Chapter 23: Bottled Up Inside
They wanted her to go back to school today. Two weeks since he died, one week since the funeral, and Morgan wasn't ready. Dean was fine with her staying home, but now it seemed if she didn't go to school now she never would. The school was pressing for her return anyway. They had said that they were lenient in giving her the second week and a third would be pushing it. What pissed off Morgan more than anything was that, in their minds she had witnessed a murder, was nearly killed herself, sustained multiple debilitating injuries, and they think that missing three weeks of school was pushing it. It burned at her very core that they were demanding she returned to the scholastic scene and be forced to endure her classmates incessant need to ask what happened. Apparently it was all the school could talk about… or cry about.
"Morgan!" Her dad yelled from down the hall as he approached her room. "Six A.M.! Either get ready for school or I will drag you out of bed and make you go in your pajamas. Now that the dreams were gone, she had already gone back to showering at nights, so she got up and made sure her cast was still in place from sleeping and got right to using her power to levitate herself around the room. She started in the bathroom, brushing her teeth, brushing her hair, deodorant, but no makeup. She didn't feel like wearing any. But, at the last second she caved on putting on some mascara. The teenager sighed as she levitated herself over to her closet and decided she wanted to be comfortable. She removed her cast and slid on her comfiest black leggings. They were her favorite pair because they had pockets on the thighs. She slid on a yellow long sleeve and layered it with a jean jacket.
She put on her combat boot on her left foot with a fuzzy sock again, and got the matching fuzzy sock out for after she reapplied her cast. She had gotten pretty good at putting it back on herself, and it was nice and warm on her leg with the leggings underneath, since her stitches were out, she just put the leggings over the scabbing scar and put the gauze around the pants as extra comfort before putting on the rest of the cast. She put the fuzzy sock over her foot. She stared at the crutches in the corner of the room. She had just the other day graduated from the wheelchair to the most annoying set of crutches. She went back to the bathroom and put her hair up into a neat ponytail, braiding it to make sure none of the hair got stuck under her armpits or in the way while she used the crutches at school. Morgan grabbed her backpack and the crutches and levitated herself and her things out of her bedroom and too the main room where she set her stuff down and sat at the table to eat breakfast with her dad and sam.
"That will never get old," Sam said as she bit into a homemade breakfast sandwich, courteous of Dean.
"What will never get old?" Morgan asked. Sam laughed.
"You and your oddly strong psychic abilities," Sam told her.
She grinned and said, Well thanks, Sammy. She pushed the thought into both of their minds, catching both of them off guard.
"You know I think that's the first time you've smiled since-" Dean started, but morgan cut him off by making a gesture with her hand.
"Bring it up and the smile goes away. If I'm gonna go to school, I'm going to at least try to enjoy it. Even if I can't participate in cheerleading," Morgan told him, forcing herself to smile again. She read somewhere online that when you smile, even when you're not happy, your brain releases the right chemicals to make you happy or elevate your happiness. So she was going to smile as much as she could before school started so it wouldn't be so much of a suck fest. If she did the exaggerated amount of smiling at school, she might look like an insensitive freak considering what she'd gone through. When she was done eating, Dean and Morgan went to the garage and he drove her to school.
When she stepped out of the car and got on the school campus, not a lot of people were there yet. She had to be there early to talk to the principal. Apparently they wanted to get a feel about what her health restrictions were and how she was coping. Morgan had been informed the day before that they wanted her to visit the guidance counselor once a day but her dad helped her push that to once every two weeks. But she was probably going to ditch going to those anyway. They had no idea how to help her emotionally with killing her own boyfriend to save herself from the demon. She had thought that Cas would magically appear like he did that night and heal him before he died, but her dad had explained that she had been out of it for too long, and that angels couldn't disappear and reappear like that anymore, not after all the angels fell from heaven.
She made it to the High School Office, even bypassed the woman at the front desk so she could just sit down in the principal's office. Mrs. Jeurgens wasn't there yet, so Morgan just waited. The teenager didn't have to wait long until the woman arrived with a coat over her arm and a coffee in her hand.
"So, Morgan, how are you?" She asked. Morgan shrugged.
"I could be better, but I'm ready to get back to school as requested by the administration and my teachers," Morgan responded, the same way Sam had told her the night before when she asked what she should say when they asked.
"That's good to hear Ms. Winchester. So, I see you're on crutches now. I will email all your teachers to excuse tardiness as long as it's only five minutes or less of being late. It's a bit difficult to navigate the school when you're not able to get around like everyone else." Mrs. Jeurgens seemed like she was trying to hard to be withdrawn from the situation.
"Is there any particular reason that you aren't going to address it?" Morgan asked. "I mean he was a student here."
"He was a great role model for the rest of the freshman class and a very kind peer for the entire school. It's a great loss, but one we can't dwell on because this is a place of learning and that can only take a pause for so long. The school and it's students need to get back on track. Normalcy will help the Oak Hills community cope and move on," The principal explained. Morgan wanted to roll her eyes, to yell at her that Jonah was more than just some student, but she knew she couldn't. She just nodded in understanding. That was the second lie she gave today.
All eyes were on her as she walked out of the office and down the hallway, and Morgan hated it. She was broken and traumatized, yet they all stared at her. She didn't hear whispers, but she could hear thoughts. She had gotten good at making them indistinct, but the closer she got to people, the easier it was to understand people. The kinds of things they were saying were painful to hear. The worst thing she heard was when she was hobbling down the hallway from Math to Lunch.
I bet she killed him. I don't think she even liked him in the first place. The freak probably killed him just like she probably killed her mom. She's just a freak and deserved getting stabbed. Just like she deserves what's coming to her. Morgan knew the voice, it was extremely familiar. She looked followed the voice and saw Lainey staring her down from the side of the hall. Morgan just tried to move faster, trying not to cry as she headed to the usual table that she and the group sat at in the cafeteria.
"Hey, you okay?" Matthew stopped Morgan at the door to the cafeteria, before she could go inside. Morgan must've looked like she was about to cry, which was a true statement.
"I'm fine, Matt. I just need to sit down. These crutches suck," she lied. He knew she was lying too because of the way her voice cracked. But he let her be as he held the door open for her and the two of them made their way to the table. But then there was the click of high-heeled boots coming for Morgan.
"Hey, freak," she heard. Morgan didn't want to turn around, so she didn't. "Hey! I'm talking to you!" It was Lainey. The blonde grabbed Morgan's shoulder and turned her around. Morgan winced and took a sharp inhale, grabbing her hurt rib that the twisting irritated.
"Leave her alone, Lainey," Madison demanded. She was angry. Morgan looked at the blonde with her still welling up eyes and waited for the shoe to drop. The entire cafeteria fell silent.
"You wanna just tell us all what happened?" Lainey asked. "Because you know what? Nobody is buying the whole damsel in distress story. No one saw a guy go upstairs. We all saw that it was just you and Jonah upstairs at that party-" Lainey's mouth shut, but not willingly. Morgan closed it for her with her power. She stood up with one crutch to make sure that she didn't fall over.
"He died Lainey. I did not kill him. But you know what? It is my fault," She started crying. As much as she didn't want to, her tears streamed down her face in front of that entire cafeteria. "Wanna know why it's my fault? I'm sure everyone wants to know!" She shouted, her voice cracking and trembling.
"Morgan-" Madison stood up with her and tried to calm her down.
"No. She's right, it's my fault. He's dead because someone wanted to kill me, and he got in their way. So I am sorry for not just dying before my boyfriend could try to save me." Morgan knew only half of it was true, but she just had to tell them something to get them all to leave her alone. It would be safer for all of them if they didn't know about the supernatural forces that caused their beloved peer's death. "What the hell are you all staring at?!" Morgan yelled, this time her voice was angry. Everyone got back to what they were doing, and she was able to sit back down and start eating. She had thought today was going to be okay, but it turned out to be one of the worst days of her life… next to the night her mom died and the night she had to kill her own boyfriend to stop a demon.
"We're back to silence now?" Dean asked. Morgan couldn't look at him. She just stared out the window. "Okay then, nevermind." He gave up on trying to talk to her. They were in the car. He picked her up from school early since she had been excused from gym until further notice. He pulled out of the school parking lot and started driving back towards the bunker. Morgan didn't think she was going to say anything until it just spilled out of her mouth.
"Everyone's talking about it," she started crying again. She was just an emotional mess today. Dean sighed.
"What do you mean?" her father asked. When they got to the turn for getting back to the bunker, he turned in the opposite direction, towards town.
"The whole school is talking about it. I even heard them all thinking about it. I tried to ignore it all, but Lainey tried to pick a fight infront of the whole school again. She told me to admit that I killed him. I know I didn't kill him, Dad. I know it wasn't really Jonah that I was killing, but he still died because I stabbed him. She wanted me to say I killed him in front of the whole school. And dad? I cried. In front of the entire school. I don't do that, you know I don't do that. I told them all that I didn't kill him, obviously, but I said it was my fault because that's the truth. It hurt so much." She could not stop crying. "It just hurt so much to be at school again," she told her father as he pulled into the parking lot in front of their favorite diner.
"I know what you're gonna say, what are we doing here. But I think after the day you've had, you deserve a milkshake and some fries. Okay? And when we get home, you can talk all about it, anything really. I completely understand how you feel. The first time someone dies and it's your fault, whether it's on a hunt or simply because you're a Winchester, it eats you up inside. But every battle, every war, every casualty will make you stronger and better at protecting the ones you love most. I promise, it will get better, and for right now, I'm just going to do my best to help you cope with what happened. Okay?"