Emptiness.
I’ve got used to feeling nothing. Surviving each day as an empty shell.
I don’t think they’ve noticed.
What the fuck am I doing here? Travelling from nowhere to nowhere with a group of people who aren’t really any more then strangers.
She watched me like a hawk after she first found out. Now she’s too caught up in her own problems to care. Too busy pining for her lost love. And she needs me to be a substitute for her Alex again. To be someone she can lean on.
I’m too screwed up to be a pillar of strength for her. And too tired to care.
Twelve steps and I can be in the bathroom.
“Where’re you going Kyle?”
The tone of her voice catches me off guard and I stammer something about needing to use the toilet while Guerin smirks at what he thinks is my embarrassment. She looks at me suspiciously.
Shit. I always have been a terrible liar.
I’m five steps from the door and I want to be there so much it almost hurts. Almost but not quite. Small beads of sweat snake their way down the back of my neck and I know that if I lifted up my hands they’d be shaking.
She looks almost concerned now. As if she really does care. I can’t stop. The need is too strong and I make some lame excuse and bolt for the bathroom.
* * * * * * * * * *
I’m sitting on the floor of the bathroom staring down at myself.
I think I just screwed up big time.
In panic I’ve cut too deeply and the blood’s flowing faster than before. My jeans are stained red.
What the hell do I do now?
Everything seems out of focus somehow and I just want to scream. To grab someone and tell them who I am. Who I really am.
Kyle James fucking Valenti.
Eighteen years old.
I don’t have a favourite colour. I hate pineapples. I play sports ’cause I want my Dad to be proud of me. Just once I’d like him to be really proud.
He told me he was proud of me the day everyone in Roswell disappeared. I almost believed him.
I like to read and I speak French because my Grandma was French-Canadian. I miss Tess. I miss my Mom. And I miss my Dad.
And I’m dying on the floor of a bathroom in a motel in some god forsaken place that I can’t even remember the name of.
Suddenly I’m crying. Alternating between gasping sobs and dry heaving into the toilet. Those really painful stomach cramps that make you feel like something’s trying to cut you in half.
At least I can feel them.
Isabel’s outside the door asking if I’m alright. She sounds kind of scared. She’s pounding on the door and I know that if I don’t answer soon she’ll either get Max or Michael to break it down or use some sort of alien voodoo crap to open it herself.
I want to answer her. To tell her I’ll be ok. But I’m so tired now.
Maybe I’ll just lie down and sleep for a while instead.
** End **
