Cold Fire [SAMPLE]

[28]

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

He's staring at me. His eyes are sad, his posture's drooping, and he's staring at me.  Slowly, he rubs a hand over his face and sighs. "I think you should rest for a while, okay?"

I frown. "What? No. I'm fine. You need to listen to me."

"You look tired. Did you get a lot of sleep last night?"

"No, I mean, yes. But that's not the point. The point is I'm not your daughter."

His eyes fill with pity. "Go back to bed, Melissa. You aren't thinking straight."

I groan. "Why aren't you listening to me?! You have to believe me. I can't – I can't keep lying to you. The guilt – I can't... You have to believe me!"

"Come on, let's get you back to your room." He places a hand on the small of my back, ignoring my words entirely, and tries to lead me out of the room, but I step out of his reach.

"No! You need to understand – I have to tell you this! I'm not tired or in shock or anything! I'm just trying to tell you the truth! Why can't you believe me?!"

The pity in his eyes fills me with anger. "There's nothing to believe. You are my daughter, Melissa."

It's like my world has turned upside down. I'm no longer living in a world where no one knows the truth – I'm elsewhere, where everyone knows the truth but no one believes it. I'm in a parallel universe where I'm halfway to solving my problems, but stuck in an eternal fight with those around me. No matter how much I shout and plead, no one believes a word I say – not Rand, not Caden, and definitely not my father.

Once again, a tear rolls onto my cheek. Why do I even bother? I have all the answers to everyone's questions but they're trapped in my mind, floating around uselessly, haunting my dreams because they have nothing better to do. If no one wants to hear what I have to say, why do I still bother speaking?

I look down at the floor, all my emotions sneaking up on me at once. Suddenly, I feel the fear of not swapping back, the guilt of the car crash, the annoyance of not being believed and the massing tide of grief that swamps me every time I think of my mother. It's all there, pounding out its own beat alongside my heart, so loud that my heart starts to crack.

"I can't do this," I whisper more to myself than my dad standing a few feet away.

My eyes flick upwards, meeting my father's saddened gaze, before I break out into sobs and rush out of the room. It's like my brain isn't even in control of my body anymore. Without thinking about it, I'm half running-half tumbling down the stairs with tears streaming down my face. My feet take me forward, pulling me to the front door where I latch a hand onto the doorknob and burst out into the snow, leaving behind the eerie silence only to enter a colourless void.

For a second, I just stand at the front door, noticing the drifting snowflakes. But, inevitably, thinking about the snow leads me back to the reason for its existence, and I move forward with a fresh batch of tears as the guilt takes over. I've barely taken two steps from the front door when I collapse to the ground, digging my hands into the snow. But yet another wave of pain rolls over me when I don't feel anything – no cold, no nothing.

With my heart screaming, I pull my hands out of the snow and stare at them, shaking not from the cold, but from the frantic and panic-stricken emotions running through me. Why can't I feel anything? What is so wrong with me that I can' feel the snow against my skin?

I cry out, falling into the snow and curling into a ball in its midst while my tears continue to flow in heavy streams, mixing with the slowly melting ice beneath my hot and sticky face. The emotions of the past week jump at me, one after the other, until I can no longer tell them a part – until they're all the same thing: sadness. And, after all, that's what it all leads back to, isn't it? The guilt of being responsible for my parent's crash fills me with sorrow. The fear that I might die tomorrow causes me to feel miserable at the life I'm going to miss.