Chapter 19 Two
Two
Little, plastic stars litter the ceiling.
I have been trying to count them, to memorize them, but she’s here.
I can faintly smell the strawberries and vanilla of her favorite lotion, the one she said she has worn since she was thirteen, when she thought she was so grown up buying from the lingerie store at the mall.
I thought she was joking when she told me that, late one fall night after a football game.
Her face still streaked with smudged, green face paint.
Her window was open, and the cool night breeze filtered through the room, the light purple curtains shifting slightly.
The strings of multi-colored Christmas lights draped around the room glinted off the CDs she had hanging from ceiling in various places.
In the corner by her desk, music flowed softly in the silence between our words and laughter.
Lying there in her large bed as she rambled about something that had happened earlier in the day, I just felt peace. Like I was home.
“Sarah said that if we wanted to, we could go to the party she’s having after Homecoming.” I glanced her way seeing her changing out of the shirt she had tied at the sides, sporting a large football, and our school’s colors.
I watched her for just a moment, the way she seemed so at ease within herself.
No embarrassment or shyness in the body she had.
I admired that about her. She never apologized for being who she was in her entirety.
From her outspokenness, to the ridiculous jokes and rambling, to the way she didn’t hide the plushy bump of her stomach or the dimpled flesh on her thighs. She was so fucking beautiful.
Those small moments where I could just watch her and see her fully were everything to me. The openness in which she allowed herself to be with me, vulnerable and unreserved. It was an honor I didn’t take lightly.
But then the fear crept in. The shame and guilt that she didn’t know the way I felt.
She didn’t know that I would have given her my soul if she asked me to.
She didn’t know that I couldn’t think of my life without her for a second because the pain became too much, like a piece of my heart had been torn from me in the most gruesome, vicious attack.
I was so afraid to say it, in case she didn’t feel the same. She never talked about boys and hadn’t ever mentioned wanting to go on dates with the few guys I had seen approach her while we were together. But that didn’t mean anything.
“Free spirits can’t be weighed down by earthly things,” she had said to me long ago. Although that was after I said we couldn’t go to the movies because I didn’t have any cash for tickets, but…maybe the sentiment was still the same.
A fresh wave of strawberries passed through the air and I inhaled deeply. The smell so familiar now. It warmed me from the inside out and the image of her dark hair and bright smile flashed in my mind.
“What is that? It smells so good,” I murmured, careful not to seem too interested in watching her half naked walking around her room.
“Oh, this?” she asked looking back over her shoulder from the dresser by her closet.
She was holding up a bottle of lotion so I could see.
“It’s my absolute favorite lotion ever. I’ve been using it since middle school, and I swear if it gets discontinued one day, I will burn the world down. Mark my words.”
I snorted sitting up. “You’ve worn it since middle school?”
“Yup! My mom took me to the mall the summer before seventh grade to buy my first bra. I thought I was like major hot shit walking into the store. I was all grown up, a woman, and I told myself I was going to act like it too. Complete overhaul. Everything new to fit my new adult status. That included body care things too.”
“And you picked…strawberries?” I hid my smile, feigning complete attentiveness.
“Uh, duh! No more cotton candy for me. It was fruity and deep, kind of musky. It’s sophisticated and sexy,” she saidmatter-of-factly with a small nod, her hands planted firmly on her bare hips.
Slowly, my smile broke through, and I could see that her blank face began to crack. “Strawberries?” I drew out.
“Are you making fun of me?” Her eyes narrowed in fake defiance.
“Pfft, what? No, I would never.” My voice cracked on a laugh, and she pounced on the bed.
“I mean like, c’mon! Smell me! Tell me I don’t smell like a sophisticated woman!” She laughed as she threw herself on top of me, pushing her neck and arms in my face.
“If Strawberry Shortcake worked a nine to five…sure,” I giggled back a she pushed herself up on to her arms, leaning over me. The impish glare she sent my way blends into the one peering at me from the side of her bed.
One memory blends into another, overlaying the cold, lifeless ceiling high above the four poster bed in my room in Mr. Venom’s home. It’s chillier today. Winter’s grip has taken hold on the small little town I can see far in the distance from the tree I spend most days sitting under.
The bed is soft, but it has no comfort to offer as I lie here. Each blink, the ceiling changes.
Stars, light, warmth.
Empty, dark, cold.
Strawberries still lingering in the air. The fleece pillows, heavy quilts, and plush comforters are phantoms against my skin surrounded by nothing but thin cotton.
Then…a whisper. I turn my head and stare. Off into the far corner of the room, she appears.
“What’re you thinking about? You’re being super quiet over there. More so than usual I might add,” her soft voice is full of snark, but it feels forced. I remember this. I remember the deep-seated dread that we were both feeling this late summer afternoon.
I chuckle, but the sound is off, lifeless. “The first time I spent the night with you, and you tried to murder me with your limbs to smell your lotion.”
She scoffs. “Is it murder if you would have happily died from me crushing you because I smell so damn good?”
Maybe she has a point there.
“Hmm, I still think it’s at least a chargeable offense.”
She waves her hand noncommittally as she bends down to grab something I can’t see.
“Do you think it would be too much to take Mr. Squiggles?” She asks quietly.
I love to hear her speak. I have missed it so dearly. Her voice is a melody I wish to capture and replay in my mind for the rest of time. My lips quirk, my chest aches, and I speak.
“Is Mr. Squiggles also getting a scholarship? Because I think that is really the important question here. We can’t have our pal drowning in classes and work hours to pay his tuition.”
“Laney,” she whines, and I snicker. “I’m being serious. I don’t want to look like a baby, but I can’t sleep without him, you know that.”
She comes over to the bed, much clearer, more solid. I feel her weight shifting the mattress, the fleece pillows tickling me softly, and for a moment, one brief second, the chill is gone.
“I know, I know,” I raise up, crossing my feet, head tilting her way. “I don’t think you’ll look like a baby. I think that if anyone tries to make you feel bad for Mr. Squiggles, they’re probably just mad they didn't think to bring their own for emotional support.”
She grins, smacking my arm with the stuffed bear in her hand. She sets him in her lap, tugging softly at a sleeve covering the toy’s arm, a thoughtful expression creasing the space between her brown eyes. “Think so?”
“Know so. Just make sure you pack him some extra clothes. He would look weird wearing the same outfit every day.” Her laugh is warm and the emptiness in my chest begins to fill.
“But…” she glances at me, her tone is somber, “What am I going to do without you?” Her usual bright, mirthful gaze is glassy as she stares at me.
“I’m not going to be far. It’s only an hour drive. Honestly, I would be surprised if we don’t see each other at least three times a week.” I try to reassure her, but a sinking feeling settles deep inside me.
“Only three? Laney, we spend every day together! Three? Oh my god, I’m never going to see you!
” She jumps up, pacing the floor in the small space by her bed.
“I’m going to miss so much. What if you need help with math?
You know you’re horrible with fractions, what are you going to do?
What am I going to do? I’m going to fail biology if you’re not there making up songs about the parts of the cell. I’m screwed.”
“You’re not screwed.”
“I am! That’s it,” she throws Mr. Squiggles on the bed and marches over to her suitcase in the floor and starts to toss all the clothes inside back in the hamper by her closet.
“I’m not going anywhere. Nope. I’m staying here, and so are you, Delaney Greene.
We either go together, or we don’t go at all.
I’m not doing this without you. I can’t do this without you. ”
I sigh, shuffling off the over-fluffed bed.
There’s a strange relief in knowing that she feels the same way as me about being separated in college.
We’ve been attached at the hip for three years.
Barely a day has gone by since the first day of school sophomore year, that we aren’t with each other.
I can’t do this without her too. I can’t imagine doing anything without her ever again.
Beneath my feet, the wooden floors creak with each step drawing me closer to her. This beautiful soul. The most kind-hearted, compassionate human I have ever met.
I drop beside her in the floor, grabbing the sweater from her hands and laying it back in her suitcase.
“I’m not going anywhere. I’m always going to be right here beside you.
” I reach out to grab her hand. But…I can’t feel her.
I can’t feel the softness of her skin on my palm, or the warmth radiating from her.
My hand…fades…like it passes straight through her…
or maybe she fades. A misty haze begins to ebb from the edge of her body where my hand meets her, flowing through the room, until it becomes nothing but a milky cloud surrounding me and disappears all together.
I look up and there is the empty, dark, cold ceiling high above me, but I’m no longer lying in the bed. Instead, I find myself in the corner of the room, kneeling in the floor, with my hand reaching out…
In the next room, I can hear faint shuffling as one of the others stuck here move about their room. I choke back a sob, stifling my cry with my hand. It hurts. This deep longing that resonates from the very atoms of my being. Although it no longer beats, my heart continues to ache for her.
There’s no escape. Just this listless routine of loneliness.
The days blur together now. An endless cycle of then, now, and dreams of what could have been.
Being here has taught me one thing. Time doesn’t really exist as we know it.
I am here, in what I think is the now, but living in the memories of then.
All of it blending together, overlaying with each other, playing out simultaneously.
The others here don’t scare me. What scares me is that I cannot remember why I am here. I can't remember how I got here. I can’t remember much beyond the broken glimpses of her passing through my days. I can’t remember why she hurts me so. And…I can’t even remember her name.
No. I’m not scared of them. The spirits of this house are nothing compared to the memories that haunt me. The ones I remember. But especially the ones I have forgotten.