Chapter 4: No More
After a half hour or so, Sarah wiped her red-rimmed eyes. She reached over the edge of her bed and plucked her cat off the floor. "Oh Sheba! What am I going to do? Why is everything going so wrong? The auditions, Michael, the Labyri…" she leaped off her bed, dropping her cat on the covers. "No! I won't think of that again! I've had my little stroll down memory lane! That damn book is not going to ruin my life!" She stomped to her the tiny balcony that looked over a busy street, her mind roiling. She sat in the little chair that she had squeezed into the space and let her eyes lose focus. Her mind, stubborn as ever, began to drift to thoughts of her little brother. I wonder how Toby's doing…she thought. He would be twelve years old now. She hadn't seen him for at least four years. Her stepmother had refused to let her back to visit after her father had passed away. She wouldn't even let Sarah speak to Toby over the phone. Sarah loved her little brother, despite the fact that she had attempted to wish him away to the goblins. I was so upset and hurt then…besides, it's not like I was exactly thinking straight either, she thought to herself. They had become very close after the imagined adventure. Sarah had played with him everyday, reading to him, drawing silly little pictures for him, teaching him to say different words, but always with her stepmother hovering in the background, intent on finding some way of getting Sarah out of the way. Her stepmother had been livid when Toby's first word was "Sawah". After that, she had found excuses to get Sarah out of the house, saying she was old enough to get a part-time job. She even lined up a job for Sarah—one that took every last free minute she had. But Sarah had still managed to sneak into Toby's room at night and play with him quietly in a makeshift tent. Toby had been heartbroken when Sarah left for school and the rest of her life, but she had visited often. However, one Thursday afternoon, she had received a call from her stepmother, bluntly saying her father had died of a stroke, and that she wasn't allowed to come and visit Toby anymore. Sarah's heart had broken twice that day.
Sarah had loved her father as much as she loved Toby. Although he had always been a bit distracted, he had always been there for her—at least before her stepmother had joined the family. Before then, he would always listen when she was upset, and he would play games with her, and let her watch TV late at night, and surprise her with little gifts reminding her of her favorite stories. And he had stayed with her after her real mother left.
Sarah sighed, remembering her mother had been painful, but now there was just an empty spot that the woman had left behind. Her mother had been gorgeous, talented, and wholly absorbed in her own life. She had left when Sarah was eight years old to pursue her career as an actress. The last Sarah had heard, her mother was sleeping with another actor twenty years younger than herself. Sarah refused to feel anything for her mother.
As Sarah's thoughts drifted over her family, a growing sensation of desperation and emptiness began to spread through the spot where her heart once beat. She leapt up and slammed her fist angrily on the railing of the balcony, yanking it back with a yelp of pain as a bruise began to appear before her eyes. "Damn it!" she winced, blinking back the tears stinging her jade-hued eyes. "Why? What in hell did I do to deserve this? My mother left, my father died, my brother's been taken away from me! I have no friends! No one to love and who loves me! I've been thrown from the one role of my career that I've always wanted! My boyfriend's been cheating on me! I was forced through three years of visits to shrinks! And then there was always that!" She finished, jerking her head over her shoulder to the book on the floor. She panted from the effort of her screaming, not caring if the neighbors had heard hear yelling to herself and the skies.
She eyed the book again and shook her head, dark hair swinging across her eyes. "I will not think of that damn book!" she told herself fiercely. She sat heavily back down into the seat, eyes huge with despair. "But what does it matter really, if I think about it? I've got nothing else…" she whispered. Then her eyes widened. "I've got nothing else…nothing else to live for at all."
She closed her eyes and let her head fall back. Tears streamed down her face as she cracked her eyes open and gazed at the stars. "I've got nothing else at all…"
She stretched from the chair and walked to the railing. She looked down the four stories to the pavement below. She grasped her forehead with her hands, "I can't believe I'm thinking about this…", but her mind whispered back, But that's the beauty of it isn't it? You won't have to think, or be sad or lonely. There will be nothing.
She grasped the railing and took a deep breath. The wind picked up and snatched at her dark hair. She took one last look at the ground, then back to the sky. "God, I can't take it anymore," she gasped out. She took a deep breath and stretched on knee to the top of the railing…and nearly screamed when she felt long fingers grasp her upper arm and a clear male voice beg, "Sarah, please don't."