Pretty Faces and Dark Places Read Online Free PDF Page B

when I’d lost my best friend, Sophie’s family decided that ‘burying’ her would be a good idea, for everyone to move on, because Sophie wouldn’t want us to grieve for the rest of our lives , they’d said. Well, they didn’t know crap. I wanted to grieve for the rest of my life. She was my sister. My sister, for Christ’s sake. How could I just let go and forget? How could an empty coffin ease the pain and let me move on? They were delusional.
    Still, I did as my Nana told me. I went there, I stood still, I let my tears fall as I heard everyone saying their goodbyes and whatnot, clutching the rose in my hand for dear life, finding it so hard to just drop it like I was supposed to do. And when I did – I didn’t feel even a tiny bit better.
    That night, after so many pitiful looks and assuring words I didn’t want to hear from people I didn’t want to see, I went home. I found my bed and dropped myself on it facedown and fully dressed. Then I did the thing that had become my routine: I cried myself to sleep.
    I felt hands on my body, soft touches and warm fondles. I gripped the sheets beneath me at the feeling I was having. My bed itself was getting warm from the heat I was feeling, heat that filled my whole body and surrounded us.
    “Andrew,” I whispered his name.
    I felt him. All of him. His lips. His hands. His warm-like-the-sun body. His whispers and his smell. He was on top of me, kissing his way up to my lips, and I smiled into them before kissing him back. He paused and I opened my eyes to see his looking deeply into my own and I had to smile again, but my smile fell as I watched the perfect shade of green turn into red, red, red until it became fire. It was scary, so scary that my heart started pounding in my chest so hard, almost stopping when suddenly, huge black wings spreading out appeared behind him.
    I woke up screaming and sweaty, looking around me at the empty room, searching for any evidence that would tell me that what I had experienced wasn’t just a dream. Because if felt like anything but. It felt so real, so real that it was seriously hard for me to think of it as anything but that – reality.
    That was the first night those dreams started, or better yet – nightmares. Those nights, I missed Sophie more than ever, for I needed her like I could never describe. I would wake up every night and talk to the nothing that surrounded me. Talk to her as if she was listening. I would ask her, ‘Where are you?’ Or plead with her to ‘Come back to me.’ I never got a reply.
    School wasn’t my favorite place on the planet; her empty seat in this class or that was enough to get my tears rolling out of my eyes for the rest of the school day. It earned me looks and hushes, whispered words about the poor girl who’d lost her other half. It drove me insane.
    On the outside, I wore a blank expression, had an emotionless face and only spoke when spoken to. My replies were short and my voice barely ever above a whisper. Everyone knew I was suffering. You’d have to be blind not to see how I was dying day after day and night after night. But even if you were blind you’d know it. Sadness was reeking out of me in strong waves. Hitting everyone within reaching distance. Everyone knew.
    From the inside, I was going crazy. I was a crying, sobbing mess, still. Only hundreds of times more than what people could see. From the inside, I was screaming. At everyone. Including myself. I wanted everyone to leave me alone, to stop talking about me. They didn’t even know me – why would they talk about me? I wanted my mind to stop asking questions and wondering about the everything and the nothing. I wanted my heart to stop longing for her so much. I wanted to let go. Her parents were able to, why couldn’t I? Why?
    From the inside, I was mad more than I was sad. That’s a lot, I might add.
    Home was no better than school; she was there everywhere I looked. Every-freaking-where my eyes would glance, I’d