I had a hard time sleeping that night.
Claire was in the hospital because she almost drowned. Drowned. I knew my sister wasn't the smartest tool in the shed, but she wasn't paying enough attention to realize she leaned too far over. Part of the reason why I even wanted to come with her in the first place was that she wouldn't do stupid shit like this. I wasn't doing a good enough job watching over her. What if Claire pulled some crazy stunt like that again? She can't always rely on some Prince Charming to save her, let alone myself.
Why should a nineteen-year-old girl be so concerned about her older sister anyways? She should be more focused on growing herself in higher education, or a trade, or something. At least, most kids my age would. I was different. Special, in a way. I kept my sister out of trouble. That was my job after all.
I eventually forced myself to close my eyes and get sleep. I couldn't spend all night worrying, otherwise, I'd be incredibly sluggish tomorrow.
The next morning, I woke up to the sunlight seeping through the windows. It seemed almost perfect, as it was trying to correct itself to create an illusion of a happy fairytale. It felt a little awkward, but I decided to just get up and make some breakfast for myself and attempt to get ready for the day. After all, I was going to have to attempt to clear this farm out myself. I needed to do this for Claire. I couldn't let her worry about me.
After I changed into my outfit for the day, I opened the door to find a strange man standing outside. He was relatively buff and looked intimidating until he cracked a smile at me.
"Yo!" the man waved at me and exclaimed from halfway across the farm. "You're Claire, right?"
"Naomi," I whispered under my breath. I could almost hear Claire chiding me for not speaking up, but this guy seemed too boisterous for my personality to handle.
"I couldn't hear you!" He said that as if he'd never met someone with terrible social skills.
"Naomi!" I barked back, sending him a glare of disapproval. Why did everyone seem to think I was my sister? We hardly looked anything alike, aside from our eye and nose shapes.
"Sorry!" The man ran up to me. "Is Claire around then?"
"No, she's at the infirmary," I said sharply, speaking rather quietly compared to the outburst of my name earlier. "Can I help you?"
"Uh, yeah!" It seemed to me that I made the poor dude feel awkward. "See that bin over there? If you put items in it, I'll take them and give you the money that they're worth at 5 pm every day."
"Oh." So was this the person who was supposed to collect our crops and animal products? "Does it just have to be items from our farm?"
"Anything you don't need! Claire's grandpa used to put various weeds and grasses in there. So long as it isn't somebody else's stuff, ship away!" The man heartily laughed. "By the way, the name's Zack. Nice to meetcha!" He held his hand out for me to shake it.
"Naomi. I think you already knew that though," I replied, and shook his hand. Mine was rather weak, almost limp in his crushing grip.
"Girl, you need some confidence!" Zack smiled at me. "I'll let you take care of these...fields then." I'm sure he was referring to the weeds and rocks. I simply nodded and walked towards the old toolbox while he went on his merry way back to the town.
These tools were as old as dirt. I would say that they were even older than dirt. They were rusty, and the wood was loose on them. They needed heavy repair excluding the watering can, which seemed to be a simple plastic one that you could buy at a dollar store in the city. I was going to need a sickle to clear the weeds, an axe to chop down the scattered branches and stumps, and a hammer to form the stones into some sort of usable material. Grandpa had had all of these tools and more. Right now, I needed to focus on clearing out the old farm.
By the time I got started, it was almost noon. The sun patted my back like a friend rubbing my shoulder. I eventually got the hang of using the sickle, being able to weed through the weeds as if I was Demeter cutting down grain. It felt like I was doing something productive for once. Was this my true calling?
Once I finished, I felt completely out of breath. This was fun, but it was a lot of work. I felt motivated to continue, however, and got the axe out of the bag. I started chopping away at all of the branches, finding the work to be much harder than cutting weeds. I needed to stop a couple of times before continuing. Each time I swung the axe, I felt more and more tired. The sun started to beat on me like I was developing a sunburn. Even still, I needed to keep going. Claire would want the farm to be in decent shape when she returned. If I couldn't do that, then what kind of sister would I be?
After one last swing at a branch, I fell over, and the world turned black.
"Mimi! You told me not to worry and look what happened!" I heard Claire exclaim. I fluttered my eyes open to find myself back at the infirmary.
"What happened?" I asked groggily. I could see Claire in my peripheral vision, but no one else.
"Overworked yourself on the fields," a male voice responded promptly. "Dehydration can really do you in, as well as not giving yourself enough to eat." I sat up to address myself to the man. He was wearing a white lab coat that was unbuttoned. Underneath, he was wearing an olive green shirt and navy blue pants. His shoes were a nice shade of brown that fit the professional attire perfectly.
"Mhm!" Elly walked in behind the man. "Doctor Trent's right, you shouldn't overdo it!" I could only nod. It wasn't like there was anything else for me to say. After all, what could I say? That I wouldn't do it again? That hardly seemed likely.
"Mimi tends to overwork herself to the point of collapse," Claire explained. Why was she referring to me with that nickname? I don't need it to spread to everyone in town.
"Do you have a set time for lunch?" the Doctor asked, looking at me intently.
"Not normally. If Claire's hungry then I'll get up and make something, but I don't usually eat a lot when I'm hungry." I hoped it was a decent response to his question.
"That's definitely an issue. Who normally does the cooking?"
"That would be me. Claire can only make a...select few things." I could feel Claire's gratitude bulging out of her eyeballs at me. Her public image was something she wanted to keep intact for some reason. I could honestly care less about it, as I preferred the regular old Claire anyways compared to her public persona of being a submissive sweetheart.
"To solve this issue, perhaps Claire could let you know to make something for the two of you at a particular time?" the Doctor smiled when he said this. It was very calming, almost as if you could depend on him. Obviously, his job was to be dependable for the health of the town, so I suppose it made sense.
"Sure," I said flatly.
"I can do that," Claire chimed in. "It sounds easy enough."
"Wonderful. I can let you two go back to your farm tonight on the condition that you both don't do any hard physical work." The Doctor picked up his clipboard and walked out of the room.
"I'm sure we'll see the both of you later!" Elly said goodbye as she exited the room. It was just me and Claire left here now.
It was sort of awkward being just the two of us. It felt strange to me, as I didn't particularly like being around people anyways. For some reason, Elly and Doctor Trent just made me feel like that I belonged here somehow. Despite filling up a bed, they were really courteous to both my sister and me. We certainly wouldn't have gotten that type of treatment back at home in the city.
"Thomas told me everyone's like that here," Claire said. "They're all really nice like Doc and Elly."
"Oh, he came and visited you today?" I asked, curious about what the old man had to say.
"Yeah! He told me the shipping guy, I think his name was Zack? Yeah! He was supposed to come over today to let you know that he can pick up anything we don't need or our products from the farm and he'll pay us back for them. Did he come?"
"I think so?" I thought his name was Zack. I could've been wrong though. I wasn't great at remembering names to faces and the like. I'm sure he was the boisterous guy I met earlier that told me, Girl, you need some confidence or something along those lines. "Yeah, he told me I needed confidence or some stupid shit like that."
"You do need some confidence silly. Not everybody's gonna inspect you like an insect." Claire got up from where she was sitting, and I decided to follow her suit.
The two of us walked through the town for a while as we were arriving back home. It seemed lovely, especially in the evening. Everything seemed really cozy, almost as if I was starting off in the hometown of the player character in some RPG. It felt nice, in a way.
"Thomas is going to show us around to meet everyone tomorrow morning. It'll probably take all day, unfortunately." Claire explained to me, breaking the silence of our little walk.
"You don't need to put up your persona if we're just walking around by ourselves," I told her, hoping my feelings would get across. "It's really weird seeing you act not yourself."
"I'll stop the persona once you show other people your true self too!" Claire ruffled my hair and stuck her tongue out at me. There was the Claire I knew, childish and always willing to make everybody laugh. To me, that was the true Claire. Not some submissive lady that would let anyone get away with anything.
"Wait, you said we're meeting people tomorrow?" I stopped in my tracks. "How many?"
"Pretty much the entire town!" Claire grinned. "You excited?"
"You know the answer is a hard no!" I empathized. I didn't feel comfortable meeting too many people at once. One or two, like Elly yesterday, as well as Zack and Doctor Trent today were fine. The entire town? No way! I couldn't do it!
"Mimi, you're going to have to see them sooner or later. This isn't the city." Claire became rather serious now. It wasn't her persona's way of being serious, but more as a sister-to-sister type seriousness.
"Yeah I know," I sighed. "I wish I could talk naturally to people like you can." It was sort of a confession, but I think Claire already knew.
"I think once you get to know everyone here you'll hardly remember the fact that you are!" Claire patted my shoulder. "You'll come around eventually."
The next day came by, and the morning felt like it dragged on forever. I guess Thomas introduced Claire and me to the townsfolk, but I was so overwhelmed that I could barely remember any of it. It made me feel angry, in a way. I did my best to try and speak up, but something just kept me from doing it. I don't know if it was just Claire doing all the talking for me or if there was some sort of imaginary lock on my throat or something, but I just couldn't speak the entire time except to Elly and Doctor Trent. Once Claire and I got home, I just collapsed onto the bed and started crying into my pillow.
"I feel fucking terrible," I sobbed. The pillow muffled my cries a bit, but I'm sure Claire was able to tell my feelings just fine.
"It's okay Mimi!" Claire tried to cheer me up. "I know these people are still strangers to you, but everyone was really nice and understanding."
"I made a fool of myself! I tried my best, but it felt like my throat closed up or something. I didn't like that feeling at all." I was whimpering like a dog at this point, and it felt embarrassing that I was making a fool of myself even more. "I still don't."
"Mimi…" I could tell Claire didn't really know what to say to me. She usually was okay with my outbursts like this, but for some reason, she seemed different today. Maybe it was because meeting everyone took a toll on her as she had to put on the persona for the entire day. She walked over to me and gave me a hug. "Tomorrow's another day. How about the two of us get some rest and we can focus on farmwork in the morning?"
"Sure," I sniffled. Today was long, even though I could barely remember much of it.
The next day, I awoke to Claire poking my side with her finger. It wasn't very comfortable, but I figured she wanted me to get up. The sun was shining again through the windows. I was surprised that it didn't rain since we had arrived in town.
"Wakey wakey, Mimi," Claire whispered. "I'm hungry, you know."
"Why are you up so early?" I asked groggily.
"Farmers gotta wake up early, you know!" Claire giggled and threw the covers off of me. "Time to wake up and get to work!"
"Ugh!" I groaned. "You son of a bitch." I reached over for the pillow that I was sleeping on and threw it at Claire. "Don't throw the covers off me next time."
"Alright fine I won't!" Claire laughed. She walked out of my bedroom, and I got up for the day.
After finishing up breakfast and getting ready, I decided to head outside and tell Claire what I needed from her today.
"Okay Claire, since you're the social butterfly, I want you to run a few errands for me," I explained. I first walked over to the toolbox, and Claire followed suit. "These tools aren't very good right now. They're very worn. We need to figure out prices and materials to improve these, as well as where we can find the materials. Didn't we pass by a shop that repaired tools yesterday?"
"Yeah, there's a blacksmith in town," Claire responded. "The boy who works there with his grandpa is super cute! I'll totally take these to him!" Claire started picking up the various tools and putting them in her bag.
"You just need one tool!" I chided, took her bag, and started throwing the tools back in the tool case. "If there are different prices for different tools you can ask."
"Alright," Claire sighed. "Do you want me to come back when I'm done?"
"Ideally, yes. Try not to let anybody talk you into buying anything right now."
"I'll try!" Claire twirled around in a circle, and I could tell she was excited to meet the young guy who was working at the blacksmith. Her eyes were sparkling like the bright sky above us, and her face was tinted pink. "I can't wait to get to meet him!" She started skipping away from me. "I'll be back later, Mimi!"
"Try not to buy anything we don't need!" I called out. I hoped she would heed my words.
As for me, I was going to go forage in the forest around the farm. We needed to sell some things for cash, and I figured the various flowers and plants would make a quick buck so we could start up the farm.
The area around the farm was very dense and lush. There were some wild rabbits and monkeys around, which seemed unusual for the area. It also was very hard to walk through. It seemed very wild compared to the town and the farm. I supposed that it made sense that there would be a ton of wildlife on an island, but I didn't think that there would be that much.
I was lost in thought until I made a wrong step and fell over a tree branch. I fell right on my face, and my left knee was hurting a bit.
"Shit," I muttered to myself.
"Do you need help? It looks like you're bleeding." A voice that sounded like a man asked me. I looked up and I was absolutely astounded.
This guy looked a bit older than me. He had dark red hair that was the color of an ending sunset, and his eyes looked like they could actually be the sun seeing as how amber they were. He had bushy eyebrows and an amazing physique. I was at a loss for words at how this dude looked like a handsome huntsman or something.
"I could...uh," I was scrambling to find words. "Yes please!" I reached for his hand.
The man helped me all the way to his house. It was a small wooden cottage that was actually near a pathway, which was nice. I hoped I could be able to find my way back home.
"Let me get you bandaged up," the man said once we got inside, and sat me down in a chair. "Gotts! Do you happen to know where you keep the first aid kit?"
"It's up in the cupboard!" An older man called out. "Is everything alright, Brandon?"
"Yeah! I just happened to find one of the new farmers hurt out in the woods." I was silent the entire time as the person now known to me as Brandon was bandaging up my leg. He seemed so caring! My heart was fluttering inside my chest like a butterfly wanting to escape its cocoon.
"Thank you," I managed to sputter out.
"You're welcome. You're Naomi, right?" The fact that he called me Naomi wanted to make me jump for joy. This was the first time since I came here that someone did not call me Claire that I could remember.
"Mhm," I nodded, staring into his sunny eyes. "You're Brandon?"
"Indeed I am." He was intently working on my leg, making sure the bandage would stay on. The other man walked in.
"Hello, Naomi!" The voice I heard earlier had now walked into the room. "Some foraging went wrong?"
"Yeah…" I said shyly. After some time thinking about yesterday, I figured that his name was Gotts. He was a relatively large man, with a big beard that reminded me of a lumberjack.
"Brandon here's an artist. Found him outside of the woods like you one day. He's been living under my roof ever since."
"That is correct." Brandon smiled at me. I needed to think of something to say, quick.
"We should be more careful out in the woods!" I managed to get out. It sounded really awkward but I hoped my point got across.
"Indeed we should." He looked at my bandage. Gotts chuckled to himself.
"He can be quiet and a little weird, but you two seem like you guys would be great friends," Gotts commented. "Brandon, could you walk back to her farm, please?"
"Of course," Brandon said, and lifted his hand out. "Need help getting up."
"I think I got it," I said a bit flatly, and got up by myself. "Thank you though."
"It's not a problem." The two of us left the house, and Brandon showed me a quick and easy way to get back to the farm.
I was interested in Brandon. I wanted to be better friends, though, with my terrible social skills, I doubt it would happen right away. I did want to try and attempt to develop a friendship so I got to know him a bit better. Hopefully, he was patient with my social awkwardness.
One day I'll have a best friend in Mineral Town. And I hoped it would be him.