Day Two of Keeper Week!
This is honestly a story of angst, based on KK6. I almost cried just writing it.
Teensy lights twinkle in the mist of bushy foliage. A glimpse of ivory white floats past, out of view for a moment. The scent of plumaria flower lingers in the air. A little lavender blossom pops up every time you pay closer attention. And, somehow, you've found heaven.
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
"Finn?" I heard her call my name, I know I did. But it was so far off, I could have sworn I had imagined it. "Finn? Are you even listening to me?"
"Huh?" I asked, probably for the third time in the past hour. It went without saying that Amanda was irritated by this, just by the serious glare she stabbed me with.
She leaned back in her chair, still watching me, and pressed her lips into a tight line. Those same lips that I had kissed only just weeks beforehand, and had dreamt of kissing from far before that.
"I'm sorry, can you repeat that?" The words slipped out of my mouth sheepishly as I blushed. My own heart sank at the thought of disappointing her like I knew I had.
With a conflicting stare, cold like a snake's and gentle like a fearful fawn's, Amanda's eyes locked on mine. "I'm worried about you." She stated slowly, in a low and patient tone. Of course, she was more than sincere.
"I know." The sigh felt forced through my lips, as though I was trying to rid myself of a burdening weight on my shoulders that I couldn't liberate myself from.
"I'm trying to help." Her words came out with effort, a same cautious choice in phrasing. She ran a shaky hand through her untypically messy hair, and even when the light hit her face just perfectly and she looked absolutely stunning, I couldn't hear angels sing anymore. Because that spark was gone in her. Or maybe in me.
Those light brown depths glossed over and, for a moment, I was sure she was going to cry. "But you're not making it easy, Finn." She finished at last, looking down as her hand tightened and loosened its grip around the cup. They flickered up one final time to bear into me before she stood and stalked out of the store.
She'd been acting a certain way ever since I got back from the cruise. They all had, really. Her, Jess, and the other Keepers. Almost treating me delicately. It felt wrong and twisted, because deep down I remembered being their leader and having to be the one to stay strong.
That was almost a month ago. Ever since then, I became sort of …unreactive. And I know it's scaring her. From time to time, she would try to talk but I would shut her out and lose myself in my own thoughts until I'd come back to consciousness and she'd have that same worried expression.
Today she asked if we could swing by Starbucks afterschool to grab something to drink. I didn't understand why because from what I knew she didn't drink coffee and it was too warm out to be drinking hot chocolate like she did. Underneath, I knew she wanted to speak to me about something important.
"Listen, Finn," … "Can I talk to you?"… "About what happened,"…
The girl I trusted so wholeheartedly was slipping out of my grasp, but I couldn't keep myself from pushing her away.
Saturday, March 23, 2013
The words caught so helplessly in my throat, giving me the sensation of drowning. I hung my head and stayed back, letting the crowd of family members and friends form a barrier in front of me so that I wouldn't have to watch anymore.
Dillard's lifeless body lied perfectly still in the casket, but it didn't feel peaceful at all. Instead, it felt like a slow, dramatic film, where you sit quietly in the movie theater and your chest hurts from trying not to cry.
The sun radiated brilliantly, small fragment of its rays sneaking through the gaps in the foliage above so that I felt an out-of-place warmth on my skin. Under a canopy of deep green leaves, I found a patch of shade where it was fresh and the breeze was cool.
I stood so motionless for such a long period of time that my hands felt numb from hanging at my sides and my fingers were plump with a surplus of blood. People wept not far from me, leaning over the casket with their hand covering their face, trying to wipe away the tears. I tried desperately to block them out, even though it was useless.
"I'm…I'm so sorry, Finn." A voice chimed with a disheartened ring. Amanda walked slowly over to where I stood, sucking on her pouting bottom lip that continued to quiver despite this action.
A curt, sad chuckle passed through my lips, as I nodded my head. Although I could have told her bitterly that she didn't know what it felt like, although I could have just glared at her and scolded her for coming, I didn't. Something in my heart was so damaged that I couldn't stand the thought of refusing someone close to me. Why waste the love that we receive?
"It's hard." I whispered, my throat sore from holding back my thoughts that threatened to spill out, and my head ached horribly, making the world spin in such a whirl I thought I was falling to the floor.
I closed my eyes, but I could still feel her. She was right there, standing right beside me. I could feel her frown and stare at the ground. I could feel her wring her hands, absentmindedly running her thumb across the other. I could feel her eyes sparkle with the saddest reflection of her heart's pain I'd ever experienced.
Vaguely, the sound of shuffling feet reached my ears, and I opened my eyes to watch the rest of the horde push through the back door of the church. I, on the other hand, had no intention of leaving the tranquility of the small garden.
My gaze grazed the edge of the casket only feet away, and I thought I was going to be sick. But I managed to push past the feeling and stride gracelessly over, Amanda following noiselessly behind me.
My best friend. He had been my best friend. My head hurt again, but I was sure my heart hurt worse. I leaned forward, my grasp tightening around the sill, because I knew if I didn't hold on, I would fall. And I wouldn't be able to stand back up.
A heavy pang of guilt settled at the pit of my stomach. The tempest of thoughts driving through my skull agonized me, and I bit my tongue so hard, the hint of metallic taste in my mouth was almost instantaneous. Slowly and unsurely, I let go and stood erect, taking a first good look at the corpse in front of me.
The word itself sounded dreadful. Corpse. No longer were they human, or a body, with a soul, but a corpse.
Something echoed from the back of my throat, a hardly-stifled sob. In a moment of weakness, she had abruptly taken hold of my hand, her soft fingertips stroking the skin of my palm lightly. Suddenly, I felt to be shattering from the base, from the inside I was so broken it was unbearable.
"It's so hard." I choked out the murmur, my form turning to solid frost as the ice water in my heart spread like poison.
Maybe if my heart was heavy enough, it would weigh me down, through the layers of Earth beneath my feet and I could die.
...
Amanda explained that she had spoken to the others, but Jess, Willa, and Charlene had a;; been too upset to come-the two latter even more so having actually witnessed the event of his death. But they had each shown up randomly on a series of days to bring me comfort, or as much as they could try to.
"You're hurting, Finn." Jess knelt at the base of my bed, staring up at me as I hung my head. My parents had gotten my doctor to prescribe an anti-depressant or a pill of the like. As a result from it, I felt dizzy and lightheaded. It was better than feeling fractured all day, but not by much.
"I'm okay, Jess. Go on home." I muttered, rubbing my face. Constantly, I found myself falling asleep at least slightly, due to the new medication. In rebellion to my demand, she instead sat at the corner of the bed, and peeped up at me sideways.
"Amanda's worried about you." She stated, abnormally monotone. Her grey eyes were a bottomless abyss of her own pain and, at the same time, security.
"I know." I lied back in my bed, staring up at the ceiling, my refuge of thought. Sometimes I swear I saw things in the pattern of the rugged surface. Strange things…
"We all are." For a moment in seriousness, she hadn't resembled in the slightest the Jess Lockhart I knew. She poked my side and I watched the corners of her lips twitch upward in a small smile.
"Things are going to get better," Her eyes and my own followed her right hand as it traced the air in a curling motion as though drawing on it. When she scanned me, her eyes flashed with the same glint she had when she talked about her visions, before she returned them to watch her hand. "I know they are."
...
"You know, when my dad died I cried for two months," Willa said softly, after sitting in silence for a minute. I snapped my head up to stare at her, sitting cross-legged leaned again my headboard. It wasn't often that she vented about her father, and even then it was typically with one of the girls.
"Willa, I-" The gut-wrenching pain was harsh enough from my own experience, and knowing that she herself had suffered, didn't help in soothing. But at least I could feel her empathy, such a bitter-sweet sensation.
"Finn, I'm so sorry this had to happen. It's so hard to lose someone close to you." As she spoke, she casually leaned over and ran her index finger along my palm. It was a delicate touch, the gentle motion of tracing my life line and making little swirls.
When I pulled it away harshly, she snapped her head up. She expressed a short hurt in her eyes, as though she wanted to apologize but didn't know how, a primitive vulnerability I'd never before noticed.
"Just…just believe me when I say that it'll subside eventually. Someday, I promise."
...
"I'm going to be honest with you here," Charlene admitted, leaned against the closed door to my bedroom, "And this may sound a little harsh. But, this isn't working."
I knew that she didn't appreciate my silence, because if I hadn't heard my friend speak for almost a month, I would be concerned too. But in truth, I never would have been able to get a sentence out. The medication made me feel groggy and my mind slower than usual, and as a result my speech came out in a faintly slurred discourse, so that I just gave up.
"I understand that this isn't something that's going to heal over a weekend. But it also isn't something that's going to heal if you stay cooped up in your room all day, without interacting with the rest of the world and keeping to yourself a lot. There are people you can talk to!"
Of all, she had been the most honest with me, and that I had to respect. However, that did not entitle me to obey whatever she said. I was going to refuse any 'help' they told me to get as long as I had free will.
Because I know what it was like to not have free will, at least that's what the others claimed it was. Tia Dalma has supposedly made me do it, although I was having a considerably difficult time believing this declaration which, in my opinion, was just a ploy to lessen the culpability in me.
Friday, April 5, 2013
It was in the way she would glance at me regretfully. It was in the way all of a sudden something felt wrong. It was in the abruptness of the proposal to meet at the Frozen Marble on one of its busiest of days.
"What is it?" I asked, watching her across the booth peek at the clock for a third time in the past minute. Then Miss Innocent decided to play dumb with me, shooting me a confused look. "I know you're hiding something from me, so spill."
She bit her lip, something that I felt oddly indifferent about. Before, I might have felt my heart leap whenever she performed the cute little quirk. "I really wasn't supposed to tell you before…" Amanda sighed, defeated.
"We talked to your parents and they agreed that you need some…uh, guidance. It's an appointment with a therapist tomorrow." I hadn't expected her startled reaction when my eyes flared with anger; she tried to correct herself. "Just one. We're not forcing you to continue with anything unless you feel it's helping."
"I can't believe you," I muttered under my breath, grabbing my bag from the seat beside me on the bench. As I climbed out of the booth and began to storm off, I heard her stutter.
"We want what's best for you."
"No!" I shouted, in an instant gaining the attention of every customer and every employee. "You want to think this is going to help but it won't. You're all so set on fixing me, but none of you get that it's done! You can't get it through your thick head that I don't care anymore!"
"This isn't like you." She retorted, sternly this time, instead of tender and afraid. Although the thought of letting her have the last word irked me, I couldn't think of anything to say back. So I just marched out of the store.
Thursday, April 11, 2013
For almost a week, avoiding Amanda was my occupation and my goal, because I couldn't make myself come face to face with her after the way I acted. And it was also a sense of pride and a touch of my hotheadedness.
And frankly, I was doing a darn good job at it for over 120 hours. Eating lunch around campus rather than in the cafeteria. Taking study hall in the library because I knew she wasn't going to check there. That was until precisely six days after our argument, when I was unlocking the chain on my bike to ride home and I saw her through her bus window.
The image was mostly obscured by the dark glass, but I just knew it was her. And a charge of rage flooded my blood. Thinking about the way I had treated her made me ashamed, which irritated me because I wanted to keep convincing myself I hadn't acted irrationally.
Gone was this feeling when my phone beeped in my pocket and I checked to find that she had texted me.
Saturday, the old abandoned church. If u come, ill know we're ok.
Something about the way I had mixed feelings about the invitation, despite my efforts to reject it entirely, made me rethink the way I was confronting my whole situation.
Saturday, April 13, 2013
Right in front of me, stood the most beautiful girl I had ever met in my entire life, looking more gorgeous than I had ever seen her. Long golden brown waves fell perfectly over her shoulders, and her smile, though petty, so charming it pained me to think I had ever been irate at her. An angelic vision she was in a knee-length off-white skater dress.
"Wow," I breathed, the single word being the only thing I could manage.
"Come with me," Reflected in her grin was her contentment that I had showed as she held my hand and led me into the small building. Through the back doors and suddenly I was met with the sight of a table set with a white table cloth and lit candles, who's glow was bright in contrast to the dark night.
"You-"
"This is an 'I'm sorry', I guess. For the way I acted. I shouldn't have forced you into something you didn't want to do." She blurted out.
I gaped at her, unsure of how I should response. Finally the words hit me and I gave her hand a light squeeze. "No, I'm supposed to apologize. I acted horribly and I shouldn't have because I how you all just want to help. And I want to thank you. I went to the counseling session yesterday and I think it helped a little and I might continue."
Her face lit up with joy. "That's great, Finn!" She excitedly jumped up and hugged me. "Why don't you tell me all about it over dinner? I'll be right back."
I watched her disappear into the house and I knew that Jess and Willa and Charlene had been right, all over them. It was going to take some time, a long, long time. But I had incredible friends to guide me through the difficult paths. And somewhere in the back of my head I could hear Dillard say, "Amanda is a girl." And I knew that, even though back then he hadn't been all too thrilled at the idea, he was somewhere up there smiling.
I'd battle for the virtue of my princess.
For the King!
I totally made up those dates so I don't want anybody being like "oh, but they went on the cruise at this time so that's incorrect." And I hope nobody hates me for this story, I just wanted to write it cuz it felt like he deserved some recognition for this saddening event in his life. Although I admit I will never be able to capture the true feeling of killing your best friend.