Shoot Me. #JustWriteIt

*CHAPTER FIVE*

          It was midnight by the time I walked into my house. Tears splattered my face along with a plastered smile.

          "Where do you think she is?" I heard my grandmother say in a concerning tone.

          I heard a sigh, "You remember when she was younger, Margaret," it was quiet, "she ran off a lot then, too. She'll be back soon." my grandfather soothed.

          I rubbed my nose and slid down the door, silently. I thought about the first time I ran out. I had been eleven, a week before school started. I just wanted to leave, run away forever.

          I had been awake all night. Staring at the ceiling, I twisted my fingers in my hair that was now to my shoulder blades. It had been three years. Three years since all hell broke loose and I was stuck with my grandparents for the remaining years of my childhood. I rolled over and stared at the clock. It was two-thirty in the morning and I lay there, still awake. When I rolled back over, my eyes landed on the open window.

          I forgot to close it before I went to bed. The only thought that crept across my mind was to jump. To climb out of that window and run for the hills. So that was my final decision. I slowly crawled out of the warmth of my bed and pulled myself up on the windowsill. As I looked beyond our backyard fence, adrenaline rushed through me. Next thing I know I was sprinting through the backyard and hopping the fence. I kept running and running until my legs were tired; until I couldn't move anymore. When I sat down on the moist dirt covered in leaves, I realized how lost I really was.

           Mentally and physically.

           That's when tears started to pour down my face and I lay down on the cold, hard ground. I fell asleep there and I wondered around the town for two days before someone found me.

           It was a crazy day. The moment the police walked me through my own front door, that seemed so unfamiliar, I lost my breath when I saw the devastation I had brought upon my distant family. Everyone was there.

            And the next week, I left again.

           "Mikayla, sweetie..." she whispered as she slowly walked to me, "oh, come here." She opened her arms to hug me, but I pushed myself deeper into the corner.

           I closed my eyes and sat my head against the closest wall. I pulled myself into a tighter ball and squeezed into this tiny corner by the door.

           Pots and pans clanged together in the kitchen and laughter rumbled through the walls of the house. I must've dozed off, but I hadn't realized I had got up and done something good for myself since I got home. I was standing in my room wearing my favorite pajamas; a white tee shirt and my red plaid shorts that went a little above mid-thigh. I sniffed the crisp air of my bedroom and noticed a draft, the window still remained open from earlier this evening. The laughter settled some right before another uproar began and it sifted through the halls. I slowly walked to the door and peaked my head out.

           I creeped down the walls that now had dozens of pictures of the family covering it, inch by inch a picture frame hung. My eyes skimmed them all, each one placing a memory in my mind. All of the smiling faces. My mother's, my father's, my grandparents', some of my friends. I smiled and when I reached the end of the hall, I was beyond overjoyed.

           My mother and father sat on the couch, so close, practically touching each other in every spot. Inseparable. They smiled and laughed as my grandfather was telling work stories and some of his difficulties with his profession. I did not belive anything my eyes were letting me drown in. I started to get dizzy, thinking about if these people were just hallucinations, and grabbed the doorframe to keep my balance.