Eroshay Rosales stared up into the night sky. It was getting colder now, cold enough tonight that she could see her breath. Her nose stung, but beyond reaching up sparingly to brush it, Shay did nothing to alleviate the bite of the chill. She had on a thin jacket, open to bare the dark undershirt and let the cool. It was the small things that made a person recall they were alive.
For awhile, this pain had been hard to hide, but Shay was adept at pretending things were fine when they really weren't. She had laid herself on one of the children's playsets out in the backyard, one of those dome monkey bars with rope for handles rather than metal. She had set herself up there and let the tears fall silently. They clung to her face, freezing reminders of weakness.
When she had first come to the Rosales household, she had hated it because it was too good to be true. Something had to be wrong. Out of place. Bad. A cancerous presence in an otherwise good home. Well, she hadn't been wrong. Only, Shay was the cancer. She was the disease that ruined everything she touched. Took homes, families, and friends indiscriminately.
Shay squeezed her eyes shut and let one slight, cracking sob slip between her lips. Where had she gone wrong? She couldn't help but wonder if her not being born might have made everything better. Her parents could have lived then. People would be in less pain, and future friendships wouldn't be in peril. Shay had considered pushing everyone away. That wouldn't work; physical closeness was enough to bring them harm. Running away was a no go. Like Klaus would let that happen. And Shay wouldn't even consider suicide. She wasn't there.
The girl rolled into a fetal position on her side and pulled her legs in close to her chest, back turned toward the house. She couldn't sleep, and in five minutes, it would be two in the morning.
Was this what it meant to feel dead inside? It couldn't be. Death implied no pain and Shay felt a plethora of that, even while everything else was numb. She'd drank at the kegger until she'd woken up in Dorian's house with a hangover, she'd gotten in several more fights which she started, among other risky behaviors. All of those, just to see if they could help her feel again. They didn't, or if they did it was so brief it only left her longing and missing what was lost.
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