The Night Sea
A/N: Spinoza is doing my head in and I haven't done anything for the fandom in the longest time. Here is my penance and my study break.
Words belong to Megan Washington. Characters belong to Louisa M. Alcott. I have nothing but this essay due tomorrow.
Why do I see stars at night?
Everyone else sees the light
And how did I come this far?
I'm sure that I can't fly
Take me with you when you go
Now that I know what I know
Cross the waves
Though the wind is high
We go so slow
80 Miles (Washington)
She stands in her nightgown on the cold wet grass. There is a light wind that picks up and plays with the hem of her dress, trickles through the trees in his yard and whispers that she should be home and in bed.
It's no surprise she hasn't slept a wink in two days with her sister moaning in her sleep. She can't remember a night she hasn't spent lying in bed listening for the tell-tale rattle in her sleeping sister's breath, just to know that she's alive. Beth smiles at her when she catches Jo watching her during the day, a shawl over her shoulders as she struggles to find the strength to even pet the cat. Jo has never hated a smile more then the one that tells her such lies and truth all at once.
It's going to be soon. Her sister will go soon.
None of this however explains what she is doing in her nightclothes, on her neighbour's lawn in the middle of the night. Jo sighs and feels empty as she stares up at Laurie's window, wondering if she should go back inside and crawl into bed. She knows she can't take much more of that rattling sound that used to be so small and reassuring.
"Everything's a mess." She tells no one.
Jo closes her eyes and lifts her face to the stars overhead. If she is very quiet and concentrates hard enough she can imagine herself miles away, standing on a mountain in Italy, or on a bridge in Paris. She can imagine Laurie standing beside her, knowing there is nothing to say that needs saying.
She misses his voice.
Her eyes open again and the pale stars remain unmoved and unchanged. Jo looks back to the window and wishes that so many things that have happened in her short life hadn't. Now there is no Laurie to call down with a stone to the glass, and soon there will be no Beth to hear in the dead of the night.
The wind brushes through her, stronger now as the treetops sway far behind her. She wonders what the wind smells like in all the strange places Laurie has seen without her. It's a question she thinks even Amy probably hasn't asked him. Jo folds her arms and thinks about her youngest sister and her dearest friend. She doesn't even know if she has the right to call him such after breaking his heart but it is still true for her, although she's sure Laurie sees it very differently. She can't read his thoughts in Amy's letters and he hasn't returned any of hers – she feels so very far away from him now.
The emptiness settles inside her and Jo feels a little too weak to cry. Her best friend won't come when she calls, she knows he won't be holding her hand when they lower Beth into the ground. She hates that she thinks of these things, even before they've happened. It feels like the cruellest way to give up, and yet she can't stop such practical, sentimental thoughts from entering her mind any more than she can turn back time and prevent Beth from ever knowing the Hummels.
There is a sea between her and the boy who lived on the other side of that window, Jo thinks as the wind makes the grass even colder when it tickles her ankles. There is a sea between her and a world without Beth and she never wants that one to be crossed. She turns around slowly on the grass, hugging her arms tight across her stomach as the flimsy cotton of her dress balloons about her body in the wind. She shuts her eyes and thinks of the seaside with Beth and feels inordinately silly knowing the girl is still in her bedroom. She misses that time, she misses having her sisters all to herself and feels jealous and sad and lonely as she walks away from the Laurence house.
She tries to remember the sound of the waves, the texture of the sand. The wind around her now runs through the bushes beside the fence and almost sounds like the faint crashing of seawater as it rushes to shore. It smells nothing like the salt and sting of the sea but Jo stops to listen anyway, reluctant to return to her bed just yet.
Jo wonders if Amy has seen Laurie since the last letter she wrote and can't help but wonder if the changes Amy noted have manifested in some physical way. She can't stop the flood of expressions and haircuts she recalls without a second thought and wonders if he is very fashionable or shaping into the man she knows he can be. Jo climbs the wooden rail of the fence and sits atop, facing the Laurence house as she considers how much of her friend is changing without her. She will have no place for the new man that will take his shape except to exist in his past.
It hurts to think that she misses him when she knows he does not miss her.
Her legs kick slowly back and forth beneath her as she grips the wooden log and looks up at the stars. Behind her Beth will be sleeping fitfully and for once she doesn't think to run home and sit by her sister's bed in case she wakes alone. For once Jo allows herself to do nothing except miss her best friend. She feels stupidly indulgent but can't help the swelling sensation in her chest as she blinks rapidly back at the twinkling stars.
The bushes still rustle like distant waves and the air is cool against her skin. There is no light behind Laurie's window and she doubts there ever will be one again. Time is pulling her along and she is powerless to stop it, chained to a boat that will never see land until the final land. Jo shivers, thinking Beth's boat is pulling to shore with every passing day.
She wishes more than anything that Beth will never go. It frightens her to think of that room empty, that bed cold, another seat removed from the table. It feels like time is taking everyone she loves from her, one way or another and she prays, please not Beth. The wind answers back, pressing against her face and something inside her tells her she can smell the sea.
Jo folds her hands around her elbows and cries silently on the fence.