, that I asked Warren about his mention of the arrests the day we had turned my parents in. I nearly smacked myself when the question came out of my mouth, but it had been lingering on my tongue the entire trip and whilst I realized that that was no justification for this breach of personal information, I simply shut up and waited for an explanation. I could apologize later, and from the looks of it he hadn't taken the question badly at all. It took him a couple seconds to formulate a reply, but he spoke eventually.
"I used to call the police on my dad," He grunted, a frown marring his face as memories flickered in his eyes. "Sometimes they would just show up at our front door when we were fighting. Our neighbors didn't like us."
I stopped signing the form for a second and took in what he had just revealed, pretty much proving my assumption that him and Cyclone had been abused by Baron. He was known to be a particularly evil villain, so it didn't come as a shock that he was cruel with his family as well. I didn't know why the hell Cyclone stayed with him, but it was clear that she had been attracted to something in the twisted man. Warren, on the other hand, had to endure years of obvious torture under his father's hand. I couldn't imagine the kinds of fights that they would have had; Mike's fists were one thing, but two pyrokinetics going at it with the best of their abilities after an emotional flare up was an encounter that I never wanted to step near.
"I'm sorry," I admitted, empathy immediately flaring. I was sorry for what he had gone through and could genuinely say that I understood the feelings behind it. To be rejected and hurt by the people that were supposed to take care of you was one of the most horrible feelings in the world.
Warren simply shrugged, and didn't say anything else until we had finished signing the papers and were on our way back to the car in the abandoned lot. I felt much better; the phone call from my mother had been strange and unreal, so distracting myself for several hours had helped me forget all about it for the time being. I was still uncertain if Warren had been eavesdropping or not, but he said nothing about it and instead reverted the topic back to my most recent question.
"You're thinking of the ride to the hospital," He guessed as we slid back into his car. This time, he didn't start the engine right away. "When the cops thought I was the one that did this to you."
"They did?" I blanched, unaware that that had been their assumption when they had asked if his previous cases were 'related' to this one.
"My only defense was that I'd gone to anger management," He shook his head, leaning his head back on the driver's seat. "And after you told them how I helped you, I was no longer a suspect."
This was all news to me. I had thought that the fact that Warren was the one to bring me to the police station with his mother of all people was a pretty good indicator that he wasn't the offender, but perhaps I had been wrong in assuming that the police wouldn't make that grossly ignorant assumption. If only I had known that Warren had already been arrested more than once I wouldn't have brought him with me at all – the last thing I wanted was to put him back into the police's eye sight, especially involved in a case that had to do with domestic violence. Perhaps it hadn't been so silly of the police to assume him of being a suspect, but I still found it frustrating and scary. It was scary to think that Warren might have spent some time in jail; it was scary to think that he had been arrested before and it was scary to think of the things that might have happened to him and his mother. I hadn't known any of that, and if I had known that there would have been a chance of him being suspected of being the abuser I would have left him out of the whole questioning mess in the first place. He had put himself under scrutiny to assist me through a hard day, and whilst I appreciated that, I wished that I could have avoided it.
"I didn't know that," I placed a hand over my face. "I didn't know any of this – Warren, I'm sorry for dragging you into this. I didn't mean for you to go through that again."
"You didn't drag me into anything," He muttered, looking over at me in the dark. "I wanted to help."
I didn't know what to say – it was obviously a bother that he had had to go through the police again, and I hadn't wanted him to feel any of the stress that he had felt before with his father, but it was clearly a choice that he had already made and it hadn't been my fault. He made that perfectly clear and reiterated it to me as he started the engine, guiding the car out of the now completely empty lot.
"None of it was your fault," He carefully steered around the light poles towards the general road. "I chose to do it."
I couldn't exactly stop myself from thinking that some things were my fault – I was a naturally guilty person that believed a lot of blame was meant to be stacked on top of me. But when my only friend reassured me that I was not, in fact, in the wrong and hadn't done anything, it gave me some breathing room and allowed me to find the clarity to realize that he was right. None of it had been my fault and I had only done good for myself so far. I hadn't had bad intentions nor had I meant to put Warren and Cyclone through any stresses. I had simply been doing something good for myself and they had assisted me through a difficult time in my life. It was no longer about faults in my head anymore – I was able to see that I deserved a happy, safe and serene life and that someone helping me achieve that did not mean that I was indebted to them. This hadn't been clear to me before, so Warren's words comforted me greatly and set me at ease for the rest of the drive home. I could breathe much easier now.
"Get some sleep," Warren shot me a small smile as I clambered out of the car once he had stopped at the Paper Lantern. "Loser."
"Yeah yeah," I grinned as I collected my bag and pile of receipts out of the back seat. "You too loser."
He drove off with a final wave, and left me alone in the parking lot where I slowly made my way towards my apartment and reluctantly closed the door behind me. I didn't want to be alone, and the silence was back again – ringing in my ears like an annoying bug. Even the radio didn't help this time, so instead I resorted to taking a shower and trying to get some sleep. None of that worked, and now my head was beginning to plague me with flashbacks that shot tremors through my body and melted my stomach into a puddle of pure terror. I didn't like to refer to it as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder simply because I was afraid of big terms and didn't want to confront the fact that the possibility of me having something as bad as PTSD was very real. So, as a last resort to quell the horrid things processing themselves in my brain, I grabbed one of the bottles that I had purchased several days back and left next to my bedside, venturing into the kitchen and getting a can of pop as well. It took about an hour of rum shots and coca-cola to get me into a drunken mess, and I slid into bed, radio still blaring, and comfortably fell asleep despite my bladder's cries of complaint.
