Chapter 6
I walked up the staircase and waved at the people working the cafe while hiding my face as they said ‘Welcome back!’ in their happy tones. I finally got the the apartment but before I could knock on the door it swung open and there was a girl jumping onto me. I fell backwards onto the floor and looked up to see Star hugging me. It felt like there was water on her face that drenching my long-sleeve shirt. She was crying. ‘Where have you been! I was worried! I thought you didn’t want to see me anymore! I thought you left me! I was so scared!’ she started yelling questions at me in mid-cry. All I could do was give her a hug. The words wouldn’t come out but all I remember is that I was only able to think ‘This isn’t a dream’. I stood up and picked her up with me. As we walked inside I closed the door behind me and looked around. Everything was the same as I left it. I looked at her as she walked into our room and asked ‘Aren’t you going to ask where I was?’. She peeked her head out of the room and replied ‘There is plenty of time for that in the morning. Now that you are finally home I want to go to sleep so hurry up and take a shower’. I walked over to the bathroom and stepped into the shower.
As I turned on the shower and started to wash my hair there were suddenly arms that reached around my stomach. Star was in the shower with me. ‘Star what the hell! Why are you in here! How did you get in I locked the door! Why are you fully clothed in the shower!’ I screamed. ‘I missed you and I don’t care about any of that I just don’t want to let go. Tomorrow you should tell me where these scars are from’ she said as she started to cry. Not knowing what to do or if I could say anything I just stood there for the next 20 minutes with the shower running. When she finally got out she got out of the shower and changed clothing in the bedroom using the door in between the bathroom and there as a shield to make me not look. After I finished my shower I walked into the kitchen and drank a glass of water wondering what I should say to her after that and hoping that she would be asleep before I got back into the room.
When I finally walked into the room I laid down on the bed and rolled over to be looking at her. Her face was so peaceful. Although her breathing was quiet, it was loud enough for me to hear as I started to relax. Suddenly I felt her hand slide under my pillow and grab my hand. She smiled and whispered ‘I missed you.’ As I fell asleep the last thing I thought was, ‘I love you, Star.’
I woke up in the morning to the smell of smoke. I jumped out of bed instantly bolting to the door with two things
on my mind, “Where is Star?” and “Is Star okay?” As I swung the door open, I looked to the right into the kitchen
to see a burning pan with a ridiculous amount of smoke coming out of it, and Star freaking out trying to put it out.
As I walked towards the kitchen I slowly poured water into a plastic bowl on the counter then continued to pour it
onto the pan, quickly putting out the fire. She looked at me and gave me a look of sorrow before hugging me and
saying, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!’ half a million times. As I stood there, I looked around just beginning to
comprehend the fact that I somehow, by the purest chance of any ray of luck sent by a God, managed to survive
the last few days and get back to my house to see Star. Tears started rolling down my face, and she started
saying, “I’m sorry about the pan, I will get you a new one I swear!” and then I started laughing. Absolute, pure,
uncontrollable laughter and crying. Little did I know that the event that just happened in front of me would be the
happiest memory I would have for the next three years. After I had finally cooked eggs without burning the house
down and made toast we both sat at the table, and there was an awkward silence for the next couple minutes
before she finally asked the dreaded question, “So, what happened?” I explained everything that I could about
what happened while I was eating, but I noticed she didn’t touch her food at all until I had finished explaining it.
It was fine though. I knew she wouldn’t believe me. After all who would?
I put my head down and started to stand up when there was a sharp pain surging through my right hand.
She reached across the table and grabbed my hand which was still covered with scars, and my nails were still
broken along with all the bones in them. I dropped to the floor and cradled my hand as I rolled into a ball on the
floor with pain shearing through every part of my body. She ran over and took of my shirt and saw all the scars
again. She ran over to the kitchen and pulled out a lot of paper towels and a bottle of alcohol. At this point I
started to black-out and see the factory room again. Suddenly, I was being put on all four. Barely sitting up as
such I was shaking crazily. I heard her cry as I felt one of the scars break open. I dropped to one of my elbows
and all of a sudden a burning flash of pain flooded my back like acid before I realized that she had just poured
the alcohol on my back. I dropped to my stomach groaning from the tearing in my muscles and the moving of
my already broken ribs. She continued to pour the alcohol onto my back constantly using the paper towels to
clean up all the blood getting all over the floor. I slowly drifted off and blacked-out again due to the pain. When I
came to I couldn’t move my body. I cried as I moved my head to look over at the left side of me where Star had
fallen asleep next to me holding my hand; again which was wrapped in bandage along with the majority of my
body at this point. She had dried tears on her face and looked like she was crying before she fell asleep. I felt
the tears roll down my eyes. At this point I knew for sure I was awake. I looked around me using only my limited
vision from my head since below my neck was a demon of pain surging through my body to the point that if I
moved I would’ve thought I was in purgatory. The room was filled with stacks of bloody paper towels and three
empty alcohol bottles too far for me to read. There was a knock at the door suddenly, but not a hard one. It was
kind of a soft one as to make sure someone didn’t wake up a baby. Star woke up and looked into my eyes
before smiling and getting up to run to the door. She opens the door and exchanges a short greeting with
whoever was at the door before the door opened completely, and the stranger walked in and continued around
me looking at my body before walking over to about five feet from my head and sat down. ‘Good you’re awake,
we actually thought you might’ve died if the bleeding didn’t stop, but she refused to let my take you to the
hospital for some reason,’
She walked over and sat where she was laying down before holding my hand carefully in her lap. She looked
to the corner when he said that almost as if she were ashamed of it. ‘You hel-p-ed me?’ I tried to piece together
between sharp pains as I looked up at him. ‘Of course, you’re a friend of Star’s, and you were dying on my
property.’ As he said it I realized this was the owner of the Coffee shop that Star was working at to be able to live
here and his apartment was right above ours so he probably heard my scream earlier. ‘It’s a good thing that she
did that,’ he stated before adding ‘You know your back is covered in scars that were getting infected. Did you get
attacked by a dog or something? And while I am at it, what happened to your hands? Protecting your face from
two black eyes?’ I heard the sarcasm in his voice and tried to push myself up to hit him, but my arms gave out
before I could attempt to lift myself. I dropped both arms back to my sides with a massive groan of pain.
‘Hey hey hey, easy kid I was kidding,’ I looked away as I felt Star grab my hand again. He stood up and walked
over to my back while saying, ‘I am gonna have to take off the bandage in about eight hours to see if the scars
are still infecting,’ I just kept looking into the corner of the room as he walked around me checking out my body
parts. ‘Jesus kid this looks like you were tortured or something. There is steel grip marks on every joint connection
point in your foot. Who did this? They need to go to jail!’ he started to get furious. ‘Stop,’ I stated with my full voice. ‘No, cops please.’ He looked at me
astonished before it dawned on him. ‘Where are your parents?’ he asked me.
I looked back down at the corner, ‘What is going on? Kid are you on the streets? I need to call you into runaway
or an orphanage.’ Star jumped up and ran in front of the door before screaming, ‘If you send him you send me too!’
He took a step back as if he was just struck in the chest by a fully grown tiger. ‘I can’t do that Star, you know that.
'You have no one.’ ‘Pensez-vous qu'il a quelqu'un? Où sont-ils maintenant! Pourquoi est-il comme ça! Où
étaient-ils quand c'est arrivé! Où étais-je quand c'est arrivé?’ she screamed before dropping to her knees and
dropping her head into her hands letting out a cry of sadness before sobbing. The owner took a step back again
and looked back at me. He turned his head at the sight of my back. ‘Darling, you’re not speaking english.’ he
stated before she screamed ‘Je ne m'en fous pas!’. She leaned to the side of the door, and he sat down next to
her and took her in his arms as she cried.
I turned my head back towards the corner. As I put my head down on the floor listening to the silence of the
room being filled with her crying I faded off into the blackness again. As I lay there in my own dimension of
darkness that I had grown more accustomed to in the most frequent days I wondered how it was for everyone
else when they sleep. I heard people say that there were dreams, and I experienced them, but not as frequently
as others. I sat there and contemplated over the thought of having a solid black world that you could never leave,
but none could join. I started seeing a glowing light, and I winced at it’s brightness. It was a star in my solid black
world. It was fading quickly before I winced again; however, this time realizing the pain was in my hand. ‘Jay!’
I heard her scream faintly. I snapped up instantly with my entire body flooding with pain I threw myself at the
wall for support. Barely able to keep my eyes open from the pain I slowly laid back down onto the floor with
the helping hands of Star. ‘Your ribs are broken. One might be cutting off your heart or windpipe when you lay on
your stomach,’ he said. ‘Your pulse was gone for twenty seconds before you came to,’ he laughed as he said
‘Welcome back from the dead kid,’ Little did I know, that saying would be one that I would hate for the rest of my
life. ‘We need to take you to someone with medical support,’ he said quickly. I looked over at him and where I was
laying trying to think of anything other than the hospital that I could go to. I saw the phone sitting on the floor and
I pointed to it. Star quickly crawled over to the phone and gave it to me. I couldn’t use it since my fingers were
broken, so I just held it back to her. She looked at me and realized that before grabbing the phone and going to
the contact list to show one contact: “Cloud”. She looked at me, and I nodded. She called it and handed the
phone to me. ‘Hey bitch, why are you calling me now? I thought I said to wait for me to call you.’ she said as she
picked up the phone. ‘I need a doctor. You broke my ribs.’ I retorted. She sighed and laughed before saying, ‘Je
serai là avant que tu sois mort.’ Star looked at me and repeated in English, ‘I’ll be there before you’re dead.’ The
phone line went dead. I dropped my arm and the phone and started laughing. My body cried as I laughed from
the pain, but all that came out was my laughing. Star started to cry, and the man looked away as if he didn’t have
to ask. At this point I was sure my entire back was a huge scar from the bleeding pain of the scars splitting as I
laid with my back on the tile floor.
I opened my eyes to feel dried tears on my face as I saw a hospital roof again. I looked around to see it was
the same room layout. Actually, I noticed there were a few minor details such as the faucet being a smaller
thicker version and the door knob being a designed piece instead of the flat rounded sphere handle. I started
to roll from my stomach to my side as I heard a small type of squeal come from the oddly heavy jacket over my
feet. I moved back to my stomach, and the jacket started to float as I realized that it was Star sleeping under
the jacket. Her hand was holding onto my right hand, so when I rolled over, I put my weight on it. Her half
asleep face was the cutest thing in the world. It seemed like everything in the world was okay as long as she
was there, but it wasn’t. I quickly rolled the other way off my bed and started to make my way to the
door as I asked her ‘Why are you here, this place isn’t safe’. I reached for the door, and before I could grab it she
had bounced off the bed like a little kitten ninja which caused her to fly across the room and grab my arm.
The pain struck again as I fell to my knee. I leaned against the door and started to cry as Star said, ‘I’m sorry,
was I too rough? I didn’t mean to. I am so sor-’. I cut her off mid-sentence by grabbing and pulling her into me for
a hug. My body screamed from pain just from moving as I pulled her closer.
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