September, 4 Years After.
Emma's POV
It'd been rough night.
I guess you could say that, we all loved Regina's parents, it was impossible not to. They were great people. When we got the call, I saw all the light fall from her face and I saw the first tears form in her eyes. I guess you could say I saw the moment her heart broke for the first time.
Maybe it wasn't them that made me cry and that they were gone, maybe it was her. This, my best friend who is so strong and intelligent and undeserving of pain, had so much of it. I didn't want to cry, but it wasn't up to me. I wanted to be strong for her, but that wasn't an easy thing to do when her weakness was what scared me the most.
I know it's selfish, that right now, and always really, I'm supposed to be the strong one, the stable one, the one who is immune to the 'all is lost' moments that for us, are never few and far between. I can't be, I can't be there for her, even if I could be it wouldn't be enough because who am I to tell her that it'll all be okay, that she'll be okay? I don't lie, not to her, well, not to anyone, but really not to her. So I watched as she hung up the phone, uttering a 'thank you' because that's the way she was brought up to be, polite against her will.
That's when she looked at me, it was the scariest look I'd ever seen on her face. She looked so young, lost. I'd never seen her look so lost, even when she was being beat down by men and women at a rally that had turned sour, ended in violence and broken bones and bail bonds galore. I met her eyes, but I didn't know how to sympathize, I opened my mouth but nothing came out, it was as if she had taken my words, I wish she would have so that it could have explained why I couldn't speak. Why I couldn't be with her when she needed me the most.
I looked over to the sink where there was a pile of dirty dishes from earlier that evening, stained with sauce from the pasta we'd murdered. Then others littered with vegetables and rice and meat from the Korean takeout that was much more edible. I don't know why I did it, but I walked over to the sink and let out a giant sigh as I picked up the top and and threw it against the marble of the wall. It shattered and the sound echoed throughout the house, a tear streamed down my cheek as I looked to see Regina with her fingers in her ears, but the start of a smile on her face. I picked up another and handed it to her. She just stared at it a moment before smashing it to the ground, bits of porcelain rained over her black painted toes.
That's how we ended up shattering the legacy of casual china that her late parents had left behind. Which was fine, we didn't like the pattern any way. After the fun, she had smiled a watery smile and laughed, but her laughter turned almost instantly to tears and she ran up the winding staircase, slamming a door shut after her. I don't know which one, because I didn't follow her.
Does that make me a bad person, does that make me heartless? I don't know anymore. No one ever taught me to coddle or comfort. No one ever taught me words of wisdom or love. I was taught discipline and the art of masking. It got me far in most aspects of life, but now I'm feeling a bit like Switzerland, impartial to any and all. I am feeling incapable of compassion, actually I feel capable, but reaching that ability is difficult, I can see in, the tips of my fingers can brush it, but I can never take it within my grasp and allow it to become a real part of me that I am able to manipulate.
I do try, it's not as if I am willing to this feeling of indifference. I feel it when I fuck, but not before and not after when I'm left sticky with the essence of someone who I now see, I do not love. They do not love me. Love, is something that everyone sees as a burden, at least now a days. It's seen as a burden because it ends in travesty, heartbreak, death, and there's no way to win. It's a burden to those who can feel, who do feel, but imagine if you weren't allowed that luxury. Then, you would crave love, do anything to feel it for the simple reason that you can't have it. Love, is no burden, it is simply another act of life that begins and ends. As everything must.
Though there will always be someone to argue the theory of energy recycling. How energy can be neither created nor destroyed, which I would agree with. However, energy can be displaced anywhere, what if the energy that is within the last being who died is now fueling the light that allows us to see? Also, what about the animals, people are so arrogant that they believe only we go to heaven or hell, only we have souls, we are superior, but they seem to forget where we came from, the animals. It shows in the human pattern of habit. Take war, we fight over territory, beliefs, needs and wants just as the animals, but due to our higher intelligence we see this as primal, simply because it is, but we think we're better but if we were we wouldn't follow the same habits. It's too late to reverse them as they are fabricated into the who and what of us as a whole.
Just as it is etched into the state of my being to be unfeeling even when feeling is all I want to do. It is, but I can't, and now, I can not even comfort my best friend. My only friend. Even if I could, I wouldn't be enough.
She's lost everything. Her sister found her real father and left in a furious huff just last year, it had been a turning point in the nature of her parent's relationship. They had been uneasy to trust and found themselves in uncomfortable silences more often than not. I guess they're like me, except they have too many emotions, but they don't know how to express them.
I need to learn. For her. So, I step carefully up the steps, my socks sliding a bit as I did so. I found the light off in the bathroom, but she hated the fluorescents, so she always left them off. I tried to knob, it was open, but she wasn't there. The door to her room was open, her bed unmade, but void of her. The room that belonged to her parents was closed, I tried it, it opened to my touch, I was almost disappointed, no not almost, I was. I held myself there a moment before stepping in. She was sitting on the opposite side of the bed, clutching a pillow, staring out the window. It seemed funny, as it was pouring rain as it often did here, it was almost karmically destined for the weather to be as destructive as I saw she felt.
I moved slowly beside her, first taking seat on the bed, then scooting off to be next to her, our shoulders touched, she wasn't crying, but I could tell she was and still wanted to. I opened my mouth again, and again, but I couldn't find the words to say. 'It's fine' or 'are you okay' or any other bullshit.
"It's okay." She said roughly, nearly inaudible. "You don't have to say anything." She said, and I just nodded and put my arm around her, she leaned into me and drew in a shaky breath, I was expecting an exhale just the same but instead came out a sob, followed by another, and another. I could hear her raw, choking on her heart and the wetness of her tears. She shook and sounded like a child who had broken her arm, which is a fact as this is exactly how the child who's arm I set right at a park sounded when she cried.
This, was different, because this mattered. Her arms snaked around my waist and she held on to me like I was the only thing keeping her from drowning into the ocean of sorrow that's waves were consuming. Consuming her, consuming me, but not taking us. I guess, not today. I sat there with her, as her tears subsided and she went limp beside me, falling asleep, which I was glad for. Not because I could deal with her, but because she didn't deserve to deal with this. I picked her up and took her to her room, covering her so she wouldn't be cold. I kissed her forehead and tucked her hair behind her ears. Then, I left.
Not left, but went downstairs and sat in the den. I turned on the television and flipped it to the channel that always played classic rock. It tuned out the violent pang of the rain, but hardly as I turned it low, because I also liked the sound of rain. Though sometimes it was deafening, monotonous and it would begin to give me headaches or lose myself in my mind, which is not a place I wanted to go.
I shot up, in a huff, I needed to talk to someone, someone who was stronger than me. So I pulled out my cell and called the number that my parents had this week. This week as they were backpacking Russia. No where specific, not that they had disclosed, simply Russia. They had been gone and never returned since the week of Regina's thirteenth birthday, since she found who she was. Whatever, that was.
The number rang four times, five. Then there was an answer.
"Hello?" Came my mother's soft voice, I sighed out in relief.
"Momma." I sad quietly. "I'm sorry to bother you, but I-" I wiped a tear that had fallen.
"Emma?" She asked, I sniveled.
"Yeah, I'm." Was all I said before I was racked with a slow sob.
"Emma, what happened?" I was asked.
"It's the Mills', they died tonight." I opened my eyes to the dimly lit room, I felt as though it was beginning to close in on me. "I don't.. know what to do."
"Why not?" She asked softly.
"Because, Mom, I'm not good at this kind of thing." I replied hesitantly.
"What kind of thing?"
"Regina's... grieving." I answered.
"I see." She said. "Well, what do you need?"
I was taken back by her question, I was surprised because I seemed to have forgotten that I needed a reason to call my mother. "Nothing, I just wanted to talk to you." I whispered.
"Emma," She said, it's like I could see her crossing her legs and sitting up straighter. "Are you dying?" She asked.
"No." I shook my head.
"Can you handle yourself?" She 56
"Yes." I answered honestly. "But Regina-" I began.
"Is not your responsibility." She interrupted.
I shook my head. "She's my best friend, how could you?" I asked, scoffed. "How could you say that."
"Emma, I'm just stating the facts and if you feel obligated to her, then that's fine, but don't come and complain to me if you are simply going to argue with the advice that I provide." She replied stoically. She was right, but only from halfway across the planet.
"You're right." I answered. "I won't call you again."
"Emma that's not what I-" She began, but I'd heard enough. For the first time in my whole life, I had been the one to cut her off.
I looked about the room and let out one rigid breath before wiping my tears and stepping up, switching off the television and slowly stepping up the stairs. I felt like I was in a movie, that's the only explanation for this and how fucked it all was. Fucked, that's what this was. I know I'll regret this, but I wish that it had been my parents instead of hers. I really do, because no one would mourn their loss expect me, and that is hardly enough, I don't feel as though I would even cry. I can't rule that out though because you always assume how you will react to a situation until it happens then it's a completely different ball game.
I wish it was, because she didn't deserve this, they didn't deserve this. I supposed though, not many people do, good people die everyday. So do the wicked and the damned. Though it's more appealing to our emotions to only think of the good dying because then it's justification for why things happen. Though there is no justification in death as there is nothing to justify, no loose end to uphold, it's just the end to the process of living. Just as the sun rises it must set, so we must be born and we must die. However, that doesn't seem to matter as what does it what we do with the time we have. When the day ends, we will still feel like it wasn't enough. Nothing is ever enough. There will always be that one thing that you didn't do, if it isn't one thing then it's another, it's a never ending cycle of 'if's' and 'why's'.
If I did this, why didn't I do this. Questions that have no answers because they aren't meant to have them, they develop out of the human ability to see the future and know that we are destined to die. That is why, human's have such a hard time accepting fate, because it's the only thing that finds us all. We can bend it with out choices, but we can't break it. Fate is moldable to each and everyone, but it is not and may never be escapable. I guess in a sense you choose your own destiny whether you know it or not.
I like to believe that choices and thoughts all add up to a bigger picture. As if everything we think and feel counts in some way or another, no one is as insignificant of significant as they may feel. I matter as much as some big star or the president and they matter as much as me or the homeless man who lives in a box and eats cat food. As we are all the same, and money and power are only constructs of man. Limitations of man.
Though no one can see the bigger picture, if they can then it's different to each individual as they perceive it as one way, then I or another sees it a divergent way.
However, I don't know how I see the world. Not really, and I've given it quite a bit of thought, but then I shrug it off because it makes my head hurt and I realize that I don't really care, not as much as I should because I'm going to die one way or another before an secular meaning is found. Even if it is, I wouldn't believe it to be true because nothing and no one can tell me how to see or feel about the world. My view is all that I have, it's all that anyone has.
I see it now, in this moment as a place without order and without sense. As I climb those steps that feel steeper than ever I realize that I feel so small and useless. I am small, I am without use, and when I die I hope than no one will grieve my meaningless existence, I really don't because I wouldn't cry for me.
In this moment the air seems as if it's getting thinner, as if I'm climbing up a mountain that reaches up and out of the atmosphere, and I know that, but I don't stop. I keep going, and I'm waiting for my lungs to turn to bloody sacks devoid of oxygen which is all they ask. I push open the door to her room, the blue of her comforter is even more so from the quiet light that seeps in through the window, the reflection of the drops that decorate it, moving but never disappearing. I climb into the bed beside her and under the covers. I pull them over my arms and face away from her, to the wall. I study the color as I remember painting it on the first day we had moved here. The color was one that she had me pick, because she couldn't make a decision. She never could, I guess that's why we worked so well, and she always would smile and nod because she liked whatever I chose. I could never understand why, but I don't think I needed to.
"I don't know!" She whined. "I mean, I like the blue because my room would never be that awful shade of yellow, you know, but the purple is darker and more relaxing, my tapestry would flow so nicely with it!" She held them in front of herself and frowned.
I smiled and studied her, I have learned to read her quite well, she was leaning more towards the blue because it reminded her of the ocean, which was one of her favorite places to be. The waves, the sand, the comfort of knowing that she was safe on the land. "Purple." I answered. She nodded then frowned. "Because it's darker and also, your last room was blue. You should switch it up."
She smiled and nodded, placing the pallet down, the blue one that it. Then she linked my arm and skipped over to the counter, letting go of me to lean over it and smile at the cashier. She slid it over, her nails were an earthy shade of green, I could remember choosing that color too, and I'm glad I did.
"I need two gallons of this-" She pointed to the darkest on the pallet. "Uh, Ultraviolet Night." She answered and flashed him her awarded winning smile. He flushed and smiled back, turning and tripping over the step ladder behind him. "Are you okay?" She asked with a smirk.
"Yeah- uh, yeah, just a sec." He said and blushed. I scowled against my will. I hated when men hit on her, but I would never admit this to her because that would involve revealing too much and I didn't think she would accept that or want me in the way I did her. So I pursed my lips and turned away as she jumped up and faced me with a grin. I smiled back as she jumped into me with her arm draped over my shoulders, she smelled like shampoo, the kind that we had decided to use after moving her that calmed frizz and poof. Also of lemon and lavender, which was the scent of the lotions we had learned to make one night that we had nothing better to do except create.
"I'm so excited!" She let me go, and clapped.
"Why?" I laughed. "We go through this like twice a month?" I asked, referring to all the times we have moved, and likely all the times we would continue to move.
"Because, I like change." She said and smiled once more, turning when she heard the sound of the paint being placed on the lacquer counter. "Thank you," She said and pulled out her wallet, studying his name tag, it read Roy. Roy Sauce. It didn't say that, but he was Asian and I was bitter. "Roy."
He smiled again, he was under her spell. Though this time it was figurative and not literal, as he could quite literally be under her spell, but she didn't need magic to make men swoon. "No problem." He said. "I don't know your name."
"I know." She grinned and handed him fifty dollars, which would more than cover the paint. "Keep the change." She winked and pulled the paint off the counter, I smiled at him as she past me.
I followed her out to her car, which she insisted on bringing, even though she couldn't drive yet without an adult, she forced me to pedal around in that rust bucket because she liked the way it looked. I agreed, of course, no reason to put the miles on my own car if I didn't need to.
I remember that day often, it was the day we had settled in the new house up here. She cried when we moved, she loved Portland, she cried when we arrived because she knew she'd love it hear. I guess she cried a lot, but it wasn't annoying because it wasn't whiny crying, it was just tears that flowed a moment then subsided. I'm sure if it were whiny I would hardly be able to stand her, but it's not and I am.
Here I am, recalling the day that we decided on Ultraviolet Night, and seeing the color now, and it hasn't faded a bit. I run my finger over the wall that is cool as the air inside the room. I allow myself a moment to close my eyes a breathe, be appreciative of the fact that for the time being, I am not responsible for anything, or anyone and that I have the night to be here and breathe. Those are the moments that I appreciate the most, because they are the ones that bring peace and consistence that I hardly feel otherwise.
Just as I am about to fall under the spell of sleep, breathing a rhythm of in 4 and out 7, there is movement beside me, Regina shuffles and turns with a sigh, towards me. I feel her arm under the covers wrap over my hips, she using this leverage to pull into me, then there is no space between us. I smile as I rest into her, because I wouldn't have it any other way.
In the morning, the sun is blocked by clouds the color of pencil lead. I turn to see that I am alone in the bed, I turn to the little pink clock and it reads 7:46, clearly it's a.m. I stretch out, look down to see that there is a note on the bed, at my feet. I swipe it up and unfold the sunny lined paper. It says that she went out to clear her head, I know that this means she went to the woods with her journal to sit on the big rock that resembles a horse and is always ten degrees colder than the shade it's in.
I'm not going to follow her, because this is her time and I respect that, besides, I need this time to process, decide what we need to do next.
In their will it was instructed that they will be cremated, and all they have will be spilt between Regina and Zelena. Though after her departure, it went more seventy-five to twenty-five. Now, it was too soon to fully know what was what and who was where, so the bodies were likely still in bags. I don't want to think about this, I don't need to think about this yet. I jump into the shower and scrub myself raw for thirty minutes, letting the heat consume me and drown out any thoughts that might have plagued me prior to this engagement.
I step out and past the curtain, I don't bother clearing the fog off the mirror as I brush my teeth, ignoring the feeling of my gums beginning to bleed onto the bristles. I spit toothpaste and blood into the sink, the rinse with peroxide as it is supposed to whiten. I believe it helps, but maybe that's only because I want it to.
I braid my hair to the left, the layered strand of what was once bangs falls out on each side and hangs there. I tuck them back and head into Regina's room, which we shared. Though there was space for me to have my own room, she asked me to stay with her. I agreed, only because I didn't have a bed, or the will to decorate.
I pull the door to the closet closet to the door open and scan through it until I find something suitable. A pair of high waisted dark wash shorts, with rips over the pockets, and a mustard yellow and navy striped top. I pull these on, foregoing a bra, but over flowered cotton panties that I probably got a a grocery store. I sat on the floor of the space and lathered myself in hemp lotion that smelled of coconut before slipping on a gray pair of ankle socks to go under a pair of white high top converse.
I stood, and checked myself over, but not in the mirror, then I grabbed my keys and shot down the stairs. I looked over the disarray we had left in the kitchen and frowned, a part of me wanted to sweep it up, but a bigger part just wanted to leave. So, I let that part win, and after picking up a bottle of water from the fridge I was out the front door and pacing my way to where my car was parked in the drive way.
Now, I was glad Regina had left, because if not I would have been blocked in. I swung open the door to the red Acura legend, year 95. Best car in the world, if you ask me. I had bought it a month after my sixteenth birthday, when the car I had for three weeks broke down in the middle of the highway, a yellow bug. Damn, was I disappointed.
This car surpassed that one in every possible way, aside from cuteness. I loved it. I started it up and sighed into the wheel as I leaned against it, before checking with my mirrors and pulling out of the drive.
I drove around a bit, just enjoying the freedom of being able to do so, but then I felt the need to stop at our favorite coffee shop. It was called Roath, it had the strongest and best coffee, probably in all of Washington, not that I could truly make that claim, but I did. I stopped in and ordered my favorite, a vanilla chai latte. Just because they had coffee, didn't mean I was going to drink it. I was handed my drink, I took seat outside and savored it, watching the day pass by, the people, and wondering what they were doing and where they were going.
If they even knew.