Instead of my bedroom, I end up in the back yard, and fell to my hands and knees. I had to use all my strength to keep my eyes open. For a moment, I wondered why my vision was all dark, then realised that all the lights had been turned out. A faint glow peeked out above the roof, a reminder of where I was. South west Brisbane suburbia. I don’t even have enough strength to hold up my head.

I can barely choke out ”Come… here…” My throat burns and my eyes water over. A blurry pair of feet appears in front of me.

“Are you alright?” Hehe, forgot how helpful I was. I look up, seeing her shadowy figure looming over me, almost eerily. She gets down on one knee, drawing level with my eyes. I open my mouth to attempt to get her to help me. But no sound comes out. Only a whimper. Her face softens from concern to pity.

Goddamnit, all I wanted was to tell her to get back in the mirror and let me resume my life! I think exhaustion is making me hysterical. I just want (need, desperately) to go to sleep and be done with this. She chuckles. Well I’m glad my pain and exhaustion is so amusing. “Alright. But wouldn’t you rather I helped heal you?” My eyes widen. Oh. I suppose she can hear my thoughts too. Hopefully she didn’t hear when I thought she was creepy.

And healing would be rather nice.

She proceeds to walk back to the house as I collapse. Red spots are beginning to obscure my vision. I think that’s bad. I can hear my breathing slow, loudly. You know when all you can hear is your own breathing and/or heartbeat? Yeah, I was going through that. My vision darkens and I feel my lips being parted.

I must have dozed off, because I only have hazy, broken memories of the events that occurred next. A soft, murmuring voice, bright lights, itching skin and then softness, comfort, covering me all over. Warmth.

I’m roughly shaken awake. Pain blooms across my body, causing me to groan. Just let me go back to sleep please.

“Rhiann! Get up, we have to go to school!” Tara’s voice. Ugh. Oh and school. Double ugh. I don’t need this right now. But I’m getting up anyway, despite my body screaming at me not to.

A few moments later I stumble into the bathroom. I don’t even recognise my reflection, it’s that bad. The dark circles under my eyes are bordering on black, standing out stark against my white skin. Angry red rims my eyes and is splashed across my cheeks. My hair is like a ducking birds nest. Nothing I can do about it though, it always looks like that.

I know I looked horrible, but it didn’t warrant the looks Tara and Mum gave me when I sat down for breakfast. You’d’ve thought I’d grown a second head. After continuous pleas of ‘are you all right?’ and ‘did you get enough sleep?’ Mum actually put a coffee in front of me, claiming it was to help wake me up. Must be worse than I thought. I stared at it for a moment, Mum never lets us drink coffee before school, but yet… This is going to be a long day.

I was like a zombie through the first two periods, with various students and teachers giving me curious looks. Take a picture, it’ll last longer. I have a feeling my friends will be no different. I hope they leave it alone. I love my friends dearly, but I’m not up for fending off a thousand questions today. Or tomorrow. Come back to me next week.

I’m walking (shuffling) towards my friends and I can already see the concern growing on their faces. Here it comes…

“You look like shit, what happened?” Hello Jen.

“Fuck off Rhiann, we don’t need your depressing attitude!” Nice to see you too Emily.

“Did you get in another fight with Tara?” Hey Abbie. I sit my ass down, sigh and fire off my response.

“Not enough sleep, fuck off and no.” I spat it out a tad more venomous than I wanted. And judging by my friend’s expressions, a lot more. “Sorry, just not running on all cylinders right now. I feel like I’m not running on any actually.” Annnd there’s the pity/sympathy looks. Jen reaches over and puts her hand on top of mine, and gives it a squeeze. From where I’m sitting, the sun shines off her short blonde hair almost like a halo. I feel a little better creating an image of my own guardian angel. God knows I need one.

“Are you ok?” I give her a small smile and shake my head before promptly stopping. I was getting a killer headache. Add that to the growing list of things going wrong today. She and some of my other friends pressed me for questions, but I didn’t answer, or rather, I couldn’t. No matter how much water I drank, my mouth was dry and my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. Which isn’t going to help going into next period. Chinese.

At the end of break, I joined Isabel to walk to G block. She attempted to make a joke that I looked like a panda, but I didn’t respond.

“Seriously, are you alright? You look like you’re about to topple over and die any second.” The question was uncharacteristically genuine, not a hint of sarcasm to be heard. It actually almost made me want to tell her everything. I didn’t realise how hard it was to keep a secret this big. I glanced over to see her looking at me, light bouncing off of her glasses and obscuring her brown eyes.

“I…” I wince at my voice. God, I sound like a female Donald Trump mixed with a frog. “I, ahem, I really can’t tell you.”

“Alright.” She shrugs and we continue in silence.

-+= 70 minutes later =+-

I trudge out of G02 and a couple of metres to the right and almost fall down the stairs. Somehow I make it over to my friend group in front of A Block unscathed, and proceed to plop down and sleep on the sun-warmed bricks, using my bag as an impromptu pillow; not even bothering covering my face from the sun (or noisy/nosy friends and sister).

I am woken later (too soon!) by sharp prodding to various limbs, being told by Emily to ‘get off my ass and go to graphics, you lazy piece of shit.’ Well she got one thing right. However, doing so might be harder than it seems. My legs had fallen asleep too.

So I did what any self-respecting, exhausted and by-now-doesn’t-give-a-shit-anymore-just-let-me-go-home-please person would do. I lift my arms, make grabbing motions with my hands, pout and whimper until someone pulls me up.