Chapter 5 5

I flopped on my bed when I got home and wondered how I was going to move on. Our motto came into my head and I felt like I could be falling but I wasn't sure how I could rise if I was falling so far.

When I woke up at noon the next day, I wandered around our apartment thinking about changing around my room. We had moved into the small apartment when my mom got her job in the city when I turned twelve. My dad had left when I was born and my grandparents had helped raise me until we moved two hours away to the city. The apartment was modern and I liked my room when I moved in. I painted it the brightest blue I could find and I had a black, gold, and circular rug that had little white bunnies hopping around the edges on the white maple wood floor. I had begged my mom for it because it was unique and I felt like it was special; like it was one of a kind. My bed had a big black headboard and comfortable blue bedding with multicolored stars on it. I had a lot of posters of the bands and singers I liked on the sky-blue walls. My mom joked that I was addicted to music when I was little and I had a ton of CDs that took over an entire bookcase that stood next to my desk. It seemed like an allusion to the fact that I didn't read much. I hated school, but wasn't completely stupid. I got passable grades, B's mostly, and like most other kids, managed to put in the least amount of effort that I could that still kept my mom happy.

I decided that day that I had to paint my room. For some reason, I felt like the only way for me to feel comfortable would be if my surroundings matched how I felt inside. I left the apartment with a couple hundred bucks in my pocket and came back with everything I needed to change my room. I took down all my posters and painted the wall behind my bed bright red and the other three pitch black. I also got silky black sheets and got rid of my pink curtains to replace them with heavy black velvet ones that I drew over my tall, arched window. I even bought red Christmas lights that I strung over my curtain rod. Everything pink or blue got put away and my room was finally as dark as I felt. When my mom came home from work, I had music playing and I was lying listlessly on my bed looking at the glow-in-the-dark stars that were left on my ceiling. My music played loudly with the bass filling me up almost like it was keeping me from feeling dead. I had an odd satisfaction at how dark my room was and I clung to that to prevent my thoughts from circling back to all I had lost.

"Oh great! You changed your room into a cave." My mom said with sarcasm as the light from the hallway flooded into my dark room and she poked her head in.

"Yeah," I mumbled, trying to focus on the beauty of the stars and not the harsh light and unfavorable noise that she brought into my newfound refuge.

"Hey, Athena." Ariel greeted me somberly as I arrived at Nate's house. It had been a week since school ended and as I met West and Ariel on the sidewalk outside Nate's house, I could feel the oppressive heat of the summer sun.

"Hey, guys." I answered, gloomily. We had each brought our empty backpacks because we each had belongings that were still in Nate's room. His mom had invited us over to help her clean out his room. Nate's siblings had already gone through and taken some things, but most of it was still there and his mother started to cry as she led us to the door. She was a frail woman and looked thinner than I remembered, but I couldn't tell. Her forlorn blue eyes ringed with dark circles and premature wrinkles seemed to stare through us as if she didn't recognize us and she lingered by the door wringing her bony hands. She seemed like she wasn't comfortable with us going into the room like she didn't really want us to remove Nate's stuff, but knowing Nate's angry father and selfish sisters, I guessed they were making her empty his room so they could use it.

I had to brace myself before stepping through the doorway, but it turned out to be good closure to go through Nate's things despite the three of us breaking down to tears every few minutes. Ariel and I took a few sweatshirts and things that we couldn't throw out and West found a few games he lent Nate. We sorted everything into boxes. Most of it was supposed to go to Goodwill and West took stuff that he thought Ethan would want to keep. It was hard when we found Nate's sketchbooks. We didn't want to give them to just one of us so we decided to keep them with our black book, the one we used for our graffiti. "Are you going to come visit ever?" A small voice surprised us. It was Nate's ten-year-old brother, and the sight of his blue eyes reminded so poignantly of Nate that I had to focus on not crying. He wore one of me

Nate's old t-shirts and had a black eye. He was a thin boy and the only one of Nate's siblings that Nate got along with. He looked as broken as the rest of us and his lips pursed when he glanced at the boxes on the stripped bed.

"I don't know, Owen." West answered with pain in his voice as he had to turn away from those eyes. Ariel and I looked down at the last box we were packing to avoid being saddened by the look of his innocent eyes.

"It's hard to be here." Ariel explained to him hesitantly. "You could play Super smash with me..." His voice was high with both hope and tears. I could see a tear fall down West's face and he cleared his throat huskily as he faced away and fought his break down. "Please?" Owen squeaked with his big blue eyes going to me. Ariel was looking down into a box with her hands braced on either side and I looked down at Owen. I felt so bad for him and so reluctant to go back to the house. His parents would never allow us to be around Owen- not after what happened. I could tell he didn't understand why we wouldn't be welcome. He was only eight; we were twice his age.

"I don't think your parents would let us." I told him softly, seeing his lips pucker as he held back his emotions.

"I won't get to see you again?" he seemed to ask. His eyes were breaking my heart along with his striking resemblance to his lost brother. "Maybe we'll see you again." I told him sincerely.

"I'm going to miss you!" He cried as he ran over and threw his skinny arms around me. I hugged him back feeling guilty about not wanting to see the boy who reminded me too much of my dead boyfriend. I didn't want anything to do with his parents and only wished there was something I could do to protect Owen from his violent father and toxic older sisters. He was sobbing into my shirt that he clutched in his small hands. I hadn't realized how attached he'd grown to me. I was the one who convinced Nate and West it was fine if his brother wanted to join us playing video games. He often bothered us at bad times and Nate used to get annoyed and have him leave, but I always felt bad. He just wanted a friend...

"I'm so sorry, Owen. Maybe we'll see each other again." I told him as I bent down to look into his eyes and he reluctantly let go of me with tears streaming down his face and his bony chest heaving with his sobs. "You have to take care of yourself and stay strong. I know you can do it." I had a hard time pulling my lips into a sad smile and was swallowing my tears stubbornly. "I'll miss you too." I had a hard time coming up with the right thing to say and I rubbed his shoulders trying to comfort him, but it didn't seem to do any good.

"Goodbye, Owen." I said, as I bent down to give Owen a hug before following the others out of the house. I heard Nate's father shouting at his mother as we left, so I never said good bye to her or Nate's nasty older sisters.