Toxic Lips [l.h]

s e v e n t y f o u r

'I won't give up on us, 

Even if the skies get rough. 

I'm giving you all my love, 

I'm still looking up.'

-----

I race home, my thoughts running wild. Something fell out of the journal? What?

Perth traffic doesn't cease as I rush home, honking about fifty times. It's past ten by now, and all slight comfort I felt earlier from going to the soccer presentation has vanished. It's hard to believe Elise and I saw Calum at the soccer presentation only a few hourse ago-- time seemed to crawl by slowly as I read the journal.

I take the steps two at a time up to the apartment, bursting into the living room where my mother and Elise sre. They look at me like I'm a mad woman, which I probably am, but I'm too pumped with adrenaline to care. 

"Something, something out of the journal--" I begin to speak, trying to catch my breath through the combination of exertion and the tiny sliver of hope that this thing Elise found is the sign I was previously wishing for.

Elise nods, standing and handing me a stack of paper maybe half an inch thich. It looks wrinkled and damages, and it's folded multiple times. 

I hold the journal in one hand and the papers in the other, whirling around and going into my room and shutting the door behind me.

I sit on my bed, pushing hair out of my face and looking at the paper. 

"Please let this be the sign," I breath as I slowly unfold the wrinkled papers.

My eyes trail over the inked words and my heart drops to my feet.

I can see that the words were once written clearly, but they're smudged beyond belief. I can barely make out my name at the top, Luke's neat handwriting blurred. It looks like it was once wet, and now it's dried. But it's completely illegible.

The water on the pages doesn't look normal, though. It's hundreds of little splashes all over the paper, blending the ink together. Tear drops. 

"No, no, no," I mutter, flipping over the page and scanning the back to find it only gets worse, the same with the following pages. "No!"

I stumble off my bed, walking back into the living room. The two look over at me, confusion on their faces. 

"It's ruined," I say, tears rolling down my cheeks. "It got wet."

"How did it get wet?" My mother asks.

"It looks like tear drops," I say. "No!" I yell, my vision blurring with tears. "This could have been the sign!"

"Sign?"

"The--the sign--"

I lose all feeling in my body as I lean against the table in the hall. I break down, my protective walls that I've managed to scrape together tumbling down. The last shred of hope I had evaporated in the air as my mother rushes toward me to support me as I crumble down. Dizziness smears before my vision and the only sound I hear is my blood rushing and the loud thumping of my heart.

These past months, I can tell the people around me have been waiting for me to crack. The way Elise would watch me warily, or my mother would look at me sympathetically. 

And now, I've finslly cracked.

"Come and sit on the couch, Allie," Elise says as she and my mother move me to the living room, sitting me down as I put my head in my hands, the tears never stopping. My body trembles and I feel like dying.