Woohoo! Chapter eight! We're really making progress! This chapter has a lot to do with character development in Allison and it gives you a little information about her family and her history and whatever. I hope it doesn't bore you to tears. But in case it does, I'll post a new chapter soon.
Chapter Eight
Fang
It was about a year after I'd started living with the Neill family when Allison's father started coming home drunk. Even in my second-story bedroom I could hear them yelling at each other. I wasn't really concerned about them, but I was worried about Allison.
After her parents started fighting, Allison went straight to her room when she got home. She wouldn't talk to anybody. Not even me. Usually, she wouldn't stop talking to me.
It took seven days before Allison's mother finally had had enough with the drinking. I had been upstairs, researching Itex branches, when it really started. I'd left my door open, a rare occasion, and I could hear the yelling clearly, each word traveling from the kitchen, up the stairs, down the hall, and into my room.
Soon afterward, they filed for a divorce.
I'd never met anyone who was divorced, and I didn't understand the process at all. All I knew was that three days after, Mr. Neill had moved out, taking whatever was strictly his with him. Whether or not they were actually divorced, I didn't knew. What I did knew was that Allison had finally snapped.
For a while, I wasn't sure if Allison ever planned to leave her room ever again. Whenever her mom went in to wake her up for school, she came out saying that Allison felt too sick to went that day. So I spent as much time during the week I could hanging around the house in case Allison decided to get up and do something.
She never did.
After a month and a half of not seeing Allison, I started to worry that she would never get over it. But in the middle of the night, while I was typing away on my blog, with the only sound being my fingers lightly tapping against the keyboard, there was a soft knock on my door.
"Come in," I called quietly, as to not wake any sleeping people. My door creaked open and Allison popped her head in. The only source of light was my computer screen and a dim lamp beside me, but I could still see that she looked like crap. She'd obviously been crying. All around her eyes, the skin was bright red and her cheeks were streaked with tears.
"Was I interrupting you?" she asked quietly. That worried me, because Allison never did anything quietly. I shook my head no, pulled my feet under my knees, and put my laptop on the floor. Allison bring the rest of her body into my room, closed the door, and came over and sat on my bed. She crossed her legs and looked at the sheet on top of it. I watched her, waiting for her to say something. She didn't look up, just sat there and played with the sheet in her hands.
"Are you okay?" I finally asked her. She looks up briefly at me, then looks back down.
"No, not really," she said. I slid closer to her and put a hand on top of hers. Not because I wanted to touch her, but because I got a sudden feeling that it was the right thing to do. That's how it is with me. Max has her crazy voice, and I had my "Feeling" thing. Guess it makes up for my lack of emotion. Allison looked up at me, smiled weakly, and rested her head against my shoulder. I wrapped my arm around her shoulders and leaned back against the wall.
That was when she fell against my chest in a sobbing fit.
She took me off guard, but I quickly recovered. I let her cry on my chest and rubbed her back with one hand. When Allison's sobs calmed to a small shaking through her body, she mumbled into my chest, "Could I sleep here tonight?" She wanted to sleep in my room with me?
"Why not," I answer simply. I had no one left who would care.