A raindrop glistened on her cheek. Or a tear, I wasn't really sure. It is hard to tell on such evenings whether she is crying or simply standing in the rain, thinking and wishing. The stars twinkled, their reflections in her eyes. I could tell that she was not crying, for her eyes never sparkled like that when she was. Still I knew that she was slowly slipping away, the cold look on her face unfaltering. And there was no way for me to console her, for I was merely her younger brother.
She thought that I didn't understand, but I did. I knew perfectly well how it felt to long for someone, even though you know that you shouldn't. Only Violet was never betrayed in the way that I was. And everyday I tried to tell her that she was lucky in this sense, but it never quite reached her. "You have never lost your real love," she would say. "You have never watched your beloved be dragged away in chains, begging for you to rescue him." Maybe it was true. But I still swear that I could have helped her if she'd only let me.
Each day I feel more at fault what happened. I didn't push her to do what she did. I only told her to chase the dream that was dearest to her heart; never in those days did I imagine that she would wind up where she is today, lying in a white room somewhere, waiting for someone to save her. You'd better believe that I'd have gotten to her long ago if it weren't for the circumstances. Sunny says that it doesn't matter, that we simply have to go find her. She doesn't understand that if we go now, we may never return. Every moment that I breathe, and some when I don't, the guilt nags at me. I hear whispers, desperate cries begging for a savior. The truth is, before we can save our sister, someone must save us.
She ran away, looking for him, but he was long gone. She came back and couldn't find us, and by the time we freed ourselves to send her the message we needed to convey, she'd vanished. Sunny may have forgotten, but I haven't. She knows what's happened, but her memories of the time are foggy. Violet and I always wished that Sunny could have known our parents before the fire. Now, she barely even knows her sister. In some ways, Sunny is even more desperate to find her than I am, simply because she wants to know her, wants to know the sister whom she barely remembers. I see her gazing at Violet's picture every night.
Five years ago Violet left, and still there have been no words from her. We know she is lying there, peacefully, and as much as I don't want to disturb her peace, I know that somewhere inside of her, our storm is still raging, the stinging flames of our lives still burning. If we could only go there and wake her up, maybe I could extininguish those flames with the news that I meant to deliver so many years ago...
Isadora doesn't know. Duncan doesn't know. They know not what's happened to their brother, but Sunny and I do. We cannot reach the Quagmires, or our sister, or any of the others we have cared about. Even more hurt arises from keeping these secrets, from bleeding in secret and concealing these scars. I long to show her the blood, show Isadora that still I bleed for her everyday, that I love her and pray for her and wish to touch her face once more. I am forced to hide these thoughts, and it kills me so. Each second that we both pray for each other, I die a little more. And now, it is I who cannot be comforted, for there is no one to hug my shoulders and tell me that she will return someday. All chances of a real future depend on me and Sunny running away and fleeing this land, just the way Violet did five years ago. Sunny will go willingly, but I just don't know if I can leave. Thid place holds so many memories, and sometimes when Sunny is sound asleep, I crawl over to the windowsill and watch the spot where I promised to love that girl forever.
All of the women close to my heart have suffered so, but I cannot keep myself from dwelling on those blissful memories of nights so starry and lips so soft.