When A Star Falls
Not a Dramione work. Rather, it's a story written for my English class.
Every so often we long to steal
to the land of what-might-have-been
but that doesn't soften the ache we feel
when reality sets back in
Sometimes, you'd dream.
Of you and mum and Gemma on the kitchen floor, laughing over cookie dough.
Of them and you, smiling on a summer day, picnicking on the lawns of the Manor.
And then you'd wake up and feel around for the green grass, the cherry bowl, the laughter. And then your heart would break. Again and again and again and it hurt so much.
It hurt because you could, for a few scant seconds, feel their kind smiles, feel their laughter, their realness.
And by the time you awoke, it was gone and your heart was splintering and falling and breaking.
You would laugh. A scary, sad, stilted laugh. It shows everything that you are right now and you can’t help but agree. You’re scary, scary in the way you look at people, the way you’re looking at life, looking with an empty, barren stare. You’re sad, so used to sad, you’re not even sure you want to be happy. A drawn face, closeted from the world. And you’re stilted. Your conversation is drawn out, petty, insipid. When you talked it was of no substance. If you bothered talking in the first place.
You were so unlike the girl you had grown up to be. You often catch yourself wondering if you were two different people. But then you would shake your head loose of the ideas and resume grieving.
---
Mary-Ann insisted that you take the day off. “It’s not healthy,” she said. “We’ll be fine without you. Promise.”
You knew it wasn’t healthy, the way you were grieving, the way you were coping. But it was none of their business how you grieved.
You only had your little coffee shop on the Main Road to keep yourself occupied, to keep your mind off things. You had the accounting and the pastry making to take care of. No one made pastries as well as you did.
So far, you had worked yourself into stupor so many times; gotten snappish so many times, that no one bothered you when it was a particularly bad day. Only your doctor spoke up.
”You’ve lost too much weight,” he had said when you went in for your check-up. “You should go to a psychiatrist.”
You smiled that sad, stilted, scary smile again and told Dr. Millard not to worry. You were fine. Honestly. Your doctor shook his head and tutted, like he would a two year old caught stealing cookies.
But he let you go, prescribed some headache tablets and gave you a lollipop.
When you opened the bag containing the tablets and the lollipop, you realise he had called ahead and told the chemist to give a bottle of sugar pills and a note to you.
“Sugar would help you more than a bunch of pills will anyway. :)”
You threw the pills and the stupid note away.
---
Your mother used to say that life was one big round circle. Even if two people went two different paths they were bound to meet up at one point or another.
You had never really believed it until you spotted your sister sitting in a lonely corner in your little coffee shop.
You panicked.
“What do you want?” you had said. “Why are you here?”
She looked at you calmly and in that moment you don’t think you hated anyone as much as you hated her. She stared at you for another moment and then gently took her glass of lemonade, and took a sip.
“I’m taking you home.”
You stared at her, your eyes widening a fraction and then your whole face going blank. “Are you stupid or mentally handicapped? I’m not going there. And you can’t make me, you can’t. I’m not twelve anymore. You can’t control me. You can’t, you can’t, you can’t.”
This is your first temper tantrum since your adolescent years. In the back of your mind, you wonder why she, a near stranger, makes you throw these fits.
Your sister’s eyes soften and she opens her mouth to speak, but you were determined not to let her.
“You’re not taking me home. You don’t even know what home meant, Gemma. You never knew. You were never home. You never saw me or mum or dad. You didn’t care. And you can’t say that you did, because you killed them. You killed mum and dad. You left them there to rot, and I hate you for it.
I hate you for leaving us. I hate you for forgetting, because I can’t. I hate you for everything, Gemma. Everything. It was all your fault. You broke their hearts. They gave you everything and you still, still, didn’t care. You didn’t give a damn.
And I hate you for it.”
You finished in a whisper and pick yourself up from the floor.
“I’m sorry.”
You almost don’t hear it, it’s soft and wavering, so unlike the sister you knew. Your conscience told you to stop. Aren’t you being a tad too harsh. She said sorry.
But you were on a roll. You had to get it all out.
“You’re sorry? Now?” you whip around to face her, your long red hair fanning out in an arc.
She had tears creeping down her carefully made up face and she was crying softly, hands muffling her sobs, brown hair covering her face. You had never seen her reduced to tears like a little girl.
She had seem to be someone so above tears throughout your whole life. In your childhood, she had been held on a pedestal, someone to be revered. Untouchable.
She hadn’t cried when her boyfriend of two years cheated. She hadn’t cried when her baby miscarried. She hadn’t even cried when your parents died.
But she was crying now, it was disconcerting but you weren’t stopping yet.
You shot her a look of disgust. “Why are you crying? You didn’t care. You never have. You left. You didn’t give a damn about us unless it had something to do with money. You didn’t care. I know you didn’t, so don’t you dare tell me you did. Don’t you dare.”
You didn’t care if you sounded ruthless, mechanical. You said it was justified. Gemma was just as cold to your mother the last time she had seen her.
“I did care. I did. But I couldn’t do any-“
“Stop. No more lies.”
You were weary, now. Maybe you shouldn’t have thrown out those sugar pills. When was the last time you ate? Yesterday? The day before?
The room starts to spin and you see your sister jump up from her seat. She’s saying something, her eyes look wild, her hair’s messed up and she had never looked more like your mother then she did at that moment. Her eyes had that same spark in them that your mother had when she was passionate, or happy, or living.
Must be a trick of light.
And then the world went black.
---
“-ightly for a week after. There may be nausea, dizziness or fevers if she continues at the pace she was at.”
“Thank you, doctor.”
A light click and your sister was by your side. Her hair was still wild, her eyes damp and her face flushed an unpleasant pink.
“The doctor said to take it easy. Why haven’t you been eating? You should eat. I should get you something to eat. Do you want anything in particular? Spaghetti? A salad? No. You shouldn’t eat salads. They don’t have enough fat. You need fat. You’re too skin-“
“Why are you here?” you ask, cutting off her rant.
When she failed to answer, you asked again.
“Why are you here, Gemma?”
Her name jolted her back to Earth. “Oh thank god. I thought for a moment you were amnesic. I thought I hadn’t caught you in time. But as long as you remember it’s all go-“
“Why are you here, Gemma?” you ask for the third time.
“I’m here to bring you home. To bring you back where you belong, Dee.”
Your sister looked like she was going to turn on the waterworks again. You pat her awkwardly on her back, and you realise that you could count the number of times you had actually touched her, actually comforted, congratulated, sympathized with her on one hand.
You smiled that sad, scary, stilted smile again.
“And you think I want to go back?”
The answer was immediate.
“No.”
You chuckle. “Then why are you asking? Why are you wasting your time?” You cock an eyebrow, pull the sheets around you and watch your sister for lies.
Gemma pauses for a second, as if this was harder than any question her financers had posed for her.
“Because everyone needs you. Because your home is in Wiltshire. People need you in England. You’re special. Important.” she pauses. “So will you? Will you come home?”
“Why did they send you?” you ask, still watching her like a hawk.
“I was closest.”
You sneer, marring your pretty features. That was a lie. The first she had told since she had arrived.
“Tell me the truth.” you demand.
“No.”
Both you and Gemma pause, unsure how to proceed.
“Fine. I’ll go.”
A smile breaks out on your sisters face and you don’t have the heart to tell her you don’t mean to stay.
You’re a sadist, but you’re not a monster.
---
You’re dreaming again. You’re in the fields, the grass covered with your picnic blanket, the cherry bowl on the picnic blanket. You can hear them laughing. You smile and take a cherry, popping it in your mouth, like you had done so many summers ago.
You don’t want to wake up. You don’t want your heart to break again.
You breath in, and out. You can smell the fresh summer air, you can feel the smooth silk sheets.
Silk?
You’re suddenly sitting up in your old bedroom, the smell of sunflowers, peonies and soap choking you. Your heart is hammering in your chest as you hesitate, then pull on a cloak and step into the corridor. You look to your left, your right, then you run, your bare feet mute against the marble floors as you pass priceless artworks.
You make you way down to the servants entrance and you slow down as you near your destination, your heart blocking out all other sound.
You drop to your knees as you catch sight of them for the first time. Your legs can’t carry your weight anymore, the world has disappeared and you’re alone in the memorial in the middle of a May night. Your cloak is thin, but you don’t think the cold is causing the goose pimples.
You shuffle forward so you’re face to face with them, your knees covered with dirt, your hand splayed on the white marble. Your fingers trace the engravings.
M,A,R,C,U,S,F,I,T,Z,G,E,R,A,L,D,S,M,I,T,H.
1937-2008
E,L,I,Z,A,B,E,T,H,M,A,Y,F,I,E,L,D,F,I,T,Z,G,E,R,A,L,D,S,M,I,T,H.
1942-2008
You pause, not knowing how to continue, then you throw caution into the wind and blurt it all out.
“I miss you, mum, dad. I miss you so much,” your tears have started now and unlike before, you can’t care less.
“You promised you wouldn’t leave. It’s been two years and I still don’t have any answers. It’s driving me mad. And I hate it. But maybe I’ll find out and maybe I’ll have my happily ever after.” You brush some leaves off the top of their gravestones and heave a sigh.
You get up, and try to wipe your tears off your cheeks. Giving your parents’ grave one last look, you turn and head back to the house. Your tears are drying and you can manage a little smile, a smile that’s unsure but hopeful, whole.
Every so often we long to steal
to the land of what-might-have-been
but that doesn't soften the ache we feel
when reality sets back in
Sometimes, you'd dream.
Of you and mum and Gemma on the kitchen floor, laughing over cookie dough.
Of them and you, smiling on a summer day, picnicking on the lawns of the Manor.
And then you'd wake up and feel around for the green grass, the cherry bowl, the laughter. And then your heart would break. Again and again and again and it hurt so much.
It hurt because you could, for a few scant seconds, feel their kind smiles, feel their laughter, their realness.
And by the time you awoke, it was gone and your heart was splintering and falling and breaking.
You would laugh. A scary, sad, stilted laugh. It shows everything that you are right now and you can’t help but agree. You’re scary, scary in the way you look at people, the way you’re looking at life, looking with an empty, barren stare. You’re sad, so used to sad, you’re not even sure you want to be happy. A drawn face, closeted from the world. And you’re stilted. Your conversation is drawn out, petty, insipid. When you talked it was of no substance. If you bothered talking in the first place.
You were so unlike the girl you had grown up to be. You often catch yourself wondering if you were two different people. But then you would shake your head loose of the ideas and resume grieving.
---
Mary-Ann insisted that you take the day off. “It’s not healthy,” she said. “We’ll be fine without you. Promise.”
You knew it wasn’t healthy, the way you were grieving, the way you were coping. But it was none of their business how you grieved.
You only had your little coffee shop on the Main Road to keep yourself occupied, to keep your mind off things. You had the accounting and the pastry making to take care of. No one made pastries as well as you did.
So far, you had worked yourself into stupor so many times; gotten snappish so many times, that no one bothered you when it was a particularly bad day. Only your doctor spoke up.
”You’ve lost too much weight,” he had said when you went in for your check-up. “You should go to a psychiatrist.”
You smiled that sad, stilted, scary smile again and told Dr. Millard not to worry. You were fine. Honestly. Your doctor shook his head and tutted, like he would a two year old caught stealing cookies.
But he let you go, prescribed some headache tablets and gave you a lollipop.
When you opened the bag containing the tablets and the lollipop, you realise he had called ahead and told the chemist to give a bottle of sugar pills and a note to you.
“Sugar would help you more than a bunch of pills will anyway. :)”
You threw the pills and the stupid note away.
---
Your mother used to say that life was one big round circle. Even if two people went two different paths they were bound to meet up at one point or another.
You had never really believed it until you spotted your sister sitting in a lonely corner in your little coffee shop.
You panicked.
“What do you want?” you had said. “Why are you here?”
She looked at you calmly and in that moment you don’t think you hated anyone as much as you hated her. She stared at you for another moment and then gently took her glass of lemonade, and took a sip.
“I’m taking you home.”
You stared at her, your eyes widening a fraction and then your whole face going blank. “Are you stupid or mentally handicapped? I’m not going there. And you can’t make me, you can’t. I’m not twelve anymore. You can’t control me. You can’t, you can’t, you can’t.”
This is your first temper tantrum since your adolescent years. In the back of your mind, you wonder why she, a near stranger, makes you throw these fits.
Your sister’s eyes soften and she opens her mouth to speak, but you were determined not to let her.
“You’re not taking me home. You don’t even know what home meant, Gemma. You never knew. You were never home. You never saw me or mum or dad. You didn’t care. And you can’t say that you did, because you killed them. You killed mum and dad. You left them there to rot, and I hate you for it.
I hate you for leaving us. I hate you for forgetting, because I can’t. I hate you for everything, Gemma. Everything. It was all your fault. You broke their hearts. They gave you everything and you still, still, didn’t care. You didn’t give a damn.
And I hate you for it.”
You finished in a whisper and pick yourself up from the floor.
“I’m sorry.”
You almost don’t hear it, it’s soft and wavering, so unlike the sister you knew. Your conscience told you to stop. Aren’t you being a tad too harsh. She said sorry.
But you were on a roll. You had to get it all out.
“You’re sorry? Now?” you whip around to face her, your long red hair fanning out in an arc.
She had tears creeping down her carefully made up face and she was crying softly, hands muffling her sobs, brown hair covering her face. You had never seen her reduced to tears like a little girl.
She had seem to be someone so above tears throughout your whole life. In your childhood, she had been held on a pedestal, someone to be revered. Untouchable.
She hadn’t cried when her boyfriend of two years cheated. She hadn’t cried when her baby miscarried. She hadn’t even cried when your parents died.
But she was crying now, it was disconcerting but you weren’t stopping yet.
You shot her a look of disgust. “Why are you crying? You didn’t care. You never have. You left. You didn’t give a damn about us unless it had something to do with money. You didn’t care. I know you didn’t, so don’t you dare tell me you did. Don’t you dare.”
You didn’t care if you sounded ruthless, mechanical. You said it was justified. Gemma was just as cold to your mother the last time she had seen her.
“I did care. I did. But I couldn’t do any-“
“Stop. No more lies.”
You were weary, now. Maybe you shouldn’t have thrown out those sugar pills. When was the last time you ate? Yesterday? The day before?
The room starts to spin and you see your sister jump up from her seat. She’s saying something, her eyes look wild, her hair’s messed up and she had never looked more like your mother then she did at that moment. Her eyes had that same spark in them that your mother had when she was passionate, or happy, or living.
Must be a trick of light.
And then the world went black.
---
“-ightly for a week after. There may be nausea, dizziness or fevers if she continues at the pace she was at.”
“Thank you, doctor.”
A light click and your sister was by your side. Her hair was still wild, her eyes damp and her face flushed an unpleasant pink.
“The doctor said to take it easy. Why haven’t you been eating? You should eat. I should get you something to eat. Do you want anything in particular? Spaghetti? A salad? No. You shouldn’t eat salads. They don’t have enough fat. You need fat. You’re too skin-“
“Why are you here?” you ask, cutting off her rant.
When she failed to answer, you asked again.
“Why are you here, Gemma?”
Her name jolted her back to Earth. “Oh thank god. I thought for a moment you were amnesic. I thought I hadn’t caught you in time. But as long as you remember it’s all go-“
“Why are you here, Gemma?” you ask for the third time.
“I’m here to bring you home. To bring you back where you belong, Dee.”
Your sister looked like she was going to turn on the waterworks again. You pat her awkwardly on her back, and you realise that you could count the number of times you had actually touched her, actually comforted, congratulated, sympathized with her on one hand.
You smiled that sad, scary, stilted smile again.
“And you think I want to go back?”
The answer was immediate.
“No.”
You chuckle. “Then why are you asking? Why are you wasting your time?” You cock an eyebrow, pull the sheets around you and watch your sister for lies.
Gemma pauses for a second, as if this was harder than any question her financers had posed for her.
“Because everyone needs you. Because your home is in Wiltshire. People need you in England. You’re special. Important.” she pauses. “So will you? Will you come home?”
“Why did they send you?” you ask, still watching her like a hawk.
“I was closest.”
You sneer, marring your pretty features. That was a lie. The first she had told since she had arrived.
“Tell me the truth.” you demand.
“No.”
Both you and Gemma pause, unsure how to proceed.
“Fine. I’ll go.”
A smile breaks out on your sisters face and you don’t have the heart to tell her you don’t mean to stay.
You’re a sadist, but you’re not a monster.
---
You’re dreaming again. You’re in the fields, the grass covered with your picnic blanket, the cherry bowl on the picnic blanket. You can hear them laughing. You smile and take a cherry, popping it in your mouth, like you had done so many summers ago.
You don’t want to wake up. You don’t want your heart to break again.
You breath in, and out. You can smell the fresh summer air, you can feel the smooth silk sheets.
Silk?
You’re suddenly sitting up in your old bedroom, the smell of sunflowers, peonies and soap choking you. Your heart is hammering in your chest as you hesitate, then pull on a cloak and step into the corridor. You look to your left, your right, then you run, your bare feet mute against the marble floors as you pass priceless artworks.
You make you way down to the servants entrance and you slow down as you near your destination, your heart blocking out all other sound.
You drop to your knees as you catch sight of them for the first time. Your legs can’t carry your weight anymore, the world has disappeared and you’re alone in the memorial in the middle of a May night. Your cloak is thin, but you don’t think the cold is causing the goose pimples.
You shuffle forward so you’re face to face with them, your knees covered with dirt, your hand splayed on the white marble. Your fingers trace the engravings.
M,A,R,C,U,S,F,I,T,Z,G,E,R,A,L,D,S,M,I,T,H.
1937-2008
E,L,I,Z,A,B,E,T,H,M,A,Y,F,I,E,L,D,F,I,T,Z,G,E,R,A,L,D,S,M,I,T,H.
1942-2008
You pause, not knowing how to continue, then you throw caution into the wind and blurt it all out.
“I miss you, mum, dad. I miss you so much,” your tears have started now and unlike before, you can’t care less.
“You promised you wouldn’t leave. It’s been two years and I still don’t have any answers. It’s driving me mad. And I hate it. But maybe I’ll find out and maybe I’ll have my happily ever after.” You brush some leaves off the top of their gravestones and heave a sigh.
You get up, and try to wipe your tears off your cheeks. Giving your parents’ grave one last look, you turn and head back to the house. Your tears are drying and you can manage a little smile, a smile that’s unsure but hopeful, whole.