Chapter Four

[2 days later]

Rayne woke up annoyed. It was Sunday. A demon in church. Not a good place for her. But, she still “had” to go because Amy's parents were f*****g a******s. She was a bit excited about it cause it’d take care of several hours that stood between her and visiting Shadow to get ice cream and dinner. She rolled herself out of bed, grabbed her phone off the charger and threw it on the bed once she saw no one texted her. She yawned and stretched as she looked around the room for what she wanted to wear. Jeans and a hippie T-shirt. Perfect. After pulling on her clothes and grabbing her phone, she decided to get on her laptop. She grabbed it from the kitchen where Amy's parents made her keep it because they didn’t trust her with it behind closed doors. ‘Heh. Smart.’ she thought as a devious smile formed across her face. She signed onto AIM, and MSN. She couldn’t sign onto Yahoo cause it was being a b***h. On AIM, she saw her friend Rob was on. She decided to IM him until she had to leave in 2 hours. Her yellow eyes closed as she realized the time for leaving was drawing closer. ‘F**k’ She thought. ‘It’s also Mother’s Day. Oh, I’ll go wish mom a happy one before I leave.’ Once the clock struck 7:45 AM, it was time for her to take her leave. She said good-bye to her friend, told her mother happy mother’s day, and went on her way. That morning, she hadn’t eaten breakfast. Her youth pastor was supposed to have breakfast. Guess what, he didn’t. The second the words “Oh, I’m not doing that every week.” left his lips, the rage began to grow and she knew it was going to be a bad day. After a slow day of texting Shadow and her new friend Britt, everything began to crumble. She was listening to one of her calming songs- I’m Alive by Disturbed- when she got a text that made Amy cry. An ex boyfriend clearly stated, “I’m seeing someone now.” The moment she read that, she could feel her and Amy instantly drift apart. Their heart had become 2, once again. Half of it was crumbling rapidly, the other was still a solid half--Until he said WHO he was dating. She read it, and her heart began to crumble as well. Their heart became one again. To Rayne’s surprise, she couldn’t stop herself from crying. She was in her youth pastor’s office. With her little brother sitting there on the computer. And she cried. She cried in front of him. ‘What the f**k?’ she thought. ‘I haven’t cried in front of anyone in 12 years!’ She tried to hide them the best she could. She tried wiping them away as fast as possible. It somewhat worked, he didn’t notice. She quickly texted the only person she felt she could trust- Shadow. She explained the whole situation for him. Told him she was needy and insecure today which both already knew was fully abnormal for her. She knew what he did to most of the girl’s that were like that and asked him if he could “please” handle it for one day. As the tears started to flow more and more frequently, he said he would be able to.

Church finally ended. Her chance to go home had come. She made her way down the seemingly long hall to the door and somehow, despite her footsteps seemed like they weighed a ton, made her way to the car. She watched her father drive away as she unlocked the door and set her stuff down. Looking up, she stared out the windshield for a minute. Clutching her cell phone, she got back out of the car and walked back into her youth pastor’s office. “Can I just hang out here for a bit?” she asked him.
“Of course you can” was the reply. “But I probably won’t be here much longer.”
“That’s fine.” She walked over to the understuffed sofa and sat down trying not to cry for the third time today. She curled into a ball as was Amy’s custom when she was comforting herself. Rayne wondered how she could have gotten caught up in Amy's guy. But, she did. Masochist. Dog-like. Loveable. Outgoing. Sweet. How could anyone NOT fall for a guy like that? After pondering for half an hour, she thought that since she was stable enough not to cry any minute, she could make it home.

Lying on Amy's parent’s bed, she stared at the TV. The shows were on, but, they were only a distraction. Rayne stayed in the background as Amy tried to explain to him that she’d freed her. Amy had told him once before and he believed her. Why didn’t he now? F**k bad memories. You forget the important s**t like this. She remembered the conversation the first time. Someone close to him had just been discharged from the hospital.

Him: Pray for him alright?
Him: If you're still religious at any kind. I've never prayed this much.
Amy: I'm not. My demon has taken over. Plus, prayer goes the opposite for me. you don't WANT me to pray for him.

Rayne sighed. This conversation was NOT going well and it was upsetting Amy even more. Finally after she told him she couldn’t convince him and to forget she said anything, he just signed off. ‘Nice.’ Rayne thought. What amused her is that Amy typed it, too. Amy sighed. “Why’re boys so hard on the emotions?” She wasn’t asking anyone in particular, but, Rayne answered her, anyway.
“Because you let them get to you. I can’t talk much at the moment. Shadow’s leaving in a few months and it’s going to tear me to pieces. Course, if I told him that, he’d deem me as ‘insecure’ and ‘needy’ and I don’t want that.”
“Yeah…but, still….it doesn’t affect you like it does me…why is that?”
“Because you’re human.” At that, Amy let Rayne take over again. She felt like ripping open her own chest and ripping her heart out and throwing it against the wall. Feeling never did anyone any good. Not that it mattered. She couldn’t de-humanize herself like Shadow did. She felt even more than Ranji did. She wasn’t the weakest demon but she wasn’t the strongest, either. She couldn’t take much more.