You were crying in a way that I had never seen before. Your face was beet red and your cheeks were slick with tears. We were inside your house, sitting in front of the Jesus statue. I stared at his hands nailed to the cross, disturbed by the fake painted blood.
“We threw away all your things,” your mother said. “We didn’t think you would come back ever since you chose to live in sin with that girl.”
“You are no daughter of ours,” your father added. “You have some nerve coming back here, bringing that unnatural creature with you!”
The unnatural creature in question glared at them. They had no right to speak to you that way, especially with the way your mother behaved. Your parents were the last people to preach about sin after they way their reputations were dragged through the mud.
But they were still your family. You expected some grace after Evan outed us. After all, didn’t Christ forgive humanity for their sins? Not that I knew anything about the Bible, but you told the stories often enough that certain details were familiar to me.
You only wanted to go back for your things. There was a dance that the school was holding. The theme was masquerade since Halloween was right around the corner, but I’m not so sure. The buzzing in my head makes it unclear.
I was with you because I was afraid of what they’d do to you if you went back alone. Two against one was an unfair fight. A few punches from me would even things out. Not that I planned to be violent with your parents as much as I wanted to slap them at the moment. But they certainly weren’t receiving you peacefully.
They continued their verbal abuse, blocking us from what had been your room. You tried to shove past your mother, wanting a specific dress for a costume you dreamt up to wear to the party. I used the distraction to break down the door, revealing the mess within.
The first thing I noticed was the shattered full-length mirror. Broken glass littered the hardwood floor. Your swim trophies were smashed and the lamp on your bedside table was a heap of torn fabric and scattered ceramic. Your bedsheets were ripped thoroughly, laid on the scratched up mattress as long neat scraps of cotton. The fairy lights that you had adored turned into a fire hazard, every miniature bulb destroyed.
I guess they meant it when they said you were no daughter of theirs.
You gave up fighting your mother to go in. There was a hollow look in your eyes when you saw the mess before you.
I went in for your sake, my sneakers crunching on the mix of glass and plastic on the ground. I pulled open your closet, cringing at the burned fabric within. Your parents were thorough with their destruction of your possessions.
Nevertheless, I grabbed your ruined dresses despite the condition they were in. Your clothes had sentimental value even if you couldn’t wear them.
I carried you back to my family’s home afterward, remembering the way you shook as you cried. You were so small in my arms, so heartbreakingly fragile. The sun falling among the stars.
I can see why I didn’t want to remember this. It was a horrible night. You hadn’t wanted to talk about it afterward. But it wasn’t personally traumatizing enough for me to block it out.
Bits and pieces of October return. We were reading The Scarlet Letter for English class, an ironic choice of text if there was any. I ignored Evan’s texts and struggled with precalculus. Your grades slipped, but not enough to take you off the honor roll. I ate a cookie in the shape of a pumpkin at a bake sale. The important stuff.
Someone banged a tuning fork against the wood and the images faded. The incessant buzzing returned and the smell of smoke crept up my nostrils. The darkness solidified, turning into a wall that wouldn’t let me walk further into the memory.
Let me through. I need to see what happens next.
“But can you live with what you did? You always forget, Nana. Maybe it’s best that you don’t remember,” an unfamiliar voice said.
I can take it. She was the only thing that mattered in my life. I have to know.
“Tell me again what happened. From the start,” the voice said.
The darkness dissolved and I walked into my room. I found myself before a mirror, clad in an eggshell white dress. There was pale glitter on my cheeks and a halo above my head. A pair of wings were attached to my back, the snowy feathers glued to my skin.
“You should have been the angel,” I found myself saying. “You look the part.”
You stood next to me dressed in red. The garment you wore was an amalgamation of the dress scraps we stole from your old room. Hour of soaking the fabric in dye made them all a lovely shade of crimson. A pair of horns were nestled between the honeyed strands of your hair. You wanted to lean into the sinner image that everyone had of you. The top part was low-cut, meant to scream “daughter of the town whore.”
I thought you were beautiful.
“Angels have black hair,” you said. “Not all of them are blonde.”
We put on our homemade masks. I opted for a full-faced one, rhinestones glittering on my lips. Yours only covered the top half of your face, going up to your nose.
In the school gymnasium, we blended in with the crowd. Everyone kept to the theme, wearing colorful shiny masks. We danced together, feeling like normal teenagers for the first time in ages.
To my dismay, Evan somehow found me, picking me out easily among the throngs of partygoers. I moved to shove him away, but he thrusted a bottle in a paper bag in front of me.
“It’s vodka,” he yelled above the crowd. “Truce?”
I took a swig of the bottle. The alcohol burned a path down my throat, making my eyes water. I passed it to Elle without asking for his permission, feeling my chest grow warm.
Time sped up. I blamed the drink. You grabbed my hand and led me out of the school. The night air felt refreshing against my skin. A cold and sharp breeze blew by, drying the sweat on my neck. The stars were bright against the ink black sky and the moon was a skinny crescent that I would have missed if I didn’t know where to look.
We went into the woods. It was dark, the trees covering the little light the surrounding town gave off. If we hadn’t known the path as well as we did, we would have gotten lost.
Our feet carried us to the pond. The bottle was still in your hands and you took frequent sips of it, drinking heavily. I wanted to tell you to stop, but I also knew you had reason to drink. Life was hard enough without me telling you what to do.
We dipped our toes in the water, idly swishing our legs around. You wanted to take off your dress and go for a swim, but you couldn’t even walk straight. After a bout of nonsensical arguing, I convinced you to sit beside me.
Neither of us were in our right minds. One moment we were giggly, the next we were depressed about the lives we had stuck in this town. It wasn’t the usual complaining about the general misery we suffered getting called names and sticking out amongst our peers. There was an edge to the conversation, a sense of raw suffering that I detected from knowing you for so long. You were in a lot of pain and I felt it seep into me, built up from months of being unable to feel safe at school or at home.
“Nana, do you love me?”
You knew the answer, but I said yes nonetheless.
“You’d never leave me alone, right? If I went away somewhere, you’d come with me.”
Yes. In a heartbeat. “Where do you want to go?”
“Someplace where I can no longer feel anything.” You pulled out a knife. My knife.
“Elle.” Your name was a plea on my lips.
“I’ve thought this through,” you said, like it would make a difference. “I’ll do it if you’ll come with me. Hell will be lonely without you.”
“You’re not going to Hell.”
You shook your head fiercely. “I am. I won’t live in God’s world without following His rules. It’s unfair to everyone else.”
“You can’t die.” I clung to you like a life raft. “Please. You can’t do this to me.”
“Come with me,” you insisted. “I won’t leave you alone. You’re all I have. When we’re down there, I’ll take care of you better than your mother ever could.”
You kissed me long and hard. Maybe it was the vodka or the way you tasted, but I kissed you back. I barely felt the metal in my skin as you sliced me open.
We tumbled into the water, locked in an embrace. I wasn’t scared, not even when we sank to the bottom like a stone. I was thinking about spending forever with you, sleeping with the fish.
There was a strange bliss in drowning with you. I knew I was going to die, but somehow that was the furthest thing from my mind.
All of the pain would come in the aftermath when only one of us made it out alive.
13Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdGWpPXAhpc
