Dead Bones

This is a real life event. Names have been changed.

She walked like a zombie. Everyone was waiting for her eyes to roll to the back of her head and for her to start babbling about brains.  She drifted down the hallways aimlessly, with her half lidded eyes and greasy mop of hair. No one particularly noticed her anymore, she was so far gone no one even knew her real name. All she had become, all she ever would be was Dead Bones.

            She’d been ravaged of everything, you could tell by the way she lurked, see it in her haunted eyes.  Everyone was terrified of her; they didn’t know what to do with her. Poor Mrs. Scheele, the counselor, was especially shaken. She’d never seen anyone like Dead Bones; she’d never met anyone she couldn’t fix. Mrs. Scheele would watch her from around the corners, her sick little body slunk down the hall, her weak arms clutching her lime green notebook. She hadn’t said a word in so long, no one was sure she even had a voice.

            It’s hard to say when or why exactly she became this lifeless lump of existence. All anyone really knows is that it did happen and no one cared enough to investigate. So of course no one noticed as the bags under her eyes darkened, or the way her pallid skin started to shine sickeningly in the short bursts of sunlight it saw. The life had flickered out of her eyes and she couldn’t bring herself to care about school or much of anything at all. She’d sit at her table, barely nibbling at her disgusting lettuce sandwich and stare out at nothing.  Her lips were a cracked, flaky, bloody mess. She just couldn’t stop chewing and scraping and gnawing. I think she hoped one day she would devour herself completely, that way she wouldn’t be there for everyone to not notice. It seemed like her heart had to beat double time, just to keep her willingly dying body from totally collapsing in on itself. Maybe it is possible to die of a broken heart.       

            She could barely hold her head up on her own; she always had it tilted to the left. From time to time she’d let it fall and you wouldn’t see her face for hours, teachers never bothered to shoo her along to her next class. The only attention she ever reaped was the hushed whispers as she slumped on down the way. Even then their little brains couldn’t fully comprehend her, she was a mystery, a buried case, and no one wanted to get their pretty little fingers dirty. The deeper she sunk, the more invisible she became.

 

 

She didn’t exist.

           

I saw her once in the library, standing in the middle of the glass wall with her head tilted up. She swayed slightly, I assumed from her utter lack of strength. She had her hopeless eyes closed and her mouth was moving. Like she was supposed to be saying something, but nothing was coming out. It was all just silence. The way the sun lit up her skin made you think that she might have been beautiful once. When she finally opened her eyes, she leaned forward and put her hands on the window. Her wide eyes peered out like something was waiting to save her. She slid down to her knees, there wasn’t anything and she knew it. The hope crippled her. The general air about her made me sick to my stomach; ‘gone’ didn’t taste so good.

            She turned her ghost face towards me, our eyes locked. And just for a moment I saw her. The girl she used to be, the one buried too deep and too terrified and weak to claw herself to the surface. It only lasted a fraction of a second, but the moment had existed. I took a deep breath, and she just kept staring. My ribs tightened around my lungs, those eyes could devour you. One side of her open jacket slid down her fragile shoulder, she kept swaying, the pattern probably felt familiar and she liked that. Familiarity had lost all meaning to her long ago.

The dinging of the bell cut through our silence cruelly and she slowly backed away then turned and treaded on her way. I think that day changed my life; I couldn’t stop watching her after that. It was at lunch I saw her next, she slumped in that chair like it was her life support. Her head was thrown back and her arms hung limply. Her chest rose and fell dramatically, like it was a chore just to breathe. Months and months went by; she sunk deeper and deeper into the hole she’d dug. She wasn’t dying, she was already dead. They didn’t see a person, they saw a problem. Something they need not worry their pretty little heads with.

 

Then it happened.

 

It was the first time anyone had acknowledged her in so long, she didn’t notice them staring at her. The snap of that damn cell phone went right to her brittle bones and shook her with such force she nearly fell. The tormented sob that racked her body froze our blood. She clawed at her face, trying to make the tears stop, to make it all just stop. No one knew what to do, we were too afraid to look her in the eyes, to touch her.

 

All except one.

 

 

She didn’t bother to check who she was letting herself be taken up by, she just latched on and didn’t let go. He had to lean against the pillar behind him because she was shaking so violently. She beat her tiny fists into his shoulders, He couldn’t leave her, he couldn’t leave her, he couldn’t leave her. At the sound of her voice the hair on the back of our necks stood up and goose bumps covered our skin. He never let go though, he let her scream at him and wipe her snot and tears all over his shirt. Quietly taking her futile abuse, when finally she collapsed into him still sobbing and shaking he kept a solemn face and only held her tighter. Then as suddenly as her convulsions had begun, she stopped. Time and space must have frozen with her, no one breathed for a moment. She just let him hold her up, blinking away her left over tears.

When we could all breathe again and function properly it was like nothing had ever happened. We all went back to not knowing who she was, who she had been. We went back to our blissful ignorance, but he stayed there with her like it was what he was born to do. She pulled at his shirt and watched everyone ignore them.

After that, everything was different. He sat with her at lunch and escorted her through the halls. He’d make her stand straight, and open her eyes all the way. He wouldn’t take his eyes off of her, and he never let his hand stray from her back for very long. He’d always talk to her like she was normal, and he never seemed to mind that she looked at him like he was crazy. As I sat at my own table, not particularly caught up in my own uneventful life I saw probably the moment he got through. The second he found Dead Bones, he peered straight into her eyes.

“Where does it hurt?” He asked quietly, tucking a stray lock behind her ear. She didn’t reply it wasn’t like he expected one. But after a moment she pressed her shaking hands to her chest. He just looked at her some more then went back to his lunch. I think he knew right then that he had to be the one. The one that wasn’t afraid to look at her and talk to her, the one that could touch her without cringing, the one that saved her. And little by little she became okay, small things like brushing her hair or washing her face were like swimming the Atlantic to her. Sometimes she’d even smile, like when he’d walk through the door in the mornings or when he’d hug her.

And then, just like that, just like she’d been thrown head first into that black abyss, she was fine. She sat cross legged on a table, munching on a donut with her eyes glued to a book in her lap. Hair perfectly pulled back into a ponytail, a nice clean face and all the subtle scabs on her arms that he pretended not to notice faded into her skin. He slipped in, dropping his back pack into a chair and kissing her temple.

 

“Hi, Kaine,” She smirked, wiping icing off her face.

 

Not a day went by that we didn’t see them together. She smiled so big, the sun glared off her teeth, and no one seemed to mind how obnoxious she’d become. I think they liked being reminded that she was alive, that she made it. It made it seem like they could survive all that they were going through or would go through. Now you can hear her laughing as she walks down the halls, the smile rarely slipping from her face. She didn’t need his help to stand up anymore, but she liked taking his hand just so she knew he was there. He wasn’t leaving or fading.  He was right there with her, making sure she was alright, and that she stayed that way. He had proven in every way that he was not a boy, he was a man.

A gloriously beautiful person who demanded nothing of her, he merely asked to be included in her life. She granted him this happily.  Along with his inclusion she also bestowed upon him her heart, now beating fervently and vibrant with life. She placed it gently in his hands; pleading with her large eyes to please, please not shatter it. He took it just as carefully, promising with great sincerity that he would never dream of ever crushing such a precious gift. He tucked it away, keeping it safe and sound. She bounced around with her new found life, tugging his hands, pulling him with her.

You could hardly tell she was the same girl who could barely speak six months ago. Every bit of her had changed. Her look, her attitude, the way she spoke, the people she hung out with, right down to her loopy handwriting. She was completely new; she had even gained some weight back, now a resounding ninety four pounds, as opposed to a measly eighty five. She had sort of a healthy glow to her, life just begging to burst from her skin. She was no longer the Undead, struggling to keep breath in her lungs; she was a part of the Living.

 But He had been lurking in the shadows, he who had destroyed her. The one who had taken everything from her, killed her. And when he finally presented himself, she put her hands on her hips, looked him dead in the eyes and said “Go.” He looked at her with such desperation, “Please…please…” he pleaded, clasping his hands together and making his voice sickly sweet. But she held her ground, telling him to take his drugs, and drama, and possessiveness and obsessions and just go.

After a month of arguing with her, demanding she take him back, he finally went. Cursing and whining all the while. She pressed her hands over her ears and squeezed her eyes shut, “He’s gone, he’s gone, he’s gone…” She repeated over and over until he was out of sight, out of mind.

Author's Note

Please review :)

Reviews

[K-LeB Deathman]

Lordy, there isn't anything I don't like about this story. It so vivid in my head, I see everything happening to Dead Bones, and I hear your voice in my head reading it aloud and its just so F*CKING MAGNIFICENT!

[Anaya]

This was really good. I liked that when I read it that I could see, in my mind, what exactly what was going on.
It was organized, well writen and over all really good.
Nice Job.