Goodnight

Chapter 4

I remember the moment I found out Lena liked girls - it was back when I was kind of normal, a year before I was taken away.

The sun was beginning to darken from behind the floral curtains in my kitchen and the clock's numbers had turned to seven, yet Lena still wasn't home. Instead of sitting at the counter staring at my English homework that I couldn't read, I began to worry.

My leg kicked against the chair and I gazed expectantly at the front door, trying to listen for any movement outside the house. All I heard were the swaying of tree branches against each other, and the heavy wind that whirled around outside.

But before I could even pick up the phone to call her, the door busted open, and Lena's laughter immediately filled the small house. My shoulders instantly deflated in relief.

"Lena, why are you home so late?" I asked her, watching her set her books down on the counter beside me. Her long-time friend Tania stumbled in behind her, their cheeks both flushed and laughter still erupting from both of them.

"Hi, Ethan," Tania smiled at me, her large brown eyes squinted.

Tania had always been such a great friend to Lena, ever since they met at the mere age of six. Although my parents had never been too fond of Tania because she had dark skin, I didn't find anything wrong with her. In fact, I found that she was very beautiful, and looked very mature for her age. She shared many similar, sharp facial features with Lena which made them both strikingly gorgeous. Tania was very tall and slim, with high cheekbones, arched eyebrows and tight black curls falling to her shoulders, at only fourteen years old.

Lena ignored my previous question and leaned over my shoulder, staring down at my writing and smacking her gum. "Eth," she said. "You spelled almost every word wrong."

Before I could answer, she cut me off again.

"Mom and dad aren't home, right?" she asked, a sudden thread of worry prominent in her tone.

I looked up at her, tapping the end of my pencil against the misspelled words I had written. "No, they won't be home 'til later."

Lena shared a glance with Tania before biting her lip in contemplation. "T and I will be upstairs. Don't come in, okay?" she asked, and I furrowed my eyebrows. "I'm serious, Ethan," she stressed, "don't."

I nodded, sighing. "Okay, why are you being so weird about it?"

She just looked at me before turning away. "Yell up the stairs when you see mom and dad pull in, please."

I watched them as they both walked up the stairs hesitantly, and I couldn't have been more confused. I wondered if they were doing drugs up there or something, but I figured it wasn't really my place to scold her or ask her about that.

Darkness was beginning to engulf the entire room, so I flicked the table lamp on to see my homework better, not that it mattered. I couldn't exactly do it anyway.

I even tried reading the paragraph out loud, hoping that would help make sense of what I was attempting to read so I could summarize it for this fucking schoolwork. "...I keep picturing all... all.. these, little kids playing some game in this big field of... rye? and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - Yeah, I can't do it," I concluded, shaking my head. "I can't read this."

I began to feel an overwhelming frustration with the closeness of the words in the paragraph, and the way the letters floated on the page and switched around. How could anybody read it? My head was throbbing, holding a dull pain that spread throughout my temples - a familiar pain I felt whenever I tried to do my homework. I took my glasses off and set them aside, rubbing my eyes and groaning under my breath.