HEATHER'S REVIVAL
SEQUEL TO "HEATHER'S LAMENT"

July 30th, 2011

Forgive the shitty handwriting - I'm on a plane.

The camping trip was about two weeks ago by now, and I've been pretty booked solid for those fourteen days. The first seven of which, Sierra was still staying with me. We spent a lot of time sorting through the hundreds of photos that were taken with the disposable cameras.

We had to thin it a bit (someone whom we suspect was Harold took at least fifteen pictures of the crook of his elbow looking like a butt crack), but there were a lot of really good ones. Sierra scanned them all individually so that she could blog them or whatever it is that she does. She complained about LeShawna having brought the disposable cameras over and over again, saying the physical copies were totally useless, but I liked them.

Now I keep them in the jewelry box I used to have my visiting-Alejandro money in. My mom keeps saying I need to tack them up on my walls, but I'm not eleven. Maybe if I get nostalgic enough I will, but for now, I feel like that's sort of where they belong.

I'm trying to think of Alejandro less than I used to. It's been kind of easy so far, with so much to occupy my mind with. This plane ride is the first time since the trip I've even had time to miss him - and I don't think the fact that I am on a plane is doing much to divert those thoughts.

I know there's a part of me that doesn't want to move on. There's a part of me that doesn't want the panic attacks to stop. I don't know why. Maybe because I think I owe it to him.

Would he feel good about it, if he knew? Wherever he is in Spain, would he be smiling if he knew I was struggling to keep myself together on a plane because I miss him? Because I'm constantly so filled with hate and regret that nothing short of constant stimulation can pry my brain away from him?

I hope so. If nothing else comes from all this, I hope it makes him stupid and arrogant and smug.

But I'm trying to move past that kind of thinking. I'm trying to not only recognize when my thoughts are completely full of shit, but also do something about it.

In a weird way, I feel like everything about me is changing.

Yes, the sharp pain in my chest is still there. The guilt, the horror, the yearning - it all still exists. But it's a little duller now. It's easier to just not think about. And while Dr. Kenwar would probably like to take credit for that, I kind of think it might be thanks to Sierra.

Or Harold. Even Duncan.

It's just all such a complicated mess. I don't know whether to be happy or sad about any of this.

I'm improving. I'm healing. That's a good thing. A great thing.

But what about him?

He might still be cooped up in a hospital somewhere, still treating third degree burns. I remember what was shown in the episode. He lost his hair. He lost parts of his face. The skin of his shoulder.

He doesn't get to just heal and feel better.

So why should I deserve to?

I go back and forth and back and forth and back and forth.

In fact, that's basically the only thing I ever do, aside from text Sierra memes. (She's taught me about memes, by the way. I'm slowly growing more and more tech-savvy. I even put a queue on my blog for the time I'm going to spend at June's. A queue.)

I am going to June's, by the way. I guess I should've mentioned that a lot earlier. It's easy to get off track when I haven't written in a long time like this.

June is my oldest and only sister. Like I said before, she's like twice my age. Thirty six, to be exact. Old enough to be my mom. She was already moved out of the house and into her husband's house by the time I was born.

As a result, I never exactly got the opportunity to be close to her. For that, I thank the high heavens, because I fucking hate her. She's…. Hm. I don't know how to even begin describing June.

Imagine a six year old little girl with big ribbons in her hair, who thinks she's the cutest thing in the world. Imagine that this hypothetical little girl just thrived off being told how cute she is, and will often do things like struggle with her shoelaces or bat her lashes in a vacant sort of way, because she's aware these actions make her appear "cute".

This act is incredibly transparent and incredibly annoying, but it's clear that her parents have raised her to think that acting like a needy child will get her absolutely everything she wants in life, and it's really not your job to go trying to undo years worth of head-fuckery, so you deal with her tantrums and her fake-sniffles and her "do you like my boowwwwws?"

Got a pretty solid mental picture? Good. Now just take that six year old little girl, and imagine that she's actually a thirty-six year old woman, and her name is June, and she's my sister.

Luckily, I only have to see her once in a blue moon. And since I've hardly seen her since before I went to Total Drama now, my parents wanted me to come stay the remainder of the summer with her, her creepy husband, and her weird daughter Effie who's nearly as old as I am despite being my niece.

So here I am. On my way to America. Whoopdie-freakin-do.

As much as it blows to have to see June again, I'm a little excited about the fact that she's got an awesome beach house. If there's one thing I miss about Wawanakwa, it's the constant beach access.

Sure, Effie will be there, but surely she can't fuck things up too bad. Maybe she's less of a constant fuckup than I remember. Maybe she's grown into something semi-normal. She was eleven last time I saw her.

But then again, this is a girl who's been raised by June. I shouldn't get too excited.

-ℋ

July 31st, 2011

The only thing even vaguely exciting about being in America again is the lowered food quality.

Seriously, the shittier a food is, the more likely I am to fucking love it, and… I've never really considered the ethics of that before, but considering it now, it's pretty much a miracle I'm not fat.

Anyway. A whole lot more flies in America than does in Canada when it comes to food that might kill you. So I'm pretty much pigging out. And I'm gonna puke, probably.

"D'you have all this shit in Hawaii?" I asked, popping a piece of cheesy popcorn that tasted like styrofoam into my mouth.

My shitty laptop's speakers crackled when Sierra responded, her video lagging and glitching a bit under my sister's less-than-amazing internet connection, but still strong enough for me to make out the image of her sitting cross-legged in her room. "Yeah! I mean, most of it, I think. We're kind of off on our own little island over here, I mean, both literally and metaphorically, so, I don't know."

I laughed at that and wiped some kind of gross cheesy residue off my mouth. "Well. This crap is the only plus side of being here."

She groaned a little, flopping onto her back and sticking her feet up in the air, as she often does when exasperated. I don't know why she does that. It reminds me of an opossum playing dead.

"If your parents wanted you out of the house for a few weeks, why didn't they just send you to me?"

I gave a disgusted grunt and half considered mimicking her dead possum pose. "Right? But I haven't seen precious June since like… I don't know. Before Total Drama, probably."

"Really?" Sierra stopped going belly-up long enough to shoot the camera a surprised look about two seconds belated. "You haven't seen your older sister in like three years?"

I crumpled the bag off cheesey popcorn and strew it to the side, leaning in nearer to the webcam so that my face filled most of the picture. "Well, I was barely home for any of that time, and I hate my sister, sooooo -"

"Awww Heather, that's so mean." A familiar apathetic voice sounded as the door to the guest bedroom creaked open, and there stood none other than the porcelain anime waifu herself - My sister June, holding an oversized basket of laundry.

She's barely aged a day in three years. She's still barely 5 feet tall, still has naturally pink and pouty little lips, still has the complexion of a perfect little Japanese doll. Forever youthful are those big, sweet eyes of my colour, but a smidgen browner, and therefore more welcoming. Even her facial features are a bit more rounded and pleasant than mine, which are jagged and pointed and unappealing. Her hair was done up in two top knots, making her appear straight out of some gross fanservicey anime.

June's only glaring physical flaw is that jagged front tooth of hers, which is irritating to look at in the same way that it's irritating to look at a perfectly tiled bathroom floor with one square turned the wrong way. That, and that she's a good bit heavier than I am, but sort of in an appealing way. The weight's in all the right areas.

"Ex-cuuuuseee me June, I'm kind of on a call."

I hit mute on Sierra before she could start trying to talk to my sister, which I was sure she would do if I gave her the chance.

"You've been here five minutes! You haven't even greeted me since Jace got you from the airport!"

Jace. i.e; her infuriatingly flirty entitled-ass husband. He's old and wrinkly and "accidentally" walked in on me in the shower once when I was fourteen.

She married him for money and nothing more, I'm sure, and because he constantly stimulates her need to feel adorable, but she does at least pretend to love him or something.

"Yeeeeah. Thanks for sending Jace, by the way. You couldn't even come get me yourself?"

She sighed and balanced the laundry basket on her hip. "I really wish you'd try and warm up to him!"

I rolled my eyes and almost didn't dignify her with a response, glancing back at Sierra on the skype screen for a moment.

"In case you've forgotten who you're speaking to, I'm your sister. Heather. I don't warm up to people." I saw Sierra objecting this out of the corner of my eye. "... Especially not gross, fetishing, aw - "

"Okay! I've heard enough!" She puffed out her cheeks and pouted her lips. I resisted an urge to puke on her. "I just wanted to tell you that I was going through some of the family stuff I have stored before you got here, and I found something of yours!"

I sat up a bit straighter. "Something of mine? Why would you even have something of mine? What is it?"

"Well," she readjusted the laundry again and smiled, singing the rest of her sentence to some off-key melody. "If you're too busy on your call, I guess I'll just forget about it~!"

Her sing-song voice trailed away as she walked out the door, leaving me to scramble to my feet off the bed and run after her. "Wait! Why do you have my stuff?"

She started giggling like a child and ran down the hall, and I chased her all the way to the closet downstairs, from which she produced a light pink leotard, a skirt, and a pair of bloch ballet shoes.

I blinked a few times before yanking them out of her hands. "These are mine? Why did you have them?"

"I don't know! I guess you left them here the last time you came to see me! You used to like dancing in the basement, remember?"

I did remember, suddenly. When they'd first moved into this house and the basement was totally empty, it was the perfect place for me to dance. The floor was perfect and wide and open, and everything felt so… private.

I stared down at the leotard and felt my face heat a bit. I'd completely forgotten how much I used to love to dance.

I tried to remember why I ever stopped, and then remembered the obvious: Three years on Total Drama.

The same reason I didn't finish high school. The same reason I didn't do a lot of things.

I stood in silence a moment longer as June's big squeaky smile grew another inch on either side.

"... Does your basement still…. Is there any clear space down there anymore?"

I looked up at her and jumped back when her overwhelming grin scared the piss out of me. She nodded ecstatically. "Mhm! Mhm!"

I folded the outfit into my chest and fought a smile for a few more seconds. "Uh… Thanks, June. I'm just gonna… go now…"

"AWWW YOU'RE WELCOME HEATHER-BEATHER!" She reached forward and tried to hug me, which I narrowly escaped.

"NO. ABSOLUTELY NOT. AND DON'T INTERRUPT ME AGAIN."

I ran back down the hall and turned into the bathroom. I looked over the leotard and considered actually putting it on for a while, but eventually opted to just tie on the shoes before sneaking my way downstairs.

The basement was certainly not completely empty anymore, but there was still plenty of space for me to move around. So I tried to dance for a while.

At first I fell a few times. But the more I tried, the more the movements and the muscle memories started to come to me. The feeling of release started to wash over me again; the feeling of being tiny and graceful and beautiful. Missing was the light brushing of my hair against my waist as I moved, but I soon grew used to it falling back and forth across my shoulders instead.

I was clutzy and far from perfect, but it felt really, really nice… For maybe ten minutes.

Then I was interrupted by Effie lying across the stairs.

"You're still pretty good at that, Aunt Heath."

I lost my balance and toppled to the ground. "Effie? Ugh! How long have you been crouching there?"

She shrugged and wiggled her nose, trying to scoot her big circular glasses back up to her face.

I sighed and picked myself up off the floor. "I'm not exactly in practice. I didn't expect to be watched."

"Oh." she said. And for a while, that was it. I looked down at my shoes and wondered how badly I was going to bruise from all that falling.

"Hey, Aunt Heath?"

"You… Don't need to call me your aunt. You're like, three years younger than me."

"Alright. If you say so, Aunt Heath, but, I was wondering…" She sat up and pressed her fingers together awkwardly.

Everything about her was awkward, really. Big chubby cheeks, big chubby legs, big chubby shoulders. Awkward bangs, awkward sideburns.

"Wondering what, Effie?" I asked, sounding dismissive. She twisted her mouth in a weird expression and dangled her feet off the stairs, making visible her big light-up sneakers.

"Maybe you could teach me ta' dance like that. I used to go to dance classes when I was younger, too."

"You took ballet?"

"Hip-hop."

"Not exactly the same thing, Effie."

Her big cheeks looked like they were constantly smushing her mouth.

"Oh. Okay. Then maybe I could teach you how to dance like that."

I snickered. "You're going to teach me hip-hop?"

"Yeah. Why not."

"No offense, but…" I headed towards the stairs. "I think I'm good."

"You sure?" she asked, getting up herself. "I'm pretty much awesome at it…"

"Is that so?" I asked, sounding as completely uninterested as I could manage. She used her big chubby shoulder to keep me from going all the way up the stairs.

"Yeah! It is! Watch me!"

She moved past me and to the middle of the basement floor, where she continued to count herself off while I stood boredly on the stairs.

What followed surprisingly actually resembled a hip-hop dance. Even so, I couldn't keep myself from laughing a couple of times.

She finished in a big pose, chest heaving and light-up sneakers still blinking a few moments longer.

"So? How about it?"

I snorted. "That was… Really something, Effie."

"I told you, Aunt Heath! You should let me teach you!"

I pursed my lips together. "I'm… I think I want to keep practicing ballet, Ef. You understand that, right?" I turned and started to head up the stairs again. Her sneakers clunked up right behind me.

"Wait! We could… We could do both! We could make up a dance that's like…. Hip-hop ballet! It'd be cool!"

I soared up into the hall and sputtered another laugh. "That sounds completely awful."

"Yeah! Let's do it!" I could nearly feel her breath on my neck. "I know how to, like remix and stuff! I could make us a song to do it to!"

I rolled my eyes and kept walking, but I wanted her off my trail before I reached my room. I did not need her following me in there.

"Okay. Fine. Sure, Effie, we can choreograph a hip-hop-ballet dance. Just. Don't make the music too obnoxious."

I closed the door in her face and dropped to the floor, untying the uncomfortable ballet shoes and letting out a long breath.

This is going to be a long rest of the summer.

My eyes trailed up to my bed and I remembered suddenly that I'd totally abandoned Sierra. I spun the laptop around to apologize, but I found that she was actually still on the feed. I unmuted it and got her attention.

"Sierra? You're still on here?"

"What?" she asked, like I'd asked a stupid question. "I was waiting for you. Where've you been?"

"I'm…. I'm learning hip-hop dance, apparently."

-ℋ