Chapter 2
"Jaci are you awake?" I hear a familiar voice from beneath the darkness.
"Jace? Wake up. Please." I know those voices. This must be a dream. Nobody cares enough to come to my rescue. I have no friends. Nobody loves me enough to save me. But sure enough, I open my eyes slowly.
"Jaci! Oh my god you're awake!" The voice yells way too loud. I close my eyes and flinch away from the noise.
"Who...?" I say, reopening my eyes. I see a group of people standing next to me. A few of them had their hands on mine. The others just stood there with big, happy eyes.
"Its all of your friends, Jace. We were worried about you." The person closest to me said. I look up at his eyes. My old best friend Adam. I hadn't talked to him in about 6 months. Wow, who else was here? I saw Macy, Alex, Jaden, and in the back, sitting in a chair hugging her legs, I think I saw my sister's black and pink hair.
"Emili..." I said, trying to find my voice. "Where's Em?" I saw the person look up. Yup, it was her. She got up and walked over, just standing above me, not saying anything. I was almost, scared. She never shut up, and now she just stood there speechless. "What happened, Emili?" I asked.
"You fell down the stairs and hit the table and it fell on you. You have a concussion, a broken rib, and a broken nose. And you sprained your wrist." I looked at her now crying face. She knew that wasn't true. But from the faces around her, they didn't.
"You klutz, I told you to watch where you walk," Macy quietly giggled and squeezed my hand.
I tried to force a smile and went along with her story. "Yeah I know, I guess I just.. Slipped." I coughed out a dry, throaty sound that was supposed to be a laugh. Everyone laughed with my pretend laugh like they believed it was real. Actually, I think they did.
"Alright guys, all of you not blood related to Jaci need to leave now. You can come back in about a half hour," a nurse came in and announced to my friends. As they left, I realized just how many people were there. It seemed like half the marching band was there, and not to mention my non band friends. I thought nobody loved me. I guess my mom was wrong. I flinched, and covered my face when I thought of her. Then I realized that was exactly what she wanted from me: fear.
"You okay?" Em said abruptly, scaring me, after I flinched, "sorry.."
"Uh, yeah I'm... Uh, I'm alive," I hesitated until the nurse finished with my meds and left. "Why did you lie to them?"
"Because they don't need to know that our mom is a psychopath," she said dryly, "they don't need to know that I wasn't there to protect my sister and that you aren't the perfect child with the perfect like that they think you are."
I thought about that. Then I realized how she looked like she was going to cry when she said that she wasn't there to protect me, "It's not your fault," I said quietly. "It was mine. I pissed her off, and she pissed me off, and I was sick of her being like that. I broke. I couldn't stand it anymore."
"But I wasn't there to back you up this time! Every time she gets mad and we stick up for each other, she doesn't get that bad because she knows it's two to one. She knew it was just you this time, so she didn't hold back. Why didn't you just wait until I got home? I came home to her yelling at a cop inside and you being taken out on a stretcher into an ambulance. Do you have any idea how scared I was? I thought she seriously hurt you. There was so much blood, and our entire upstairs was torn apart. And when I went inside they told me that she tore apart your room, broke your mirror to your jewelry box from Grandma with her bare hand, threw your laptop down the stairs, tore down your bulletin board and ripped your phone in half. She was serious.
All I could do was breathe. And that hurt from my rib. And then suddenly, all I could do was cry.