Spirit

Chapter 8: Gone.
The police came to my house before my parents did. They instructed me to stay home for two weeks if my stalker doesn’t come back in contact with me or if they catch her. I couldn’t put any sort of restraining order against her because I had no idea who she was. That sickened me.
Lawren decided to skip those two weeks of school to stay with me. His parents didn’t mind. They were close friends to our family and Mrs. Shaw would hate it if anything happened to me. My parents approved of Lawren staying with me but my father seemed a tad bit reluctant but since it was for the sake of my safety, he had to approve.
Lawren and I laid in on my bed until midnight. We both couldn’t go to sleep.
“What if she catches me?” I asked, breaking the silence.
He looked over at me, appalled. “She won’t ever touch you and she will never catch you, you hear me?”
“Lawren, I’m scared,” I whispered.
“Don’t be. Go to sleep and everything will be fine.”
I wasn’t so sure if going to sleep will make everything fine. It would only make it worse. But I decided to try because I just wanted this day to be over. For time to pass and for the police to catch her.
I slowly drifted to sleep and the pictures started from the beginning like the normal routine.

“Natalia, wake up,” Lawren whispered. “You were having a bad dream… and your sweating like crazy.”
“Ugh. That’s embarrassing,” I croaked.
“What was it about?”
“What was what about?”
“Your dream. What happened?”
I fell silent. I couldn’t tell him what they were actually about so I decided to lie. “A ghost was chasing me.” That was the first thing that popped into my mind since the things in the pictures closely resembled a ghost.
He chuckled. “A ghost? Have you been watching scary movies?”
“Yeah,” I lied again. I didn’t like lying to Lawren at all. It made my stomach ache with guilt.
“Are you hungry?” he asked.
“Let me take a shower first. I feel gross.” I hoped out of bed and grabbed my clothes from my drawer and went to the bathroom.
When I was finished, Lawren was already downstairs making the French toast.
“Smells good,” I chirped and wrapped my arm around his waist.
“You smell even better,” he said and smelled my wet hair. I giggled and my face turned red.
“Do you need any help?”
“Can you mix the eggs for me?” He pointed to a bowl with four eggs in it with his chin.
When we were finished cooking and eating our breakfast, Lawren and I went upstairs.
“I need to go to the bathroom,” he said.
“You shouldn’t have eaten all of that French toast and eggs,” I said and smiled.
“Well, someone had to eat them. God gave us food and we cant waste it.” Lawren’s family was very religious.
“Okay, go, go, go,” I said shooing him into my bathroom. I laughed and shook my head. Suddenly, I felt like I had to go to the bathroom too.
“Lawren, you should hurry up,” I called. I walked over to my window to let in some fresh air, afraid Lawren might stink up my room. As I pushed open my windows, something caught my eye. I was too afraid to look down, so I looked from the corner of my eye. I gasped. It wasn’t the food I ate that made my stomach flip out, it was a force. I started to hyperventilate. I tried to scream Lawren’s name but nothing came out but little squawks. Tears started to fall from my eyes. I tried to hold my self up by holding onto my table, but instead of holding onto it, I knocked everything off the table.
“Natalia?” Lawren said, panic in his voice. H ran over to me and caught me before I fell over. “Natalia, what’s wrong?”
I opened my mouth but still, nothing came out but squawks. I pointed to my window and I finally was able to say, “she’s… here.”
Lawren’s eyes widened. He set me down on my bed and ran over to my window. He looked around. I waited for him to say something while I cried. “She’s gone.” He whispered.
“Oh!” I gasped and clutched my head. I stood up from my bed and walked out of my room. I leaned on the hallway wall and slid down. The last thing I heard before I slipped into unconsciousness was Lawren dialing the police.

I bolted upright and hit my head on something hard.
“Ow,” Lawren said, rubbing his forehead.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. My voice was coarse and my head was spinning and not because my head collided with Lawren’s.
“It’s okay,” he murmured. “You’ve been sleeping for quite a while.”
“What time is it?” I asked and closed my eyes.
“Eight o’clock.”
“Is she awake?” my mom called, running up the stairs.
“Yeah,” Lawren called.
My mom, dad, and brother busted into my room. My mom took me in her arms.
“Are you okay?” she asked, my face in her hands.
“I-I don’t know. I have a headache.”
“They’ll catch her,” my dad said. He sounded confident as Lawren had when he told me that.
“How do you know that?” I whispered and looked down, pulled my face away from my mothers hands.
“The police decided to guard the house, this is all over the news, searches for this women is going on…. They are going to catch her.”
Somehow I knew that wouldn’t happen.
“Mrs. Wellington?” Someone called from downstairs. His voice was deep.
“Up here Officer Krenlinberg. She’s awake.”
An officer entered my room, he had a thick mustache on his upper lip, he was wearing the regular blue jumpsuit and he was loaded with all of the things a policeman might have. The muscles in his arm made the sleeves of his shirt tight. The way he looked made me a bit less stressed out and it gave me a feeling that just maybe I would be safe and they would catch her. But I didn’t want to get my hopes up.
“Natalia, we found this outside of your house.” Officer Krenlinberg dug in his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. “We’re assuming it refers to you. Do you you what this is?” He gave me the manila colored paper. There was writing on it. Lawren didn’t seem interested in it, so I guessed he already read it. It said:
We know what you are. You aren’t alone.
I froze. I was utterly engrossed in the note, reading it over and over again.
“Natalia?” Lawren whispered.
“Natalia, do you understand this?” Officer Krenlinberg asked.
I had to lie once again. “No. No I don’t.” I gave the note back to the officer. I looked at Lawren and it was evident in his expression that he didn’t believe that. I looked at my parents and it looked like that’s what they wanted me to say.
“Alright,” officer Krenlinberg sighed. “I guess the trail is cold. Natalia, there’s another officer outside, officer Hadzi. We’ll be guarding your house and we’ll make sure your safe. She will not come anywhere near your house or you.”
“Like I didn’t hear that before,” I mumbled to myself so no one else could hear.
When my parents and officer Krenlinberg exited my room. Lawren was still looking at me with the same expression.
“I’m going to go back to sleep,” I sighed.
“You know what that note is.” His face was hard and his eyes were as cold as ice.
“N-No I don’t.”
“Natalia, don’t lie to me,” he hissed through his teeth.
“I’m not. I’m going to sleep.” I laid my head back down on his neck.
“Natalia, what is up with you? You haven’t been honest with me, you’ve been keeping things from me, you haven’t been telling me whats wrong…”
“I’m not doing any of those things,” I lied.
“And now your lying to me! You’ve never lied to me before and now that we’re together, you’ve been this person I don’t even know. I just… I don’t know you anymore.”
“What are you saying?” I was angry now and I looked him straight in the eye.
“I’m saying that I’m tired of this. We’ve been together for only a couple of days and already, we’re having these problems. How am I supposed to know that this is going to work out between us if we don’t have honesty or trust? We had those when we were just friends and I want it back.”
“What do you want back, Lawren? The honest and trust or being… just friends?” My voice came down to a whisper.
He looked down. His eyes were still cold as ice, but his face was somewhat relaxed. “Neither…”
I couldn’t understand what he was saying. It felt like my heart sank down to my stomach and shattered into millions of little pieces. I opened my mouth but my throat was dry and I couldn’t say anything. “Why?” I squeaked. “When we were little, you promised me that we’d be best friends forever.”
“It’s obvious things arent working out with us when we’re like this. I know it’s so soon, but I don’t think I can do this. Sometimes promises can‘t be kept.”
Tears started to blur my vision. “Lawren, don’t do this.”
“You know this isn’t working out either, Natalia. We tired this and it isn’t working out. I’d like to tell you that I still want to be friends with you but-”
“Lawren! Please!” I sobbed, cutting him off because I knew what he was going to say. I could cope with us not being together, but I couldn’t cope with us not talking to each other and not being friends at all.
“I can’t be friends with you. Not now at least,” he continued.
The tear got too heavy for my eyelash to hang onto and it fell, sliding down along my cheek. The tear was hot like fire. I wanted to wipe it from my face, but I couldn’t find my arms.
“Goodbye, Natalia.” He pushed me off of his lap and stood up.
“Lawren, don’t do this. Please!” I croaked and crawled on my bed and threw my arms around his neck, hanging on tight to him.
“Natalia! I cant do this!” He said, raising his voice and loosening my grip. I wouldn’t let him.
“Give me one more chance, Lawren,” I sobbed into his neck. “I’ve waited so long for you,” I whispered.
“Natalia, will you just stop? Just stop! I don’t want to be with you and I don’t want to be friends with you! I just need to think!” This time, he successfully loosened my grip only because I fell weak. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I sat back down on my bed and shut my eyes tightly.
“Goodbye, Natalia,” he whispered once more.
I opened my eyes and he was gone.