Poprocks and Coke: If I Can't Have Both, Which Do I Choose?

"Nikki, you have to come out of your room. You've been locked in there for days," your mom said from the other end of your bedroom door.

You didn't respond to her plea.

"You need to eat..." was the only thing she could think of to say.

Once again, you didn't respond.

A sigh was heard from your mother as she seemed frustrated and worried, "I'm going to work now. I'm guessing you're not going to school today?" she asked, hoping you would answer her question. Of course, you didn't.

With one last finally sigh before the sound of her footsteps went through the hallway.

It's been six days since Kyle's suicide. Your mom was right, throughout this heart breaking time, you haven't left your room, but when you did it was only for bathroom purposes. You haven't eaten since the day the chaos happened. You've had no appetite at all.

You still can't help but blame yourself for his death. If only I was nicer to him, I could have prevented all of this from happening... you thought for the tenth time during those six days.
Depression had taken over you. All you did was lye in bed, looking up at the ceiling as if your whole life was just one big endless nightmare that you were going to snap out of at any second. Deep down you knew it was all reality. You knew you weren't ever going to see your brother again, and you knew it was your own fault... or at least you felt the need to put the blame of his actions on someone, and at that moment the blame could only be put on yourself

After long endless days of staying in bed, you finally got the energy to get up as you heard the front door slam by your mother who was on her way to work.

The first glimpse you saw after getting up was yourself, in the mirror that was connected to your bedroom door. Without any emotion from the view of yourself, you walked closer to the mirror that showed a girl who had a head full of messy hair, who had a sickly pale tone to her once nice, tanned toned face, who looked sickly from her weight loss, and looked too weak to even hold herself up.

You slid your fingertips down your pale cheek as you couldn't believe this is what you've become. It's hard to believe that you became this way just from a death of a loved one. It shows how badly it hurts to be involved in a suicide. Only a total of sex days and it's aged you quite a bit. What lack of motivation and lack of nutrition can do to you within a short amount of time.

You lifted your shirt slightly to expose your stomach that looked like it had shrunk from days of not eating. You must have lost at least eight or twelve pounds which was incredibly noticeable. It didn't look too bad. It's not like you now had an anorexic looking form, but still, it looked really different, in a bad way. All together, it looked like the girl in the mirror was half the age she really was. It was even harder to believe that she was you.

You couldn't look at your sickly form any longer. It was just way too much to see. You never thought you'd sink so low, but you did.

You opened the door, leading into a bright hallway that was even too bright for you to keep your eyes open since you've been living in that dark room for days.

Passing by Kyle's room made memories from your past come rushing back to you. All the memories that you started to remember made you wish that you never blocked them out because they were pretty much the best memories that you've ever had with him.

Walking in his room brought shivers down your spine and made your hair stand on end. The vibes that the room was giving you made you feel like he was still there, like he never left. You felt protected in there, though at the time you'd feel scared and depressed, like his last final emotions before he died were traveling through you. The overwhelming feelings scared you its self. How could I be feeling this?

You quickly walked out of the room as it felt like the vibes were getting stronger, which,at the same time, made you weaker.

It was hard for you to even walk down your stairs. You didn't feel sick, just extremely weak throughout your whole body. You were only going to go into the kitchen to see if there was anyone to talk to, like your dad. He probably wasn't home, he was probably already at work.

As you walked into the kitchen, you noticed that the fridge was covered in little stickies and notes that were held up by magnets. Ever since you could remember, your mom always wrote messages down for the family on a bunch of stickies and posted them on the fridge since it was the most obvious place to look.

As you looked closer at all the mess of stickies of people who have called, you came across your name on a colorful piece of paper that read,
"Nikki, a boy named Tre has called four times today to talk to you. He wants you to call him back when you feel better. Same goes with Natasha who has called as well. I don't know if it applies to you but someone has been calling and quickly hanging up the phone. Perhaps you might know who it could be?
Love always, mom xoxo (Oct. 8th)
P.S. PLEASE EAT!!!!"

A secret caller who doesn't have the courage to say who they are? Must be Billie. Can't say I blame him after I ended the phone conversation with him last week.

The message must have been written yesterday since today's the ninth.

You stared down at the mess of posties you've made, hoping you might have passed Billie's name by accident in case he actually did call and tell your mother his apologies for the family loss. After countless minutes of searching, you found nothing that concerned him.

You felt abandoned from him. Even your friends called to see if you were okay, but how is it that your own boyfriend couldn't even call to check up on you? He says he loves you, so wouldn't he care? Unless the secret caller was him. No one else would call and hang up other than maybe Jamie...

After cleaning your little mess of posties all over the table, you decided to go outside for fresh air since the whole houses presence was making you feel suffocated and sad from all the old memories.

The outside air blew on your face. From your prospective, it was actually a beautiful day. The sun was shining, there were absolutely no clouds in the sky, and the breeze that kept coming on and off was nice and cool. It was the perfect weather for a morning in mid-October.

Your thoughts about the beautiful weather changed as you saw a police line blocking your garage door. Seems like six days later they would wrap up the case and clean up the tape, but maybe no one has been around to clean up the mystery. It hit you on how important this crime was to everybody, not just you.

As you stepped closer to the police tape, you noticed there was a slight opening at the side of the tape for you to enter the garage. Even though you probably weren't supposed to, you took your chances and entered anyway.

The only light inside was the light from the outside, which was enough light anyway.
The rope still hung there, swaying side to side from the wind hitting it. Even though he wasn't hanging there, you could still remember how he looked. Even if he wasn't there, you could still see him.

The feeling of wanting to cry overwhelmed you as you had no one to help you get over this.
A single tear fell from your eyelid as you felt like you were re-living that whole day, from the date at the movie theater till finding Kyle dead in the garage.

"God, why?" you whispered. Since there wasn't anyone to help you through this, God was the first person who came to mind who might actually care. "Why did you take him from me?" you felt your eyes begin to water as you awaited an answer that was probably never going to come.

Then, as if on Que, you heard the engine of a car pull into your driveway. At first, you didn't know who it was until a pair of familiar blue eyes looked upon you. It was Tre.

"Nikki, I heard what happened. I'm so sorry," he spoke as he went through the opening of the police tape to embrace you in a secure, protected hug.

You didn't say anything. Instead, you let the tears that were wanting to come out for days flow out.

"Shhh, it's okay, Im here," he hushed. Feeling his breath on your neck made you feel calm and a little bit of love coming from him.

The good feelings his warm hug was giving you, made you never want to let go. The vibes he was sending you, made it feel like he really cared about you.

After endless minutes of silence and hugging, you decided to speak, "How could he do this?" your voice was high from the crying but still easy to understand.

He didn't say anything. Instead he looked at you, pulling his body away from yours but still continuing to hold you. He gently placed his palm on your cheek as he whipped away your stranded tears with his thumb, looking right into your eyes.

"I don't know. But it's not your fault. Don't hurt yourself over this," he said as he didn't take his eyes off yours once.

Silence took over as you remained in the same spot, looking deeply into each others eyes as if he was trying to relax you with his gaze. You felt so good in his arms as he put you in another hug. You didn't know what you were feeling at that point, but it felt good and frightening at the same time.

"Nikki, lets go somewhere. I think you need to spend a few hours away from the house," he said after the long decade of peaceful silence.

You lifted your head up from his shoulder to look at him. With a little nod, you started to un-tangle yourself from his arms.

He weakly smiled, "Alright, we'll go somewhere for lunch," he said. You knew he just wanted to take you out for lunch because he noticed your massive weight loss that probably had him in awe when he first saw you that day.

Even though you were feeling sick just from the thought of food, you slowly nodded your head. You didn't want to waste your last bit of energy on a pointless protest.

He took your hand and slowly walked to his car as If he didn't want to break you, like you were the most fragile thing he's ever seen. You couldn't blame him, you did look so different from the last time he saw you, only six days ago.