I finish unpacking my stuff until there's only one more box left.  I shove that box underneath one of the shelves in my closet, knowing that I won't be unpacking that one anytime soon.  It's the one filled with pictures of—

            Don't think about that.

            I push the box one last time into the corner, hoping it will disappear the next time I come back into the room.  I exit the closet and close the door firmly, wanting to stay away from that box as much as I can.

            "Lexi?  Are you done?  Dinner's ready!" Kira calls from downstairs.  I can hear her shuffling around in the kitchen, and then I hear a loud bang.  Allison lets out a grunt of protest while Kira laughs, and I allow myself a small smile.

            There are some things I miss about my old life.  Things like Allison being completely useless in the kitchen, and she and Kira having light-hearted arguments about whether or not she is useless.  Usually, Kira wins because she's right.  Allison is completely useless in the kitchen.

            I walk downstairs, and whatever talk Kira and Allison had going on has deceased as they see me come down the stairs.  The room always goes quiet when I walk in because they're worried that they'll say the wrong things, and they'll have to find another therapist for me.  They don't have to worry though; I'm never going to go back to that place again.

            "Come on, we made—" Allison starts to say, but Kira interrupts her.

            "I made it actually.  She just sat around and..." Kira trails off when Allison starts motioning for her to stop.  I know she doesn't want me to see her making those motions, but I always do.

            I know that they both think even the slightest bit of arguing, even the slightest hints that our family is falling apart—even if it's not true—will set me off.  Maybe at first, but I'm okay now.  Those things don't set me off.  They just make my heart ache for the past.

            "Anyways," Allison brightly clears her throat and continues to speak, "let's just eat."  She slowly begins to pass out the Chow Mein to Kira and me, and then proceeds to put some on her plate as well.

            There a thick, tight silence at the dinner table.  I want more playful conversations with Kira and Allison, not this silence that lets me thoughts grow.  However, I'm not planning on starting the conversations any time soon.  I have no idea what to say anyways.

            In the end, it's Allison that breaks the silence.  "So, how do you like the new house so far?  Do you like your brand new room?  This house is pretty different from our old—"

            "Yeah," I murmur, "it's fine."  I'm not focusing much on my answer, and instead on how she tried to avoid talking about our old house.  As much as I'm grateful they care for me, her choice of words sets off a slight tinge of annoyance in me.  I won't explode or be triggered over the smallest things. 

            I won't.

            But the annoyance is gone in a second, and a huge tsunami of guilt overcomes me.  I'm being so ungrateful to them.  Even though I didn't say those things out loud, I need to tell them I'm sorry for even thinking those things.  I know that it will keep haunting me if I don't, and then I can add this moment to the list of moments that I ponder about when I wake up in the middle of the night, wondering if I could've done things differently.  And maybe the results wouldn't be the same and maybe I wouldn't be here and maybe...

            Life is full of too many maybes and there aren't enough definite answers.  Life's full of too many moments where you're left wondering about the if's, and not enough where you've accepted what happened and moved on.

            "Honey, are you okay?  Is this afternoon bothering you?  We can always talk to Dr. Sharma on the phone if you'd like," Kira suggests, putting her fork down and looking at me.

            "No Kira, I'm fine," I say gently in response.  I get those kind of flashbacks all the time.  "Dr. Sharma can't do much about those things either."

            Kira sighs reluctantly before looking back at her own plate.  She makes eye contact with Allison and gives her a curt nod.  Kira looks back at me, and I immediately drop my eyes down to my plate.  They don't know that I know all those small motions they make at each other about me.

            The thing that worries me the most about those dreams is that it doesn't even have to be about the incident itself, just things leading up to the incident and the people there.  It makes me want to scream until I don't have a voice, and then cry until my eyes are dry and dehydrated.

            "You're starting school tomorrow," Allison says in an attempt to change the subject.

            "What's the school called?  Green something, I believe?" Kira says, looking at Allison for confirmation.

            "Well I guess we'll figure out tomorrow," replies Allison.  "Are you excited?"

            "Yeah," I say, and then realize that it came out in a monotone voice.  The thing is, my apathetic manner towards high school doesn't just stem from the hatred of the work high school requires and the stress over being a new kid.  No, I'm apathetic towards high school because I know that there will more people, and more people means more secrets, and more secrets means I won't know what to say, and if I don't know those, then I'll say the wrong things, and I'll never be able to take back what's out there.

            "Do you want us to drive you?  Switching schools in the middle of senior year can be hard," Kira asks, and Allison shakes her head, letting out a small chuckle.

            "I don't think she needs us to drive her," Allison sighs.

            "It's fine.  I can go by myself.  You guys have to go to work and stuff," I explain.

            "Are you sure?  You come before work," Kira says.  "We just don't want things to happen when you're alo..."

            "Just keep your phone on you, and if you need us, call us," Allison assures, throwing Kira a swift glare. 

            "Ok," I agree, even though I know that I won't call them, even if something happens when I'm by myself.  I'm not going to disturb them when they're busy.  That'll make me even more guilty than I am.  "I'm finished; can I go to my room?"

            "Sure honey," Kira says.  "Just put your plate in the sink."

            I nod and put my dish in the sink before running back upstairs.  I don't want to go to sleep tonight.  It's nothing new—I don't want to go to sleep any night because I know I'll barely get any time in before I'm left curled up in the darkness, tears staining my pillow.  But it's worse today because I know I'll be meeting new people tomorrow.  People I know nothing about, and people I can mess up.

• • •

            In the movies, there's always the stereotype of the girl who wakes up from nightmares gasping loudly with a flushed, red face, like she's been running a marathon.  The girl will sit up straight in her bed, and her hair will be falling perfectly from her face.

            It's not the same for me.

            My eyes snap open to the moonlight streaming in from the partially-opened blinds.  My heart's beating at a rate faster than I can count, and I'm sweating and hot.  But I still push myself deeper into the blankets, taking quick, small breaths that aren't nearly close to sufficient.  I pull the blankets tighter around myself, burrowing deeper into the mattress, desperately trying to disappear, and get the images out of my head.  The pillow's moist, and even thought I haven't felt them, I know my cheeks are too.

            I peek a little bit over the blankets to look at the clock on my wall.  Each tick echoes loudly in my mind, making it feel like an empty auditorium.  I squint, and the time reads around three-thirty, and I let out a raggedy sigh.

            My therapist told me that I need to sleep.  But she doesn't know that it's nearly impossible to sleep when you're me.  Most nights, I wrap myself in my white comforter and observe the moonlight.  I never close my blinds fully, so there's always light falling onto my face and onto the floor and bed. 

            It doesn't sound like much, but I find it beautiful.  Sometimes, I wish the light from the moon was possible to touch so when I run my fingers through it, it feels real.  I imagine moonlight to feel smooth and cold—kind of like a rock but softer and silkier.  And want to believe that when I pull my fingers out of the moonlight they'll be covered in this milky residue that glows and reminds me of the moonlight when the moon is replaced by the sun.

            A small smile appears on my face as I pull myself little-by-little out of my blanket cocoon and put my hands into one of the slivers of moonlight.  I'm slowly losing myself, but then my phone vibrates and I look over at it, my eyes wide.

            There's no one that I can think of that would be texting me, especially at this time of the night.  Both Allison and Kira are sleeping peacefully down the hall, and the rest of the people in my contacts live seven hours away, and have no reason to be texting me.

            Still, I reach over and take my phone off of my nightstand.  The light that shines from the screen forces me to squint my eyes as try I make out the notification on the lock screen.  It looks like this isn't the first text since there's four others under it.  I look at the contact name, and it says in bold letters, Nathan.

            My heart stops for a second, biting my lip for a second as I try not to think of the place I left.  I tell myself to just focus on his message, and it looks like he's just drunk texting me.  There's one message asking me to pick him up, and the others are gibberish.  Another text pops up, and this time, Nathan's managed to type out the words "sorry Lexi, wrong numberrrr".

            I send him a message saying it's fine, and then put my phone on do not disturb.  I may not be sleeping, but I still don't want any text messages from the people back home.  It's been less than twenty-four hours since I've said my goodbye's to all the people there, but it feels so much longer.

            I didn't get to say goodbye to the person I needed to say it to I think, and suddenly, I need to bury myself in the blankets again.  My heart beats frantically, and not in a good way either.  I blink rapidly, my fingers digging into my shoulders, leaving red, crescent-shaped marks etched onto my skin.  My breathing, which had calmed down, is starting to get faster again.  I beg my mind not to think about what happened, but my mind never listens to me. 

            I can't control my mind.  It seems to control me.

            I try to think of what my therapist told me, but that's all overshadowed by the memories flooding back of what happened.  I can feel the guilt pooling into my insides, and a cruel voice sneering at me for what happened.  The voice is yelling at me, telling me that's it's my fault.  Everything that happened is my fault.

            And that's how I spend the rest of the night—trying to block out the memories and the seething voices.  My therapist and the tips she gave me are all lost in the chaos of my mind.

            Slowly, the sun starts to appear in the horizon, and my bedroom slowly starts to fill with honey-golden sunlight.  Though, that doesn't help my state. 

            At some point, I manage to pull myself out of bed and drag myself to the shower, knowing that I can't avoid going to school today as much as I want to.  I could tell Kira and Allison that I feel too mentally exhausted to go today, but then the same thing would happen tomorrow, and the day after that, and I would never end up going to school.

            I finish showering as quickly as I can, and grab the first clothes I touched which happen to be a pink t-shirt and a pair of jeans.  I also grab a hoodie while I'm at it, and my ratty old Vans that I've had since the beginning of my junior year of high school.  I usually eat before showering and dressing up, but I don't feel hungry at all.  I'm not hungry most of the time—a month ago my weight had dropped considerably due to me not eating at all, and today's the first time in a while I've felt that same sickness in my stomach.

            I'm not sure what Allison and Kira will say about that, so I head down the stairs cautiously, planning out exactly what I will say to them when they ask me why I'm not hungry.  Allison and Kira know that I'm not completely over what happened, and they think that occasionally, I start crying about it and get emotional over it.  They don't know that I cry about the event almost every night.

            "Hey, you're already dressed and everything!" Kira exclaims.  She's sipping her coffee, but when she sees me, she jumps up from her chair, and comes over to hug me.  "Good morning!"

            "Good morning," I say as she lets go of me.

            "Do you want me to make something?  Or can you get yourself cereal?" Kira asks, picking up her coffee from the table and taking a small sip of it.

            "I'm not that hungry actually," I say slowly.  Kira slowly watches me, as if analyzing my every movement.  Because of that, I quickly add, "maybe a banana or something?  If we have any fruit?  Speaking of which, I think there's still time before school starts.  I can go get us some groceries.  Do you know where the store is?"

            "No, Allison went yesterday and she got us some stuff to last for the next few days before one of us has to properly buy groceries," Kira explains.  "But, why don't you want anything?"

            "I'm just not hungry, okay?" I say, and it comes out harsher than I anticipated, and I wince at my own tone.  "Sorry, I'm just nervous for my first day of school.  It's unusual to move when it's your last year of high school, and I won't know anyone.  Just first-day jitters."

            "Okay, then I'll cut an apple for you," Kira agrees, and she sets her coffee down and reaches over to our fruit basket to get one of the few apples in there.

            "It's fine; I can do it myself," I interject, gently tugging the apple out of her hand.  "Where are the knives?"

            "Are you sure?" Kira asks, before reaching over to a drawer to get out a knife.

            "Yeah!  I can cut my own apples."  I laugh a little bit before slicing the apple into slices.  However, I only take about half and gulp them down as quickly as I can.  "You can have the rest."

            "Are you sure everything's alright?  You have to eat.  Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and we don't know what they'll have for lunch in the cafeteria, and if you'll eat it."

            I'm not three; I'll eat what they have I think, grinding my teeth.  I wish I didn't come off so timid to others.  Before, the only problem used to be my height—I'm only 5'4".  But now, everything from my posture to the way I act around others screams weakling that needs to be protected.

            "It's fine Kira.  Anyways, I'll just go now.  I don't know the directions or anything, so I should probably take some time to figure it out," I say, edging closer to the door.  I grab my old backpack on the way which is sitting by the coat rack at the entrance.

            "It's walking distance, but take the car today," Kira says.

            "Okay, bye Kira!" I say.

            "Bye sweetie!  I love you!" Kira calls from the kitchen table as I step out of the doorway.

            "I love you too!" I say back, and then shut the door behind me, locking it with the keys I also grabbed earlier.  I step over to my car that I got with my license, and then I take a deep breath.

            There's a small part of me that hopes this new school will be different.  I hope that it'll just be a happy school with no complications or secrets.  But the logical part of me knows that that's not possible.  As long as there are people, there will be secrets and complications.  It's simply just human nature.