Free If Forever Comes by A. L. Jackson

me awake.
    Lying on my stomach, I lifted my head. I
blinked as my sight slowly adjusted to the muted light bleeding in
from the heavy drapes I had pulled over the window. I squinted in
the direction of my door. Knocking continued to resonate from
downstairs. I rammed my face back into the refuge of the pillow,
willing whoever was pounding at my front door to
disappear.
    I should have known that would never be my
luck.
    A key rattled in the lock. The front door
unlatched and it slowly whined open.
    My pulse stuttered. Not in fear, but because I
didn’t think I could handle this today.
    Every time, it was the same.
    “Liz?” traveled up the stairs on a direct
pathway to my unwilling ears.
    Natalie.
    I didn’t respond. Instead I gripped the
pillow, forcing my face deep into the fabric. Maybe if I bored into
it hard enough, it would swallow me whole. Maybe…maybe I could just
disappear.
    Footsteps creaked on the stairs. “Liz?” she
called again, quieter this time. I squeezed my eyes tighter when I
felt her presence emerge. My bedroom door sitting half ajar slowly
swung open all the way.
    Tension hovered as a thick silence between us
before, “Elizabeth,” finally flooded into my room on a troubled
breath.
    Gathering the energy, I forced myself to turn
toward her. I rested my cheek on the pillow, blinking over at my
cousin who stood in my doorway with worry etching every line on her
young face.
    She’d grown her hair out a bit, the dark
blonde locks curling in a soft wave just over her shoulders. She
wore her normal—a thin, over-sized sweatshirt with the neck cut out
so it hung loosely off one shoulder, short-short cutoffs, and
flip-flops. She turned up a soft smile.
    Casual and kind. She always was.
    “Hey,” she said quietly as she chanced a step
into my room.
    “Hey,” I returned, my voice scratchy against
my dry throat. I tried to pretend as if I was happy to see her. And
it wasn’t like I didn’t want to see her, that I didn’t care about
her or want her to be here. It was just the way she looked at me,
as if she could possibly understand. Sympathy I didn’t want oozed
from her pores. Her movements were slow as she came to stand at the
edge of my bed, like maybe if she touched me, I would
break.
    She seemed unwilling to accept that I was
already broken.
    “It’s time to get up, sweetheart,” she almost
cooed as she reached out and brushed the hair from my forehead.
“I’m here to pick you up. We’re going to go to lunch with your mom
and your sisters.”
    Internally I cringed. I knew it wasn’t their
intention, but these interventions always felt more like an
ambush.
    “You should have called first. I don’t think
I’m feeling up to it today.”
    Though she tried to hide it, frustration
leaked from her sigh. “Come on, Elizabeth. You’re never up for it.
And you and I both know if I’d have called, you just wouldn’t have
answered. You need to get out of this house. It’s just an hour or
two.” She strode across my room and raked the drapes back from the
window.
    Bright light burned into the room. I blanched
at the unwelcomed intrusion.
    She headed back to the entryway. “Now go jump
in the shower. I’ll be waiting for you downstairs.”
    “Nat…” I mumbled, just wishing she would leave
me alone.
    She crossed her arms over her chest. “We’re
going to lunch, Elizabeth. You need to eat and your family needs to
see you. Two birds with one stone and all.” She kind of laughed,
though there was little humor to it. It sounded more like
disappointment.
    I rolled onto my back and draped my arm over
my eyes. “What time is it?”
    “Just after eleven…which means it’s time to
get up. Now scoot.”
    Resigned, I sat up on the side of the bed with
my back to Natalie. I willed myself to leave the place that was my
only reprieve. The only remedy for the bleakness of this life was
found in the obscured blackness of sleep. Not in the pills they
promised would make me feel better but instead