Pain
Chapter 12
Darkness. It covered me like bugs on a summer night. Darkness scared me.
"Jimmy? Are you there?"
My voice penetrated the darkness, but only a little bit and a little while. It seemed to absorb everything as I went and I wept, my heart feeling as if it were falling apart. Why was I here? Was this a dream? What was going on?
"Cindy? Wake up, Cin'. Please?"
I sat at rapt attention at the soft and echoing voice that reverberated around in the darkness. It had sounded of Jimmy. Was he here with me in this odd place?
"Cindy... Wake up... Please.."
Wake up? So I was sleeping? Well, that would explain all the darkness, all the echoes. I shuddered at the thought of Jimmy crying over my sleeping body. Most likely Libby was there too...
I reached out my hand out of the darkness and peeled the stretchy covering of sleep away from my body, the darkness coming off like a banana peel. I took a deep breath before plunging my head out into the light, hoping to God that I wasn't doing something stupid, hoping that I was indeed asleep and not stuck in some kind of alien contraption.
I blinked a couple times, trying to clear my head, and then I stared straight ahead of me, a person blocking the light away from my face, making it seem like that person was just a big, dark blob. School. Was I still at school? I looked around, and seeing lockers, I realized that it was obviously school. Or was it a prison? Either way, I felt trapped.
"Cindy? Are you okay?"
A booming voice penetrated my mind, and a aching feeling appeared in my head. Migraine? Whatever for? I mumbled nonsense things at the person who was trying to wake me up fully, and then, finally, I got irritated and smacked the hand that was shaking my shoulder away.
"God, I'm fine, will you stop talking?"
The person in front of me scooted back a few inches, barely giving me enough room to sit up. Who was this? Libby? No. It sounded like a guy. Jimmy? No. He had a more... A smoother voice. Who was this?
I tried to focus my eyes and stared straight ahead, my vision still blurry.
"Cindy? Are you okay? It's me, Jeremiah... Remember?"
I pushed him away and sat up even further, my head throbbing, my skin feeling as if it were on fire.
"What the hell happened?"
He helped me stand up, and I blinked rapidly, my eyes feeling dry and raw. Had they been open when I had been sleeping? Impossible. Yet they felt as if they were just stuck into a fire to melt like a marshmallow.
Jeremiah worriedly supported me, his hand too far down on my back for me to be comfortable. It was as if he was yearning to touch me; it was that creepy. Perhaps I shouldn't make him sound like a perv, but I couldn't help it; being around guys like Nick and my dad had forced me to think this way. Besides, Jimmy was the only one in my life now.
"You fainted, Cindy, all of a sudden, you fainted."
I pushed him away, but relentlessly, he pushed back further into my personal space bubble. What was with him?
"Let go," I muttered, feeling lightheaded again. He steadied me even more, myself wondering where the hell Jimmy was, and why the hell no one else was helping me. Couldn't anyone see me swaying as if I was on a ship during a stormy night? That's what my head felt like, a stormy night. Argh. My head wasn't even on straight, yet I seemed as if I could pass my SAT's in a heartbeat. What was with this? Was I sick? Had I eaten something weird? What was going on?
I lifted a hand to my forehead and withdrew it half a second later; my forehead was blazing hot, almost as if I could fry an egg on my body. A fever? So I was sick. Perhaps I wasn't though, perhaps I was simply suffering from a really bad fever and that was it. Or was I just talking crazy because I was sick? I made no sense to myself, even as I said it to myself, and I muttered to myself.
"Take me home... Jimmy? Take me... Bed."
I fell again, but I remained conscious, my eyes barely staying open. I felt myself being caught by Jeremiah, and he held me up and yelled something I couldn't tell apart from Spanish, a language I was now fluent in, making someone run over and help him support me. What was going on? If I was so sick, shouldn't I have stayed unconscious from the first time I had collapsed?
I felt myself being dragged out the door, the thing I had been dreading, the thing I had planned on doing before I had blacked out. Then I felt myself being dragged all the way to the curb, where someone in a car was waiting. Who was it? It was someone wearing a tie, a crisp white dress shirt, and dress slacks.
And green eyes.
It was my father. I couldn't believe my blurred vision as I was shoved, not that gently, might I say, into the passenger seat. My father took off a moment after the door shut, not even bothering to pay attention to me groaning as my pounding headache made me feel nauseous, and my stomache made my head pound.
"Cindy," he breathed breezily, "You need to be more careful, Cindy. I knew you'd catch something from that neighbor boy."
Shut up you asshole, you weren't even here for four years of my life! I felt like screaming, You could care less about this and you could careless whether I died!
Why was my mind making me scream those things? Especially in my mind, where only I, who already knew these things, could hear it. Was it my heart telling me it was time to come clean and tell him what was on my mind? Although I had come close years ago, the day after my thirteenth birthday, I never had had the courage to actually do so.
I managed to mumble a few words that I didn't even know existed, and I moved my head from side to side, my mind still foggy from my fever. Or was it a fever? Maybe it was the flu.. Who cared anymore? Why was I debating with myself what I had caught? It no longer mattered, there was no point. Why didn't I just yell at him? Why couldn't I?
"Cindy," he said in his malignant tone, "We're here."
Here? Where was here? Here was nowhere, I tell you, and nowhere was here. Was I making sense? Was he making sense? What was sense, anyway, and why did anyone care? What was I going on about?
"Out Cindy, get out. And get ready."
Ready?