Angeline's POV

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It was so peaceful here, so blissfully peaceful.

Death truly is the most darkest dark and the most silent silence, even living you could feel a sort of white noise in the back of your mind, but death? Death was nothingness, death was erasing. I felt no pain, no worries, no fear, and no happiness. I was nothing.

No white light shone in the distance and no burning gates stood open for me. Death was nothing like that. Death was peaceful.

But then I heard a voice, I don’t know what it saying but I just wanted it to leave me alone.

“-Vitals are irregular, but we have a steady heartbeat.”

I feel annoyed, I don’t want to wake up. I just want to stay in this quiet slumber forever.

Let me be.

Let me die.

Don’t save me.

It’s so peaceful here.

I opened my eyes for a split second and immediately rolled them to the back of my head, surrounding me I see bright strobing lights of red and blue and the blurred faces of people standing above me.

But it’s not long before I feel the heaviness of sleep lulling me under again.

I wake up again in a hospital bed. It took me a while to get my bearings and realize where I really was. My throat was so parched and dry, I would give anything for some ice cold water right now. Beside me, I see my father’s sleeping form, his head rested on my bedside and he sat in one of those uncomfortable hospital chairs. I gently laid a hand on the top of his head, I could see from the red puffiness surrounding his swollen eyes that he’d been crying. Even in his sleep the creases on his forehead gave way to a restless sleep.

He didn’t deserve this, he didn’t deserve this stress I was putting him through. I’m a horrible daughter.

When my father feels me shifting through the abundance of wires, he woke up with a start up.

“What happened?” I asked him.

“You no… remember?”

I shook my head, I can hardly remember what the last thing I did was. I remember waking up in the morning, making my dad his coffee, going to school, leaving school, but I don’t remember making it home. Did I make it home?

I don’t know why I’m on this bed, but the image of Keenan’s terrified and crying face won’t leave my mind. I don’t know why my subconscious would conjure up a false memory, but I swear I can hear his voice, deep, desperate, and guttural, calling for me to stay with him.

He has something to do with why I am here, I feel it.

“They-they,“ my father began to say, his voice strained and cracking, “they say you died. You die for eight minutes. They say you had asthma attack and that you lose your inhaler. You never lose your inhaler Angel, what happened?”

“No I-I did have it. It was my in my pocket where I always keep it. I don’t remember losing it.”

“So dey are lying? Are dey lying? I knew it! Dey are hiding something, I knew it!”

“Who?”

“There was another person, a boy, he come rolling in the hospital after you. I hear the nurses say they find him unconscious next to you. Why was he there? What were you guys doing?”

Why is it so hard to remember? Concentrating hard, I retrace my steps of that day and slowly, very slowly as the dread in my gut began to grow, and the heart monitor became erratic, it started coming back to me in pieces.

Tanner taking my inhaler for my hand, that’s why I don’t have it. Keenan caught me before I could get on the bus, that’s why I never made it home. Then lastly, me dropping to my knees, my lungs, chest, and throat on fire before passing out, and that’s why I’m on this hospital bed.

Before I knew it, I was crying again, I wish they didn’t come back, these are memories I could do without. This will stay with me for the rest of my life.

My father takes me into his arms, and we stay embracing for a solid hour, just crying to each others arms.

Finally he lets go to face me, “it’s OK mija, we never going back. You never have to see them again.”

“What?”

“We leaving. I already packed the car. We never ever come back again.”

“Really?“ Part of me was confused, part of me was relieved, and the bigger part of me felt like this was too good to be true.

“Yes, we leave when you’re better.“ He told me and hugged me tight, for a second I decided to believe him, we owned almost nothing, it’s totally possible that the car is packed right now in our beaten down truck.

“Why don’t you tell me?“

“Tell you what?“

“It was him wasn’t it? It was him who did that to your face.“ He said pointing to my eye, he was referring to the day I came home with a blackeye after slapping Keenan. I was speechless. My father is connecting the dots after all. “He been bothering you wasn’t he? He broke the window of the police car, it was him wasn’t it? And make you take the blame right? ¿por qué no me dijiste? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I know! I’m sorry! I was scared! Scared of him! I didn’t want him to do anything to you!”

My dad shook his head, first in sorrow and anger, “Voy a matar a ese cabron y a su maldita familia.”

“They’re not worth it dad, everyone here works for them, they’ll just get what they want, they always do.”

He shook his head again, “no podemos dejar que se salimenten con esto.”

He tells me that we can’t let them get away with this, “ but can’t you see? They already have. Let’s just forget about them. Sólo quiero salir de este lugar.”

After a long pause he reluctantly he nodded his head, “por favor descanse mija, cuanto más rápido te mejores, más rápido podemos irnos,” (please rest, the faster you get better, the faster we can leave.”

Nodding, I lay back down.

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I spent another week in the hospital before I was cleared to go home.

Driving out of Chambers I realized the only thing, one person I would miss, and that was Jean, she was my best friend. I never had a best friend. I just wish we met later in life, I feel like we could have had a better chance to be even greater friends if I was normal and had nothing holding me back. She did more for me than I deserved and I would give anything to say goodbye and thank her one last time.

We didn’t drive for very long, but I’m glad that it was at least out of Chambers, that’s really all I ask for.

“We almost there.” My dad called out from the driver's seat. I sit up and look around confused, this new town was nice and as equally spacious as Chambers, surrounded by vast greenery and woods, easy to get lost in. That’s the thing about these towns, they were all so spaced ridiculously apart that if you ran out of gas out here you’d automatically be screwed. Finally, I do start to see some civilization coming up ahead.

“Dad, what is this town called?”

“Redmond.”

Redmond reminded me a lot of Chambers, if we hadn’t been driving for an hour and a half I would’ve thought we never left.

“Dad why are we stopping?”

“Because we here.”

Scouting my new neighborhood, I come to the conclusion that my dad must be mistaken, this neighborhood was too nice for us to be living here. “Dad are you sure you got the right directions?”

“Yes, we here.”

I stare at the house in front of me in surprise, our house was… well an actual house. After living in shady apartments and trailer homes my whole life, I can’t believe we finally have a house! It was small, a simple one story house with just two bedrooms. But it had a yard! And a driveway! Wow!

Even the neighborhood was quiet, clean, and tranquil.

It took us not even three hours to get our stuff situated, although we had no furniture or beds, we made do with air mattresses and chairs.

After, we went to the nearest grocery store to shop, and just like in Chambers, people stared. But at least their stares seemed a lot less hostile though, they looked more curious than anything.

“Angeline, grab anything you need for school.”

I froze, “what?”

“I’m going to register you for school tomorrow.”

I knew this day would come, but I didn’t think it’d come so soon. I thought he’d let me stay home at least another week, but I guess I missed enough school as it is. At this point I’m probably going to have to repeat the entire 12th grade again.

I don’t want to go through all of this again, trying and failing to make friends, pretending to have an interest in what anyone has to say, pretending I fit in, pretending I relate to their struggles. I don’t want to do it again, so you know what?

I’m not going to. I’m going to finish the last semester of my senior year just doing school work and not speaking to anyone. I’ll even pretend I’m mute if I have to.

The drive to have lots of friends and create a memorable senior experience is now null and void. It’s almost comical to remember how hopeful and naïve I was just a couple months ago. Before them, before him, I was so stupid, so optimistic, so desperate I had no idea what and how much misery was truly in store for me. No idea.

Not this time though, this time I won’t try, this time I won’t even care.

If I could survive what he put me through, I could survive through anything