Days like these make me think about when Marie and I were younger. I still remember when I first met her.
It was late. I lived at dad's house with Lily back then. I was eating my typical generic cereal in the kitchen when I heard a familiar noise. Right on time! I set down my bowl and strolled to the living-room window. On the other side of the glass was the person I was waiting for.
Lily and I had a brother-sister contract.
Rule #14) when one of us was grounded but wanted to sneak someone in, the other let them in from the left living-room window.
Given Lily's defiant nature, the rule came into action quite often. Sometimes some one would come over every day for a week, two weeks, even a month.
This time, I froze. Normally, I wouldn't think twice about who came into the house, but this felt different. The lady behind the glass had to have been about my age, but Lily was only 15 back then. I was 18 at the time. She gave another tap to the window pane, abruptly clearing my mental fog. I unlatched and lifted the window.
"How old are you?" I blurted out.
"19," She looked curiously at me, " is that a problem...?" I focused on closing the window so I wouldn't stare.
" I guess not."
Not good. Lily had been dating a younger blonde guy for the past couple months. I assumed this meant the guy either left lily or was forced to leave him. I tried not to worry. I always tried not to worry about Lily, but I could never stop myself in the end.
Marie visited every now and then after that. We made small talk, and eventually our talk was not so small.
Lily, on the other hand, had a friends-with-benefit kinda situation with her. They didn't love each-other, i know that much. To be honest, i don't think they didn't even liked each-other. Lily loved the rush of an older girl, and Marie just wanted somebody to hold. Conversation between them grew thin and rare. Sometimes they wouldn't even speak a word to each other. The house was a painful kind of silent on those days.
It was soon after that Lily left. She found a guy with money and a "heart of gold" to stick around. I'll admit back then that made me more mad than anything.
That made dad even angrier. They say some people keep the pain they have inside and some push their pain onto other people. He is a dangerous combination of both. It was worse now that Lily wasn't there. She was a mediator. She kept dad calm and she protected me when things got really bad. She was strong.
The one thing that kept me going was my talks with marie.
She would come in through the window sometimes, just like before. Into the late hours of the night, we would eat take-out and cereal. Together we would sit on that kitchen counter and just talk. Sometimes we talked serious stuff, other times we talked nonsense. Sometimes we would joke and laugh and other times we would sit there in silence, crying until our eyes stung.
It was one of those sad nights when marie popped a question that had been on her mind for a while.
" What if we leave?"
Today reminded me of then. One of the days we sat on the counter and talked. It was easier now that we lived together. Everything seemed easier now.
She came into my room late at night with a half drunk bottle of wine in hand. she hadn't bothered to change out of the clothes she had slept in the past couple nights. I knew what this meant. She slid right into place beside me and buried her face into my pillow.
"I miss Alice."
I ran my fingers delicately through her hair.
"I know," i could hear her breathing slowing down," i know."