Promise Me The Stars

Forest sat on the floor of his bedroom staring at the door. He was contemplating going downstairs to eat or not, for the two days after he had nearly drowned himself he had kept himself locked away in his room. Doing anything to get his mind off Shadow and the little fact that he was around in the real world more then ever now. He wasn't exactly real, but Forest could see him all the time in the terrain of his world. Shadow was currently sitting on the dresser swinging his legs as he watched Forest intently through wide unblinking eyes that Forest could feel burning through his skull.

"Hungry?" Shadow broke the tense silence with the one word that made Forest's stomach churn in anticipation.

"No," Forest stated back, not taking his eyes off the door as he tried to ignore the pains in his torso.

"Yes you are, you're borderline starving by now." Shadow smirked and watched as Forest popped another pill from the bottle next to him. He shoved it into his mouth and chewed it up, too focused on his hunger pains to think of the foul taste that coated his tongue. He swallowed hard and wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand all while staring at the wooden door, never looking away from that lightly colored door in fear that it would disappear and he would be stuck in a small room with Shadow for the rest of their existence.

"So what are you doing now Forest? Enlighten me will you? You show weakness to darling daddy, feel bad about it, then go on and turn yourself into a recluse in hopes that it'll make things go back to normal? You're fucking stupid you know that?" Shadow spat and let out a laugh.

Forest ignored Shadow and tried not to show that his words were getting to him, but they were and he really wanted to just chug his whole bottle of pills down. They would bring him into a nice little sleep that would be Shadow free.

"You know no one's going to forget that. Maybe you're one of those bi-polar kids or somethin'. Bet that's what was wrong with your Mama too..." Shadow didn't finish his rant because Forest was jumping up and lunging for the dresser.

Of course Shadow wasn't there and Forest fell against the wood, his gaze fixing on Shadow in the mirror.

"You can get as pissed as you want at me Forest, you can't hurt me." Shadow smirked and stuck his tongue out like he was a child teasing his sibling.

"I can get rid of you. Not right this second but I can eventually get rid of you Shadow." Forest seethed at him as his words played in his mind about his mother. No one talked about his mother, whether they be in his mind or not.

Shadow scoffed and folded his arms over one another, "Oh? And how will you pull that off? With those measly pills?" Shadow asked motioning to the orange pill bottle that sat on the hardwood flooring, sticking out like a beacon with it's bright orange plastic.

Forest looked back at them and shook his head, "No, not with those pills...I don't know what i'll do but i'll get rid of you!" He vowed to his reflection that wasn't him.

"Good luck with that kiddo, i'll never leave." Shadow cackled and Forest turned to face the room instead of the mirror.

He screamed in frustration and went over to the door, roughly unlocking it and slamming it open. He stomped into the hall and rushed down the stairs towards the backyard where he had heard everyone earlier.

Everyone stopped dead in their tracks when they noticed the angry teen barge through the door and stop on the concrete patio, looking out at the ocean view that they had from the backyard.

"Forest?" Hazel asked quietly, ecstatic that her brother was finally out of his room but confused on why he looked so mad.

They stood there gazing at the boy as he scowled at the air with his arms folded. The air turned tense and no one dared to breath wrong in the fear that he would freak out and start yelling profanities at people.

"I'm hungry." he finally stated following his nose and looking over at the grill where burgers and hot dogs were sizzling over the fire.

"Well these are almost done..." Matt stated uncertainly as he watched Forest.

"Then i'll wait." he stated unfolding his arms long enough to head for a lawn chair just to the right of him in the sunshine.

"What are you guys doing anyway?" He asked leaning his head back against the back of the chair. His anger had subsided as he felt the pill he had chewed up flowing it's venom through his veins. He sighed and wished he had a pair of sunglasses to cover his eyes with.

"Partying, what are you doing?" Jimmy asked, being the only one to speak up.

"Got hungry so I came downstairs. Right now i'm sitting in a chair." Forest said looking over at Jimmy.

"Would have never guessed." Jimmy said. A hint of a smile showed on Forest's mouth and he looked over at Matt who was flipping the burgers on the grill.

"Forest," The boy looked up and let his gaze fall on his sister, "I'm glad you're finally out of your room." she smiled at him and then turned back to talk to Zacky about something or other.

"Yeah yeah," He waved his hand to dismiss Hazel's comment and then sat there looking out at the sunset until the food was done.



The table was filled with chatter unlike the dinner Forest had attended two days ago. Jimmy was pestering Johnny, the other guys didn't say much about it so it must have been a normal interaction between the two. Brian and Matt were talking about who could beat the other arm wrestling and a battle was being scheduled for after dinner. Then there was Zacky and Hazel, they sat there talking and laughing, Zacky was telling stories about when he was together with their mother and Hazel listened as if it was the most facinating thing in the world.

Forest didn't care much for the stories and he didn't want to hear them so he finished his food quickly and tried to leave the kitchen without someone noticing him slipping out of the room. The only drawback of that plan was that everyone was being overly cautious with him and he could feel six pairs of eyeballs on him the moment his foot crossed over the threshold of the room.

"Where ya off to now Forest?" Matt asked as the babbling died down and the room fell silent.

Forest turned ever so slightly and looked at Matt, "Video games." He stated shortly and turned to leave the room, not caring that all the eyes bore down on him.

Forest wasn't lying when he said he was going to play video games. He didn't want to go back to his room and be alone with Shadow and video games would be the perfect distraction to that dilemma. So he strode towards the game room with his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his straight leg jeans that were more black then blue.

As he walked the air conditioning that ran throughout the entire house kicked on and a strong burst of cold air hit him in the face. He remembered when he was outside earlier and didn't notice it being hot at all. But then again he wasn't one to notice the weather and it wasn't one of those things he resorted to when a conversation was going south. He sighed and dodged around the strong stream of air, being annoyed by the cold air invading his clothing and skin, and yanked the door of the game room open.

It looked like someone had been in it earlier and forgotten about it because the Xbox was on but the disk tray was left open like they had been about to put a disk in. He walked over and looked down at the setup, looking for the game that would have been played if the gamer hadn't been called away. He didn't see anything and shrugged it off, grabbing Grand Theft Auto off the shelf of games and placing it in. He grabbed a controller and settled into a beanbag that was in front of the couch, sighing as he got ready to take out his frustration on the stupid pedestrians that got in front of his car.



"Hey,"

The voice startled Forest so bad his controller went flying and his eyes grew wide. He looked over at Matt standing in the doorway as he attempted to take a deep breath and calm his erratic heartbeat. Matt came into the room farther as Forest ignored him and picked up the neglected game controller and went back to his game.

"Sorry I scared you." Matt chuckled and sat down on the couch.

"Where's everyone else?" Forest asked not looking up from his video game.

"Jimmy and Johnny are threatening each other in the living room while Brian sulks about me winning at arm wrestling, and Zacky and Hazel are still sharing stories about your mother." Matt cleared his throat at the end and it sounded like he was uncomfortable with mentioning his mother in front of him.

"Did you know her?" Forest asked as he ran over a fat woman and she went flipping over the car. Forest smiled lightly, imagining it was Shadow, although he looked nothing like a fat woman.

"You could say that." Matt said.

"You liked her didn't you?"

"What?" Matt asked, his voice a few notches higher then his normal voice.

Forest smirked, busted. "You liked her, you knew her and liked her but Zacky got to her first or something."

"It's complicated Forest." Matt, his voice normal, said trying to defend himself.

"That's just what people say when they don't want to seem like a bad person."

"Who told you that?" Matt asked.

Forest paused the game and looked at Matt for the added effect, "My mother."

Matt's eyes bore down into Forest's and they held a contradiction of emotions.

"Your mother told you that?"

"She did, and she never said anything was complicated, she explained everything no matter what it was, or if it made her look like a bad person. Even if we didn't want to hear it, if it was something bad, she still told us because she knew that we needed to know these things."

"Did she," Matt looked away from Forest and Forest turned back to play his game, "Did she ever say anything about your father?"

"Sure, told us he didn't need us interfering with his life. That he was some rich guy or something. I used to get so mad at him and I had no idea who he was. There we were, barely making it even though mom had two jobs. And he was out there somewhere making more money then I'd ever see in my life. It got even worse once I started needed the medication, and then I guess a lot was going for mom's treatments..." Forest trailed off thinking about all the challenges he'd gone through growing up.

"Treatments?" Matt questioned.

"The social worker never told Zacky how she died?" Forest responded to the question with another question.

"I don't think so. Zacky said it was an accident or something I think, we've never really talked about it." Matt explained as he watched Forest begin to turn off the video games.

He stood and placed the controller on top of the console and then faced Matt. Matt was sitting on the red couch so when Forest stood up he was taller then Matt and looking down at the large man with an unreadable expression on his face.

"My mom had cancer Matt."