No Longer Alone

Leilani roughly grabbed my face and squeezed it. She pushed my head back. "Open your damn eyes. I told you not to show up high." I winced but opened my eyes widely. Leilani quickly squeezed two drops of some random solution into each eye.

I cringed and blinked rapidly. "Why am I doing this again?" I looked in front of me and into the tattoo parlor which looked empty.

"They don't pierce people who are high." Leilani handed me the bottle she used. It was something that got rid of red eyes. I was confused since having slightly red eyes was never a problem for me. Most people assumed that I was crying.

"But they tattoo minors?" I found their morals to be a bit questionable.

Leilani simply shrugged and crossed her arms. "Do you want a piercing or not?"

"Not." I frowned and shook my head. "If I get a tongue piercing I can't smoke for three weeks."

"But it would look very cool." Leilani pointed out.

I thought about it, she was absolutely correct. "So cool."

"Just inject heroin into your veins. It'll have a similar effect." Leilani rolled her eyes. I could tell she meant it as a joke but it hit a hidden nerve.

"You're so damn dumb." I attempted to laugh.

"Can you stop fucking touching me? I feel like I'm burning up." I pushed my girlfriend's hands off of me.

I started to get more aggressive once she continued to wrap her arms around me. "I can't, I missed you." She whined.

"I don't care if you miss me." I was sweating a lot. I wasn't sick or anything so I shouldn't have been sweating as much as I was. I was just sitting around doing nothing.

The fight I had scheduled was cancelled last minute so I was waiting for a ride home. Of course, my ride aka my girlfriend didn't understand how I felt. Instead, she wanted to keep hugging me like she hadn't seen me in years.

"Why are you always acting like this?" Crystal pouted. She was taking my rejection to heart. It was making me feel bad.

I stopped pushing her away and let her stick to my hot and sticky body. "Crystal, I feel sick. I'm not in the mood."

"Do you have a fever?" Crystal placed her hand over my forehead. I assumed I was burning up due to the fact that her eyes widened.

"Probably... I... I don't know." The sickness sparked out of the blue. It was the first time I had felt that way. "Maybe it's because I haven't eaten anything today." The only thing I had was a glass of funny-tasting sparkling water that Jimory had given me.

"Come home with me. My mom made some soup for lunch. I'm sure she'd be fine with you staying over." Crystal offered.

"I love your mom." I hummed. Crystal's mom was kind and a really good cook. She was the best part about dating Crystal.

"I love you." Crystal kissed my forehead. I gave her a small smile in return. "This is the part where you say you love me too."

"You know I do." I rolled my eyes.

Crystal sighed. "It would be nice for you to say it."

"Are you good?" Leilani snapped. The sudden action jolted me out of the small trance that I was in.

I nodded and shrugged nonchalantly. "Yeah, of course. Let's get this shit over with." I was bound to get grounded. Something in the back of my mind told me that I should've waited to get a piercing.

But I was no longer a minor. I was eighteen, so I was allowed to get any body modification that I wanted. Charlie nor Renee could have stopped me. But Charlie could still kick me out over it.

"Stop being sad about the smoking thing. I swear you're an addict. You've been high for the past two weeks." Leilani rolled her eyes.

For the past two weeks, Leilani and I had been attached at the hip. I hung out with her as soon as the school day ended and stayed with her until Charlie gave me a daily warning about my curfew.

Even though I was eighteen, Charlie wasn't the type of father to let me do whatever I wanted without some kind of reprimand. He was constantly worried that I'd be kidnapped or something. His main reasoning was that something dangerous lingered around the town and neighboring cities. Many people were popping up dead, due to some random and plausible animal attacks.

Hence the curfew.

"I am not an addict, I just have some things going on." I sighed. Lately, I was slipping back into a depressive funk. Somehow this one was different from the rest.

I didn't want to die. I just wanted to forget.

"We all do." Leilani grabbed my hand and gave it an encouraging squeeze. "And that's why we're in this together."

Leilani pulled me inside the tattoo parlor. We were immediately greeted by Jack and Cherry. Leilani had called in advance so that I couldn't chicken out.

"Right this way, Love." Cherry waved me over to her chair. "What can I do for you today?"

I got my tongue pierced which didn't hurt as much as I expected it to. I also had Cherry change my septum piercing to something bigger. I no longer had to flip it up and hide it from Charlie. While I could've shown it a long time ago, I was so used to hiding it that I forgot it wasn't necessary.

I still planned on holding off on the tattoo since I didn't want to overwhelm the poor man.

He had enough going on with all of Bella's midnight screaming.

Ever since we stopped talking, he would be the one to check on her. At some point, he had given up and just let her scream herself back to sleep. I didn't blame him. It was annoying and never-ending.

I stayed at the shop with Leilani while she got yet another tattoo. The whole time I talked with Cherry and admired my piercing.

I was definitely showing Rosalie the minute she came back from Alaska. 

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Thank you for reading this chapter. Don't forget to vote and comment. If you didn't comment on this chapter, that's okay. Comment on the next one, and let me know your thoughts and opinions about certain characters/situations.

Also, I don't know if y'all can tell but I'm tired of Leilani. I might feed her to Jasper😒. 

See you next chapter 😁.