all the clothing, trying to avoid the broken pieces of glass and wood haphazardly scattered on the floor. I begin separating Emma’s clothes from mine and sorting them into piles. Soon, everyone else comes into the room and starts helping. The guys clean up the glass and wood, while Emma and I work on the clothing and cosmetics.
While wiping up the spilled shampoo from the bathroom floor, I turn to Emma and whisper, “So, now I don’t just have to worry about Dravin and Adam, I have to worry about crazy ex-girlfriends too? I’m sorry some of your stuff got destroyed.”
Throwing the towels in the basket, we walk back into the room, to see what else needs cleaned.
“Hey. Don’t apologize to me. I thoroughly enjoyed tackling that skinny girl. She’s been a complete jerk to you the past couple of days.”
“What do you mean she’s been a complete jerk to you?” asks Colton.
“Nothing.” I walk over to the folded photograph of my mom.
Emma looks at me and shakes her head, “Natasha has taken every free moment to make Ryanne feel like crap. Telling her that she’s not good enough for anyone; that she’ll end up getting everyone she loves killed. That she’s not worth all the trouble and we’ll all abandon her like her family.”
“Emma, please stop. I don’t need to hear it all again.” I can feel the tears coming. Rain starts hitting the windows. Holding the photo, I walk out of the room and slide down the wall in the hallway as the tears begin to fall, mimicking the rain outside. I need to let everything out. No one follows me.
“Why didn’t you say anything? I didn’t know anything was going on.”
“Because she asked me not to. She didn’t want to upset you, you big goof! She thought you were happy with that girl and wanted you to be happy even if she wasn’t.”
“I was never interested in Natasha.”
“Yeah, it sure looked that way,” she sarcastically retorts.
“Ryanne’s the one that stopped talking to me. I tried talking to her, but she wouldn’t listen,” says Colton; his voice rising almost to the point of yelling.
“Because she’s convinced that no one would want her and that she’s not good enough for anyone. She said that if there were other girls here, you would never be interested in her, which you kind of solidified that argument in her mind with Natasha.”
I suddenly feel claustrophobic. I don’t want to hear how the rest of the argument will play out. Feeling like the walls are caving in on me, I push myself up and walk towards the backyard, leaving the photo on the floor. I need some fresh air.
“Ryanne, are you okay?” Claire calls out as I pass through the kitchen.
Wiping the tears from my face, I reply, “Yeah, I just need some air.”
Closing the back door, I sit on the bottom stone step, breathing deeply. It’s no longer raining as hard. Right now, it’s just a simple mist falling. Emma didn’t have to reveal all of that to everyone. If they didn’t already think that I was weak, they definitely do now. I’m insecure; I’m not a hopeless cause. I should keep everything to myself from now on, because I can’t hurt myself like others can.
I miss how things were before I got kidnapped, before everything started to change. When I woke up and trained for fun. When I knew that I was supposed to somehow help bring an end to a war, but I wasn’t really a part of it. Back when I didn’t worry about being kidnapped when I fell asleep; when I didn’t worry about everyone around me getting hurt. Now, I am the girl that always needs protecting. I want to be strong and confident, but I always put myself in a situation where I am proved to be the opposite.
I look up at the sky. Its vast openness is all I can see. Out of the billions of people in the world, why was I chosen for this? I’m not a leader. I’m a follower. It’s a lot easier to listen to what someone is saying than to be the one actually speaking. Leading takes guts—something I don’t have. I’m going to get swallowed up in this war and probably not make it out alive. I’ve already had a couple close calls. When the fighting gets rough…well, the fighting will be rough. I’ve not been trained for years like everyone else has. I just started. I’m not