Chapter 36

                                    

                                          
Sarah 
Looking down at my phone at the good morning beautiful text. 
You had kept to your word about giving me space except for that one prom incident when you wanted to make sure that I was okay. 
Thinking about how I told you later that night about what had happened, that I broke up with Brayden. 
Something that you always knew was going to happen. 
I could tell by the look on your face, the jealousy etched into your eyes each time I had brought him up. 
Which is why I wasn't the least bit shocked by your response that you were not upset that the paint boy was gone. Chuckling at your name for him. 
Not once had you ever told me that I should stop seeing him. You had allowed me to live my life how it was which only made me love you even more. 
Pushing down your feelings for me, ignoring your basic drilled in instinct to take what you want when you wanted it, to allow me to be happy. 
We both knew the truth. 
My heart belonged to you. 
Even when I tried to reclaim that beating muscle it never wavered. 
In another life Brayden and I could have been happy, maybe even lasted into college and had a life together.
A nice normal life. 
My parents would have approved, my best friend too. 
Imagining that. 
Amaras as my maid of honor, handing her the bouquet of flowers, smiling at my parents in the first row as I turn back to my groom. 
Dark eyes. A crooked grin. 
Even when I tried to imagine someone else, you always seemed to be the person there.
 Everytime. 
Thinking about the proposition you had given. 
To give this a real chance. 
You and me. 
Trying to figure out how that might work, especially since Amara and Brayden are going to want to spend as much time with me over the summer before they leave for college. 
That and getting my parents ok with me going out by myself. 
When I first came home they didn't even want me leaving the house, which in a way was understandable. Now, since so much time has passed and nothing has happened to me they might be a little bit more lenient to the idea of me getting out. 
I am a legal adult, technically I didn't fully need their approval but that was something that I would like to have. I definitely do not want to worry them but I know that they will anyway. 
That's the job of a parent, to worry about their kids. 
Only my case makes that worry so much worse. They will always have that thought in the back of their minds of if i'm going to go missing again. Only this time I won't come back. 
Of course I know that I won't have to worry about you taking me again. 
Then again that doesn't mean that someone else can't kidnap me. 
Just like my parents, I have the same thoughts. 
I got kidnapped once, what's to stop that from happening again. 
My picture had been flashed all over the news, my story of coming back. I had become famous, who's to say that some random sicko handt picked up a newspaper off the street and became obsessed. Thinking that they could actually finish the job or just intrigued enough to want to know why I had even survived. Some crack up nut that's an alien conspiracist that wants to lock me away because I had been taken and probed or some nonsense.  
That was always going to be a possibility. It's scary thinking about how easy it is to snatch someone up. All it really takes is the want to do it. Getting away with it takes patience and planning. 
Two traits that you have. 
Although I have an inkling that if someone else were to grab me, you would find me before the police. Actually there was no doubt in my mind that you would be the person to save me. 
I used to think about getting saved from you and now I'm thinking about you saving me. 
That's what you always said that you had done, with all the stories that you had told. 
Turning my mind back over to right here and now. 
High School is over. 
High School is over. 
Having to say it twice because it didn't sound real.  
My last day was yesterday, not like I actually went. 
Another skip day friends. 
Today is my graduation. 
My stomach is in an angry flutter. 
As if the butterflies want to escape but they are trapped by the walls of my stomach, some of them falling down into the acid and dying which only seemed to cause more panic. 
This was it. 
 Once I walk across that stage it will be official. 
Turning my head. 
The sun has barely come out, the sky is still plenty dark. 
Looking at my phone seeing that it was barely six in the morning. 
Technically I didn't need to be up for a couple of hours. Yet there was no way that I was going to get back to sleep. 
Looking over at the sky blue dress hanging in my vanity mirror. With its sweetheart neckline and fitted top with its slightly flowy mid thigh skirt. Straps that tied up into tiny bows atop the shoulders. 
A pretty dress even though no one will see it until after whenever everyone will unzip or slip off their graduation gowns.  
This was an event to dress up for, after all. I will only ever graduate highschool once. 
Pushing away the covers as I scoot out of bed going over to the window. 
Still able to see a few stars barely shining, unable to tell which ones they were exactly. 
The thought crossed my mind that they were huge balls of gas that were so powerful that they could be seen over such a large distance. Yet to us they were so small. 
Beautiful, powerful, bright. 
Of course so many stories have been written about them throughout history.
They were a compass, ancient gods, a scientific lesson, something to make a wish upon and have hope.
Some people even bought stars. Purchased specific ones just so they could have a certificate and could name them. 
There were so many of them out there. 
So many that were not a part of the main constellations and asterisms that everyone knew. The ones that could easily be noticed and picked out because of their shape and brightness. Stars that could have stories connected to them as well. Ones that have been lost with the people who made them up. 
Just like with people. 
There were the ones who were so famous that everyone knew them and then there were the ones that weren't so bright or close. Ones that were there but overlooked. 
Only a handful of people actually notice them, appreciate them. 
Smiling down at my phone as I read your words over again. 
Sometimes it was nice to be noticed. 
Maybe it isn't so much that I didn't know what would make me happy and more along the lines of I just was not allowing myself to acknowledge what those things were. 
The stars made me happy. 
Being outside, seeing the world and not being trapped in by walls. 
Taking pictures. 
My parents. 
Amara. 
Brayden. 
You. 
Having my drivers license even though I didn't even have a car. Knowing that I had that freedom, to drive where I wanted as long as I had a car of course. I could always rent one. Or borrow one of my parents' cars. 
Thinking about just taking one of them right now and going for a drive. 
To think, to show myself that I could, to remind myself that my world is bigger than just this house. That I am allowed to go out and experience the world, to see so much more than just the little bits that I already have. 
That would make me really happy. 
Eventually my parents are going to have to accept the fact that I am going to go out into the world on my own because that is going to happen.
At first I thought that college was going to be my answer to getting out of here. A perfect excuse to leave my house that my parents would have had to be ok with. 
Maybe the truth was that I wasn't ready. 
Too many changes all at once. 
That was one that I could control. 
To push school off and give myself a bit of breather. 
To not have to worry about having things figured out just yet or making sure that all of the paperwork was in order or the travel plans. 
Dad was right when he said that college will always be there. 
Right now what I need is time.