Before, After & In-between

Chapter 25 - After

"You're not going?" Leah cries, "as in not going to St. Mary's, as in not living with me, as in you've been lying to me the entire summer!"

The rain picks up now, soaking over each of us. Leah is hysterical, and rightfully so. I would expect nothing less, and I deserve nothing more than the anger she throws at me. I don't move or speak as she paces the sidewalk, shaking her head, hands bawled into tight fists. It's Darrin who has me more concerned. Darrin who stands frozen in stature, like he's seen a ghost. His creamy skin paler than usual, the rain drops pooling on the tips of his hair, falling onto his face. He stares and me and the betrayal written in his deep brown eyes stabs me in the heart.

"I don't understand," Leah says stopping mid pace, "I know that it's been hard, with your mom being gone...but" she wipes the rain from her eyes, "I thought this would help, I thought this would be good for you...doing what you love, what she wanted for you..." she shakes her head, "I mean come on this is everything she ever wanted for you Katy!"

"Don't!" I shriek, "don't you dare tell me what she wanted me for me, I am well aware, and I am—"

"Then please help me understand!"

But I can't help her understand something she couldn't possibly fathom? She hasn't lost someone, something, the thing.

"That's just it Leah, you'll never understand."

"But I would," Darrin says somberly, walking toward me, "you know I would, yet you still chose not to tell me or I don't know didn't want to tell me..."

"Darrin it's not like that," all cylinders in my body fire in panic, one after another my heart clammers behind my ribcage, "I didn't choose anything, I wanted to tell you, I wanted to tell everyone, but I couldn't," I say faintly.

"But I've been here Katy," he says disappointed, his eyes welling slightly, "when you told me you couldn't run, I understood," he says with unease, "you're panic attacks, I understood."

I flinch at every truth he's revealing blindly in front of Leah.

"Every day I've been with you, supporting you, and I just, I just wish you could have trusted me with this."

"You can't run?" Leah tilts her head, "panic attacks...I am so lost."

The temporary relief I had from saying it all out loud dissipates with each passing second. They don't get it, no one gets it, no one... no one no one no one. This is why I lied, why I couldn't tell them. My walls go back up, pushing me deep deep down. The piece of me that felt free all these months retreats, she's locked back up aching to be in control but I'm not in control. There is no calmness in my bones, there is no sense of peace. My feelings and thoughts are bursting at the seams, seams that have been slowly wearing, slowly fraying for too long that there is no putting them back together.

"You just don't get it!" I stand up, turning on Leah, "No I can't run Leah, and I haven't run since the day my mom died because I was running when she died and I can't even breathe when I think about it and yes I've been lying to you, to Darrin, to my family...to myself because this is everything I've always wanted and she wanted and I can't have it now I can't have it anymore I can't run and I can't—" I gasp.

My head spins dizzily as I push past her walking back up the walkway to the school blinded with tears. I don't know how to survive this part. The crumble, the fall back and I am certainly not strong enough to take this on right now.

"Katy don't walk away, lets talk this through," Darrin pleads.

"There's nothing to talk through Darrin," I stop and look at them, "it's over, don't you see? Everything is over."