Wrists Intact

“Are you okay?” I can’t say that the owner of this voice was the person I’d been hoping to come down into my room. In fact, they were the one person I’d been praying wouldn’t come down. You see, the whole mind reading thing really complicates things.

“I’m fine.” I said. Pete didn’t look convinced. I was having a very difficult time trying to think of butterflies.

“Ryan said you had a dream.” Pete said, sitting down on my bed, making it even harder for me to concentrate on the butterflies.

“Yup.” I said. Butterflies could have purple wings, and blue wings, and maybe even red-blue wings. Pete was giving me a really strange look. I can’t say that I blamed him.

“What was it about?” Wow this kid was not about to give up was he?

“I resent being called a kid.” Pete said with a smile. Crap, I had thought that? Damn I suck at life.

“A few people would agree with you.” Pete said. I glared at him and threw my pillow at him.

“Stop it get out of my head!” I said. He laughed and threw the pillow back at me. I ducked and it hit the wall.

“So what was your dream about?” He asked again. Butterflies can fly; they can fly really high, really really high. I wonder how high they can fly. Probably higher than I ever thought that they could.

“Why in the world are you thinking about butterflies?” Pete asked, sounding frustrated with me. I smiled.

“I like butterflies.” I said. I didn’t know if it was true or not and I hoped that he didn’t know the truth.

“You like butterflies?” Pete asked. I nodded and that’s all it took to send him into a fit of laughter. I personally didn’t see what was so funny about it.

“I never thought I’d see the day.” Pete said once he finally calmed down. I ignored him and continued thinking about butterflies. Pete was silent for a while until he finally sighed loudly and left. Apparently he didn’t hear anything that he wanted to.

Just in case he was just on the other side of my door trying to listen to my thoughts, I continued to think about butterflies for at least another hour. By then, there was no way that I could deny being hungry. My stomach was threatening to eat me and the rest of the world.

I went upstairs to the kitchen and found Ryan, Patrick, Brendon and Joe all standing there, talking. By the way they all went silent when I entered the room I knew who they had been talking about.

I didn’t say anything and walked over to the fridge. I found an apple and decided to eat that instead of making something, which would involve standing in the kitchen with these guys in this very awkward silence.

“So you finally emerged from your cave?” Joe asked with a grin. I nodded, wishing that they would leave me alone.

“And I’m about to return to it now.” I said. I started to leave but then I suddenly felt the urge to stay and talk to everyone. I shook my head, trying to rid myself of the feeling. It didn’t work. That’s when I caught Patrick looking at Ryan suspiciously. Was this what Ryan’s power was? Messing around with my emotions? If it was then I was going to kill him.

“Who are you going to kill?” Pete asked as he walked into the kitchen. I glared at him and refused to answer. The feeling still didn’t disappear.

I stood in the doorway of the kitchen, trying as hard as I could to fight off the feeling. Finally it just seemed to disappear and I left as quickly as I could. So maybe Ryan had been trying to get me to tell him about my dream before, with his power I mean, if this was his power. All of this was making my head hurt.

So Pete could read minds, Ryan could possibly control emotions, so what could Brendon and Spencer do? I really did not like this whole power thing.

I sat down on my bed and glanced up at the tiny window just below the ceiling. For a brief second I debated on climbing through it but I quickly discarded that thought. I was too short to reach it, if only I was a bit taller.

*******

The next day I forced myself to be social. I still wasn’t sure if I could trust everyone but none of them had hurt me yet, so I figured that I was safe. So that’s why I was currently sitting on the couch next to Ryan, who was reading the newspaper. Pete and Andy were sitting in chairs, having a conversation about who knows what. Needless to say, I was extremely bored.

Ryan put down the newspaper and then proceeded to just stare straight ahead. For some reason I found this hilarious and had to work very hard to keep from laughing. Pete smiled at me and then I got mad at him, through my thoughts of course.

I decided that I’d read the newspaper, hoping that something in it would bring back some memories. I didn’t have to read very far into it. The photograph on the front page was enough.

“Oh my God!” I jumped to my feet, still holding the newspaper. Ryan, Pete and Andy stared at me in surprised.

“What’s wrong?” Ryan asked immediately. I didn’t answer him. I was shaking and felt extremely cold.

“Where’s Devin?” I asked. None of them answered me.

“Where’s Devin?” I repeated my panic showing through in my voice. This time someone finally answered me.

“Upstairs, why, what’s wrong?” Andy asked. I didn’t answer; instead I bolted towards the stairs. And then ran into Patrick, who was coming down the stairs.

“Whoa, Izzye, what’s wrong?” Patrick asked. I didn’t answer him and instead ran past him. Luckily Devin was just at the top of the stairs.

“What is it Izzye?” Devin asked, seeing the panicked look on my face. I didn’t answer, instead I held up the newspaper. Immediately all the colour drained from his face.
“Oh God.” He said in a voice that was barely above a whisper. Against my will my eyes filled with tears and Devin hugged me.

“What are we going to do?” I asked. Devin didn’t answer right away.
“He won’t find you, he won’t.” He said finally. Neither of us believed it though. We both knew how he worked.

“What’s wrong?” Pete had come up the stairs and was staring at us. Devin tried to answer but he couldn’t get the words out. Knowing that I wouldn’t be able to say what happened, I thought it instead, figuring that Pete would get it then. He did.

“Oh fuck.” He whispered. He didn’t know what to say but I’d come to expect that. People never knew what to say when they found out about him. About what he did.

Andy, Ryan and Patrick came up the stairs then and Pete whispered something to Ryan. Ryan nodded and in seconds I was asleep.