Birthday Girl

Never thought I would have the privilege to have a birthday party again. Especially after everything with Carl and mum. 

Dad said that if I had wanted to I could hold a small get-together for my friends and anyone else that I would want to come and celebrate my birthday with me. At first, I was skeptical about who to ask because friends wise I only have Kyle and nobody else. I didn't want to invite mom because she would be bringing Carl along with her and I wanted him as far away from me as was physically possible. 

After thinking it over and debating it in my head with myself, like a crazy person yes, I decided that I would invite everyone close to me that knows and helped me with everything before dad came home because ever since the war hero was back everyone wanted to suddenly become my friend. After all, my dad was a hero. I didn't want any one of those fakes at my party and if it ended up only being the four of us then so be it. At least I will hopefully have a wonderful time and enjoy my birthday for the first time in twelve years. 

I finally decided that it would only be me, Alex, my dad, and Kyle if he would be willing to show up because we haven't spoken since the night I slept at his place and he made his confession thinking I was asleep.  Alex I knew would be game to come as she would anyways be here helping me with my schoolwork I had missed while in the hospital and away from school. She was the first person to volunteer when I asked for help right after waking up in the hospital, wanting to help even before it was made public that my dad, the war hero, was back home and that I would be staying with him as of now. 

The first few days back at school were the worst days of my life. In the past, I had wanted to remain invisible and had managed to do so but now that the news was public I tried to be invisible but unfortunately didn't exactly succeed in that. Everyone now knew about Carl and what he had done and the constant sympathetic looks and words were starting to get to me and make me mad. 

They were all "sorry they didn't notice and help me get away from him" or they understood what I was going through" or "It will be fine in the long run". I just wanted to scream so that everyone could hear me that I didn't need their sympathy and that it was not going to be fine for a while and that it is okay that it is not going to be fine for a while. 

With it being prom I thought it would be mean of me to scream this so I smiled and walked away as soon as someone wanted or had started talking about me, or to me about Carl. So far it had been working and it seems that everyone was getting the message that I did not want to talk about it. There were also a few other more important stories coming to life so the coverage of mine would soon die down and then I would be able to return to my invisible ways and just get through this last year of school before I can be free from this. 

Everyone was being asked to go to prom in the most outrageous ways as if the next person wanted to top the last person. Some of them were romantic and funny and others were just plain gross. Not that I cared because I wasn't planning on going for various reasons. One of them was that I was still fully covered in bruises and hiding them would not be an easy option. I knew that hiding them would be futile because everyone knows but I was so used to having to hide them that it seems to happen naturally.

Another reason was that I did not exactly have someone to go with and I definitely wasn't going alone to be a wallflower for the whole evening.   Alex wasn't going because she was studying and I didn't know about Kyle as we are still not on speaking terms. 

As I was walking home from school I kept getting the feeling that I was being watched and followed but couldn't see anything suspicious when I looked over my shoulder. I started increasing my speed and pace so I could get home and maybe have this feeling go away. I was about a block away from my house when I saw that the same car that I saw at school and every time I looked over my shoulder was still behind me. Scared I kept looking behind me every few steps I took to be sure if the car was indeed following me or if it was just a fiction of my imagination. 

Looking behind me again I saw that the car had stopped and that a man had gotten out of the passenger seat and was starting to walk toward me.  Scared out of my mind I started running the last bit home wanting to get there and safely inside to lock the door before the man behind me could reach me. I was three or four houses away from home when I was looking back too long and didn't notice the higher piece of the walkway. I fell down to the ground hitting my head and scraping my knees as I went down. 

I started feeling lightheaded and when I remembered the man chasing after me I tried getting up but my left ankle was swollen and I couldn't place any weight on it. Crawling home wasn't an option because of my scraped knees and walking with this ankle wouldn't be easy even though it was such a small distance. Thinking again about the man chasing after me gave me the willpower to get to the tree and pull myself up enough to begin slowly limping home on the one good ankle I still had to use.  

Seeing our home come into view made me happy because it means that I only had a little way to go still but seeing my dad home made me even happier.