“Every time you look at me, no matter what I do, all you see is your dead sister!” I shouted, stabbing my finger through the air at her, packing extra punches with my words.
Her brows furrowed even as her eyes widened.
“That’s not true!”
“Yeah?! Then tell me why it is you can’t smile around me!”
She froze.
“What?” The one word that left her mouth in question had been as quiet as a breath leaving her.
It only made me angrier. She didn’t get it! She didn’t understand how it felt to be an outsider in her heart! She made me feel like a problem, like something she didn’t want! I hated it…
I snarled at her.
“If it’s just us, you’re always serious and wear a stony expression, but around Jo?! You laugh and smile!”
She stared at me, no longer angry. Why wasn’t she angry? Was it because… I was right? She knew all along how she was treating me? In truth this had been a last ditch and sick method to try and get her to listen and understand and mend what we’d broken.
But now?
She knew?
She grimaced and tried to take a step closer to me. I stepped back, horrified.
“It’s not that simple, Lynn. I – I never meant–”
I cut her off when I should’ve shut up and listened for once. I’d been about to get to the root of the problem, to truly understand why things were like this. This truth might’ve been the glue that could’ve fixed my shattered heart…
But I didn’t want to hear it anymore.
I was done.
With all of it.
Everything.
“It’s fine. Let’s not continue training together anymore either. I don’t like it much anyway.” I felt the burn in my eyes as I gave her a smile. “I only did it to become closer to you… and that’s not working well, is it?” I snapped at her.
I turned on my heel and left, not hearing a protest. I only heard a thud, thinking that maybe she’d given in and put her fist or foot down in frustration.
I hadn’t known it was the sound of her falling to her knees in grief, unable to hold herself up anymore. My words had more power on her than anyone else… and I was the only one who didn’t know it.
Later that night, I’d heard her crying, muttering that I had been right, that she was a terrible parent, unable to overcome her own problems, letting them affect others. Hearing it, for a brief moment, I’d felt powerful and satisfied. By the time I snuck into my room and pulled the covers back over myself, I was nearly crying a river with guilt.
The guilt had been too strong for me to even go apologize. I wanted to say I was sorry for not listening to her speak. For cutting her off. For hurting her.
If I’d had done that, instead of being stubborn, embarrassed, and full of this guilt that paralyzed me, maybe we could’ve…
What ifs…
Maybes…
They all ran through my head all the time, hindering my sleep, my focus.
I wanted to take it back… I did.
But I didn’t.
And that was the moment when I lost the most important person to me. Sure, I loved Ma; there was no contest for love. She was near and dear and close to my heart as she could get. Her and Jo, my sister, even when we annoyed each other and had bits of silent treatments going on, mainly due to my own stupid mouth spewing nonsense. However, when Mom didn’t come looking for me the times I ran off in frustration, or when I tripped and she wasn’t there to help me anymore… I felt… inexplicably lost. I felt all alone, like I was stuck with the ghost of Aunt Helena and I couldn’t even talk to or see her.
That maybe… I had become the ghost of my Aunt… and that maybe I didn’t really exist anymore on my own.
And that made me feel a new kind of pain. I held onto it tightly, in fear that I might forget all the crappy things I’d done in my own selfishness. It was my own kind of suffering. I welcomed it, holding it tighter and tighter, feeling worse, more and more pained as time went on.
And I guess that was where the friends came in… or rather the people who tried to be my friend. I spent more time with them so I spent less time thinking about me. Thinking about all of their problems instead of solving my own… was easier. Too easy.
I was known as the fun monster of the group, always up and ready to play games. Even after… they stopped being fun for me. Even though they talked more amongst themselves than with me whenever we weren’t face to face, and all of us knew it. I pretended. I acted like I wasn’t clawing myself to bits on the inside for destroying the last little bits of relationships I had with everyone. My Mom, my… my friends? If we even were that anymore…
I always opted for truth or dare. I used my poor baking skills to my advantage by making the conditions for not completing the task or answering the question a forced eating of something totally burnt to a crisp and not even resembling the item it was supposed to be. And then, I asked all of the questions that a close friend should be able to ask in intimate settings, about crushes and opinions and whatnot, needing to feel closer to them, to know something of their truths, even if they hated me for asking. Because… because then I was still a part of their lives, however fleeting the name of a current crush could be.
And I knew that they didn’t like me asking those questions. I did it anyway.
I was, in a word, a bitch.
They knew it.
I knew I was acting like one.
And I didn’t think to correct it until Lee and his parents were gone, just like that, without a word, and Mom was freaking out, and Jane…
Jane fought with her mother.
I’d wanted to apologize for everything I’d ever done and said that might’ve been stupid and fueled by selfish needs of my own… but I lost all of my courage by the next morning.
I was sure by now that she, more than anyone else, hated my guts. Conversations of the past popped into my head so often, until I realized all of my past memories that I held onto… most of them were cruel to remember and a punishment to myself. Times I made embarrassing mistakes and everyone laughed at me. Times where I said something stupid, that with hindsight or even a little bit of insight into the situation at hand with a gentle question, could’ve avoided arguments and general anger… directed at me. Times where I made a joke, pretending to be funny, only for nobody to laugh.
I could hardly recall a decent memory from my childhood. A happy one? I looked happy in the pictures… but I couldn’t remember what it felt like or what I said or what was said to me in order for me to smile like that. I didn’t know anymore. There was just this blankness in my mind whenever I tried to imagine it. Sometimes, I wondered if I actually was smiling, or if it was just that same semi-acceptable grimace which was permanently glued on my face. Of course, I tried to smile into the mirror, but seeing myself smile felt wrong, everything about what my face was doing looked wrong. And I didn’t even know why I felt that way.
Maybe I felt I wasn’t supposed to be happy.
Maybe it was because I knew something in my face was wrong when I smiled like that.
Maybe because I couldn’t even convince myself, with my own smile, that I was happy.
Because I wasn’t.
But there was always one person who saw right through me…
The only one that didn’t seem to change at all was William. Even if he heard of how bitchy I’d been to our little group or even to his sister, his attitude towards me never faltered or changed. He remained steadfast, and I counted on that more than I realized. Even when we talked less, I could always imagine conversations with him. I could hear him say his responses. I could see it. It was comforting. He was comforting, even when he wasn’t directly next to me, or in sight, or anywhere near me. Even when I couldn’t hear his voice unless it was on a phone call, he was still a presence around me.
Just knowing what he would say, or what face he’d make to my crazy questions, or even his honest answers he’d give me without any judgement or wonder as to why I was asking… made me feel at ease.
I imagined he’d see me try and pull one of those terrible smiles that fooled everyone else and he’d look at me with that sad glow in his eyes and quietly ask what was wrong. He’d put a hand up to my face, tucking my hair behind my ear again even though there weren’t any loose strands to do it with anymore. He’d kiss my forehead as I cried, clutching onto his shirt. He wouldn’t say much, just little words that meant everything.
I’m here.
I’m with you.
I’m not going anywhere.
Lynn.
He’d say my name… just like that.
Lynn.
I’d say it back…
“Will…” I’d mutter into his embrace. “Will…”
And then I’d have to fight the urge to blurt out words that I couldn’t say without bringing him into my messes…. Something along the lines of–
I love you.
Or…
Don’t ever leave my side.
And that was when my daydreams ended… and I fell completely into the darkness I’d been fighting after that final blow.
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