“Do you think I should go with this blue or this one?”

Justin propped his head up with one hand as Kate pushed two paint chips across the table at him. He stared at them for a minute. “I dunno,” he finally said.

“You know which room I’m talking about, right? The one across from my bedroom. It has my computer in it.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“With the windows in that room I thought this blue might end up looking washed out. I like the other blue but it’s a little bright.”

He sighed quietly and continued staring at the paint chips.

“You really have no opinion at all, do you?” Kate asked, pulling the chips back in front of her.

“Sorry.”

“Whatever. You aren’t very good with colors anyways.”

He smiled as the phone rang. “Thanks, Kate,” he said, pushing back his chair and getting up. He went over to the kitchen counter and picked up the phone. “Hello?”

“Hi, Justin. It’s Elizabeth Michaels.”

“Oh…hi. How’re you?”

“I’m alright. Yourself?”

“I’m fine.”

“How’s Brenna doing? I really expected her to call by now.”

“She’s, uh…” he paused and tried to figure out if he should lie or not. He finally opted for the truth. “She’s about the same.”

Elizabeth’s sigh was clear over the phone. “Really?”

“Yeah. She’s not really talking to me or Kate or anyone.”

“Is she eating?”

“A bit.”

“She hasn’t said anything to you about why she’s upset?”

“No.”

“I really do believe it’s about her dad. That’s the only thing I can think of to explain her mood.”

“Yeah, that makes the most sense.”

Elizabeth sighed again. “Alright, well, I’m sure she won’t want to talk to me. Could you just tell her I called.”

“Of course. No problem.”

“Thank you. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Okay.”

“Bye.”

“Bye.” He hung up the phone and rubbed his hand over his face.

“Brenna’s mom?”

He turned to look at Kate. “Yeah. I think she was expecting for Brenna to be better. I almost wanted to just lie and say she was.”

“Justin, what’s wrong with her?” Kate asked softly.

He sat back down in his chair. “I don’t know. She’ll barely come out of her room. And whenever I see her she just looks so completely sad. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone look that sad all the time before.”

“What did her mom say?”

“Not much.” He sighed. “I fell bad though because coming out here was supposed to make her all better and it hasn’t. Her mom’s depending on me to fix her.” He ran his hand over his head. “But I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to say to her or if I should even say anything to her or what.”

Kate gathered her things and put them in her bag. “Want my advice?”

“Yeah.”

“Whatever your biggest urge is to do, do it. Not doing anything obviously isn’t working.”

He watched her stand up. “I just don’t want to do something and makes things worse.”

She shrugged. “I would think it’s worthwhile to try anything.” She checked her watch. “I’m late for my doctor’s appointment. I’ll see you later, okay?”

“Sure.” He stared out the window into the backyard as Kate left. Maybe she was right. What he really wanted to do was be near Brenna and talk to her. Maybe he should just do that.

Pushing back his chair, he stood up and left the kitchen. When he went upstairs, he found Brenna’s bedroom door closed but this time that didn’t stop him from going straight to the door and knocking. When no answer came, he opened the door.

The room was semi dark, the sun coming in from between the blinds lighting the room a bit. She was in bed, facing him, sleeping. He watched her for a minute before stepping fully into the room and closing the door quietly behind him. She never stirred as he went around the other side of the bed and climbed in. He laid down behind her and slipped one arm around her waist. Leaning his head down, he kissed her neck and then sighed. She made no movement as he found her hand and intertwined his fingers through hers.

And as he laid there, pressed closely to Brenna’s body, he felt as though he had never been further away from her.

Brenna’s sleep used to be filled with dreams. Some of them would make sense, others wouldn’t. She almost never had nightmares. Since she had gotten back from Shelby Forest her sleep was either void of dreams or filled with terrifying images. Sometimes she knew it was just a nightmare while other times it would seem so real that she was sure it was true.

But this one was all too real. It was blacker than black and she was falling. Falling into the depths of the Earth, away from everyone. It was only her. She hit the rock bottom and tried to scream, tried to get up, but an iron vise went around her stomach, keeping her in place and a hand went over her mouth. She clawed desperately at something, anything, trying to get free.

Brenna’s eyes opened with a star and she realized she had had a nightmare. But it was still too fresh in her mind and she still felt completely trapped. Gasping for air, she kicked away the covers and struggled to free herself. It only took a second before she was sitting on the edge of her bed.

“Brenna…shit…”

She turned in surprise to see Justin pulling himself into a sitting position on her bed, holding his arm.

“What the hell?” he grumbled, pulling his hand away from his arm. “I’m bleeding!”

She blinked a few times. “What?” she finally asked, still trying to figure out what was real and what had been in her nightmare.

“You scratched me! What’s your problem?”

She felt tears fill her eyes. “Sorry,” she whispered.

He didn’t respond but instead examined his arm. She wiped her eyes and laid back down on her bed, facing away form him and curling into a ball.

This was all so hard. And she didn’t even know what ‘this’ was. All she wanted was to go back to before when everything had been perfect. But she couldn’t.

It had felt like she hadn’t stopped crying for over a week. She had used to think that tears eventually ran out but she had found out that wasn’t true. It felt like her tears would never run out. They kept coming and coming and she couldn’t stop them.

Justin was not talking to her but she wasn’t listening. All she could concentrate on was the feeling of loneliness and despair inside of her. The two feelings were tearing at her heart and it ached. She had never before had such feelings of hopelessness and it scared her. She wanted to just feel normal again but it was starting to occur to her more and more that that may never happen. And that scared her.

A hand on her back pulled her hazy thoughts into the present. She opened her eyes, which she had clenched closed at some point.

“What if we go out tonight?” Justin was saying. “Let’s go to a movie or something. Let’s just get out of the house.”

She couldn’t handle that and shook her head.

He was quiet for a long time before saying anything. “Do you realize how frustrating this is for me, Brenna? You won’t talk to me and I don’t know how to help you. Your mom called this afternoon and it was so hard to tell her that no, you aren’t doing any better and that obviously I’m not helping. But I don’t know what to do. How can I help you when you act like you don’t want my help?”

She didn’t know what to say and just stayed quiet.

“Bren,” he said, his voice now soft. “Your entire mood is just starting to scare me. Please let me help you. I love you and you’re scaring me. What can I do?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered.

“Just tell me what it is that’s making you so sad. Is it your aunt? Is it your dad? Is it being here? Is it me? Or did something else happen?”

It was too many questions and she shook her head. “Please stop.”

“I’m just trying to understand this, Brenna. I can’t help you if you won’t explain what’s going on in your head.”

She didn’t know how to describe what was going on in her head and she was just so tired. She closed her eyes. “I just really want to be alone.”

The bed moved as he stood up abruptly and she heard him leave her room, closing the door with a loud ban behind him. A few tears slid down her cheeks as she realized she had made him angry. She really wasn’t trying to make him frustrated and mad and it hurt that she had. She didn’t know what else to do though. How was she supposed to explain to him what was wrong when she didn’t even know herself?

In the past week she had filled up pages and pages in her journal that she had previously rarely written in. When she read over what she had written, she had hoped that it would all come together and make sense but it ended up only making her more confused. Justin wanted her to talk to him about it but when she didn’t even understand it, how was she supposed to make him understand?

She knew that laying around and crying wasn’t helping anything but she no longer had the energy to do anything else. And it seemed as though the more she slept, the easier it was to keep sleeping.

Loud music started from Justin’s room and it filtered through the wall connecting their rooms. That just created more intense pain in her heart. Justin was so good to her and she was pushing him away. But why did he have to listen to her mom and come to Shelby Forest? Why did they both assume they knew what was best for her? They didn’t know or understand what was going on inside of her so what gave them the right to gang up on her and tell her what to do? She didn’t understand how they could justify that. Justin said he was frustrated? Well so was she because they had both ignored what she wanted. She wasn’t five years old and in need of guidance for everything.

But no matter how much frustration she felt, it still didn’t cover up the intense pain inside of her. And this pain is what enabled her to block out the loud music and thoughts of Justin and instead cry herself back to sleep.