The Broken Pieces Left Behind

Chapter 11

The note fluttered to the floor. Suddenly the walls seemed to be closing in around me. There didn't seem to be enough air in the room and I gasped tears spilling from my eyes.  It was all too much so I did the only thing I could think of.

I ran.

My bare feet slapped against the concrete sidewalk, the cool night's air whispering over my skin, but I didn't care about that at that moment nor was I very concerned with the fact that I was running through the streets barely clothed. My heart was racing and my hair was flying all around my face sticking to the moisture on my cheeks. I swiped angrily at the strands that tickled me.

She had gone to him. Sara had gone to Damon. She was with him right now. All her note said was: Damon called. Gone to see him don't worry. Mom

Even after every thing that she'd said to him she had still gone to him. It was odd that it was that one little note that did me in. After the turmoil of emotions I had been through the past couple of days it was that one piece of paper that was the dynamite that had finally broken through the dam. 

My feet carried me to a place I would always run to when things got bad. The park was quiet and cloaked in shadows. It was late so I wasn't surprised that there was no one here. The gazebo stood illuminated in the moonlight in the middle of the park, a screaming white against the darkness of the night. 

I collapsed, my tired feet not able to carry me anymore, in the middle of the structure my chest heaving in pitiful sobs. I buried my face in my hands not caring who heard me or who saw me, but I knew that there was no one here. I just couldn't get my my tears to stop. 

I had thought that things were getting better, I was so sure that when I came home today and found her cooking that she was getting over Damon. He was a jerk anyway and didn't deserve anything to do with her, but she was with him now. 

I rocked back and forth now trembling, with cold or maybe too much emotion, it didn't make much of a difference. I wanted to run further away, hoping that I could outrun everything but it seemed that the faster I ran from the bad things they just kept following me. Like a shadow I couldn't escape, always turning up and reminding me that its there especially on the brightest of days. 

"Becca?" my head snapped to the sound and I let out a gasp. A headache was pulsing behind my temples and vision blurred slightly but I pushed it away.

"Jesus Christ!" I cried standing up to face him when he stepped up into the gazebo and came towards me, "Of course you're here right now?"

"Whoa, Becca what's wrong?" he took my elbow "I saw you running and--"

I yanked my arm away from him and took a few steps away from him "Nothing, absolutely nothing is wrong with me Jack." 

I swiped at the tears staining my cheeks, pushing my fingers through my hair. I hated crying - all it did was make my eyes swollen and give me a headache. I especially hated crying in front of people, it made me feel weak. And I especially hated the feeling that Jack was a person who had seen me falling apart more times than I wanted.

"I'm going to take a wild guess and say that not true, especially since you're crying right now" he approached me cautiously with his arms outstretched, like the way one would approach a spooked animal.

"What do you want Jack?"

"Well, I want to know what's wrong."

"No, I mean what do you want, from me?" His forehead crinkled in confusion "You're always around why?"

"Because we're friends," he says uncertainly.

"Friends," I scoffed shaking my head, everything that I was feeling inside me now exploding, the hurt and confusion but mostly all of my anger and they were directed at him. "No, we are not friends. I don't even like you. The only reason we ever spent any time together at all was because of that stupid report and now that's done so why do you keep hanging around me all the time. You know not everyone has to like you - I sure as hell don't - so you need to stop. Stop being around me all the time, stop coming to where I work or talking to me, because I don't care Jack. I don't care about you, at all. And acting like this makes you seem a little desperate don't you think? So why don't you just do me a favor and leave me the hell alone."