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Chapter Two
The Beginning
It wasn't very apparent that I was slowly changing into something I wouldn't recognize. Nothing changed in the physical sense – or if it did, I was too sleep deprived to notice. I woke up to the same bullshit I woke up to every day, fought the same battles everyone else fought, and was haunted by the same boredom I'd experienced since I was ten years old. As much as I wanted things to change, I knew they wouldn't.
And life would go on the same way it always did – with no meaning, no importance, and no purpose other than itself.
I wasn't this morose on a daily basis - actually, I was generally rather pragmatic, if anything. But on that day, I woke up in the worst mood imaginable.
"Hey, Kiley - "
"Yes, Mom?" I replied with a smile, trying to hide how grouchy I was. "Do you need something?"
"Yeah - could you put this on the refrigerator?" She handed me something that looked like a shopping list. It was hard to tell what it actually was; my head hurt too much for me to concentrate. "Victor's asleep right now, but when he wakes up, could you tell him to go to the store?"
"Nng?" I wanted to ask, "Don't I have school today?", but it wouldn't come out. Instead, I pointed to the bright, blue backpack that was lying on the front step.
She apparently got my message. "It's Saturday, Kiley."
Oh. Well, that was unexpected. "Do we have any aspirin?"
"Um - " She peered into the cabinets. "No, actually. Victor can go get some when he wakes up."
I felt a spasm of pain shoot through my head. An involuntary shudder traveled up my spine. "Okay. I'll just go back to bed, then."
"Is something wrong?"
"Eh?" It wasn't like Mom to be so alert in the mornings, so I was a little caught off-guard. "N-no. Just PMS, I suppose." I was lying, of course, but Mom didn't need to know that. The headache had to go away eventually, with or without aspirin. "I'll be fine. Go to work."
She nodded her head. "Call if you need to, okay? I can be here in twenty minutes."
"Fine." Just GO! Leave! I wanted to shout it, but I doubted it would help my headache much, so instead, I downed my glass of milk, got up, and trudged right back into bed, hoping that no one would disturb me.
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The things I wished for never actually came to fruition.
“Kiley!” shouted a familiar male voice as he slammed my bedroom door open. “Get out of bed!”
Did he not get the memo? I taped it to the fridge. “Headache. PMS. Bed seemed like a good alternative.”
Why did I even bother? This was Victor I was talking to. He wasn't a bad guy, but he generally didn't care about the physical ailments of his stepdaughter. I could have been dying, and all he would have bothered to do is find a mortician.
“Isn't there aspirin?”
Or he would sit there asking stupid questions while I bled to death. “No, there isn't.” Chances were, he didn't even bother to look at the fridge.
“We're out. Can you go to the grocery store?”
As the words came out of my mouth, I knew I would have to go with him – despite how much I wanted to stay in bed, I was the only one who was able to decipher my mother's eccentric handwriting.
I crawled out of bed, my head pounding. I was really starting to hate my life.
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“What do we need?”
I blinked, tossing a lock of long, black hair from my face. It seemed that fluorescent lights made things worse for me; my vision swam in front of me, threatening to cause the nausea I was feeling to bubble over. “Um, eggs. Milk. Flour. Stuff like that.”
He looked at me quizzically. “What's on the list?”
Why does he have to make me read now? I thought to myself. I looked at the paper for a few seconds, then groaned and handed him back the sheet. “Just trust me on this – we're out of eggs.”
"And flour?"
“Yup.” I needed to get out of there – fast. “I'm gonna go to the ladies' room, okay?” And possibly shoplift some aspirin, but I wasn't stupid enough to tell him that. It probably wasn't actually going to work, anyway, knowing my luck.
However, judging by the way my stomach was feeling, I was probably going to vomit any minute – and I doubted Victor would find it endearing in the slightest. He was seriously obsessive when it came to cleanliness, and I was seriously not in the mood to find a dry cleaner.
I stormed off past the canned goods aisle, sure that a bathroom was somewhere in the vicinity. And, to be sure, I wasn't far from wrong.
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“Miss, are you okay?” asked a sales manager, obviously referring to the fact that I'd been standing in front of the fogged-up, greasy mirror for over twenty minutes.
And I could safely say that no – I was far from “okay.” As a matter of fact, I felt like I was about to die.
My entire body was shaking. I could see that my face was even paler than usual, and that my usually-neat hair was tangled and strung out beside my head.
Even from my standpoint, I looked horrible.
The pain brought tears to my abnormally-sharp, gray eyes. God, what was going on? It felt like someone was standing on my head...
“Miss? Are you alright?” The sales' lady's voice rose an octave. “Want me to call someone?”
“N-no.” God, if Victor ever found out about this, I'd never be able to live it down. Well, it wasn't embarrassing, but still – there was no end to the annoyance I'd have to face if I ended up having a stroke in the bathroom. And as touching (read: frustrating) as his concern was, I honestly thought it would be better for him to stuff it, and for me to deal with it on my own terms.
And yes, I know it sounds illogical, but in my defense, logic had taken a temporary vacation due to the fact that I was possibly going to have an aneurysm.
“Well, you look awfully sick. Could I get you something?”
Yes – some aspirin, I wanted to say, but the words wouldn't come out. I closed my eyes and leaned against a bathroom stall.
And then, one of the fluorescent light strips exploded over my head.
“Oh, my God!” screamed the sales lady as the scurried out of the bathroom, narrowly avoiding being hit by a flying piece of glass. “I'm going to call an ambulance. Stay right there!”
I looked around, my heart pounding. Glass littered the floor, and I could see blood on one of the bathroom stalls. I looked down and saw it soaking through the leg of my jeans.
“Oh, look – I'm bleeding,” I said with a smile on my face. I don't precisely know why I was smiling – I mean, honestly, getting cut by a piece of old, possibly filthy glass wasn't my idea of a good thing. But all of the panic, all of the worry was hidden behind one thought:
My headache was gone.
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“Kiley! Oh, my God, what happened?” asked Victor as he ran up to the ambulance. I sat on a gurney while the paramedics bandaged up my leg.
“One of the light strips exploded. I got a piece of glass stuck in my leg, so I'm going to the hospital to get it surgically removed. And possibly get a tetanus shot. You have no idea how filthy grocery store bathrooms are.”
“What?! I'm going with you.” Why was I the only one who had the capacity for composure?
“You don't have to. Mom works there, remember? I'll just wait until she gets off work. You go home.” I know I should have been crying and freaking out, but honestly, I wasn't in serious pain, my headache was gone, and I was very much going to live. Freaking out seemed redundant.
Plus, someone had to be calm. Everyone else seemed to think I was going to die. Although I think they would have been a little bit calmer if that was the case, but still.
That reminded me of something I wished I could forget: in a word, Mom. She was a nurse, and all, but she was far from calm when it came to injuries involving me. I just hoped Victor hadn't called her yet, otherwise I could be having some major issues in the future.
“Okay – we're all done. You want to climb in, sir?”
He nodded, helping a paramedic push me into the ambulance.
I groaned. This was going to be a long trip.
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Being woken up from a drug induced sleep by someone screaming at you isn't exactly pleasant.
“Oh, my God! Kiley! Are you okay?” screamed my mother as she dashed over to my bed. “I came as soon as I could.”
Thank you, Victor. “Yes, Mom – I'm fine. I'm not dying, or anything.” It was strange that no one actually listened to me when I said that. I seriously wished that people would stop asking stupid questions. “The doctor says I can leave tomorrow.”
“Oh.” She sounded relieved. “That's good.” Did I mention that my mom had the attention span of a goldfish? I was thankful for it right then. “My boss told me I could have the day off, so I'm spending it with you.”
“That's good.” It wasn't, but I just wanted to go back to sleep. I honestly didn't care if she was in the room or not. “I'm going to sleep now.”
“Okay. I'll wake you up three hours from now.”
I raised up an eyebrow. “Why?”
“Well, you were complaining of a headache, right? The doctor said you have the symptoms of a concussion.”
Oh, great. “Well, I didn't hit my head, or anything. So I couldn't have a concussion.” Stupid doctor. What did he know, anyway?
“Just to be safe, though.”
I almost started to argue the point, but instead, I decided to let the matter rest. The morphine was starting to demand sleep, and so I decided to obey its call.
Besides, it was useless to argue.
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