"What happened to Alice?"
Title: What happened to Alice?
Author: karlamartinova
Genre: Drama, Fantasy
Rating: R
Warnings: allusions to incest, mentions of suicide and general non-cheerfulness.
Words: 8 860
Disclaimer: The quote belongs to wonderful BBC writers, mine is the rest.
AN: This is an introduction to something I right now call The Wonderland Series, written in1st person POV.
Summary: There’s a state, a state between life and death, sometimes named purgatory, sometimes named not-life. It’s not a privilege and it’s not a curse, it’s just a state, difficult to explain and impossible to experience. Many people tried to gain knowledge, to overcome death and lose their life at the same time but no one ever succeeded.
“The universe has to move forward. Pain and loss, they define us as much as happiness or love. Whether it’s a world, or a relationship… Everything has its time. And everything ends.”
Sarah Jane Smith, Doctor Who
“Alice, Alice, sweetheart,” someone is calling to me. The voice is coming from a great distance, it sounds worried but I just want to sleep. Something it’s telling me not to wake up, that it’s better to stay like this, hidden from the world, from everyone and I want to listen.
“Alice, please,” someone’s crying, a woman. I recognize the voice. It belongs to my mother but it still doesn’t make me want to wake up. Whatever she wants could wait, I know, she cries, it might be important but I can’t. Something is pulling me back, making me not to care. “Don’t Alice,” a voice whispers inside my head, and I want to listen. It’s a nice voice, smooth and silky and I feel someone enveloping me, it’s warm and comfortable and I decide I never want to wake up.
“Oh God, she isn’t waking up. What if something is wrong, what if...” my mom is evidently distressed but I’m only sleeping, just sleeping, floating inside my own consciousness and it´s beautiful and peaceful here. A protective shield is around me, I feel it, it´s stopping me from waking up, from responding to my mother’s pleas.
“It’s okay, Denise, the doctor said she’s only sleeping,” it’s my father’s voice and I realize the shield is failing, I hear him more clearly, like the distance it´s getting shorter and shorter. I scream, call for the other voice to stop it, to pull me back but he’s quiet. I suddenly feel so very alone.
“But we need to tell her, she needs to know,” my mother’s cries are more insistent and I want to ache for her but something tells me that my ache will be much greater.
“Mom,” I whisper casted out of my unconsciousness, it wasn’t willing on my part.
I still haven’t opened my eyes but I feel her movement, she falls to her knees, I can hear the crack, and grasps my hand between hers. I’m definitely starting to feel anxious now, what’s happening? What’s the something I need to hear so desperately?
“Oh, Alice, sweetheart, how are you feeling?” she is leaning toward me; I can feel her breath on my cheek. I can feel her tears too, they’re still falling and few of them land on my face. It makes me open my eyes.
A sharp pain immediately lets me know that it wasn’t the best course of action and I close them back. “It hurts,” I whisper and she touches my forehead. I can hear my father moving, probably calling the doctor. I hope he’ll bring something for the pain. It’s unimaginable, like someone was trying to open my head and look inside. I don’t think they would find something interesting there.
“It’ll be okay, I promise,” she’s lying, I know, her voice is shaking and the anxiety changes into dread. What happened? What happened to me?
More people enter, I hear shuffling of feet, hushed voices, voices I don’t recognize. Someone closes the door. There’s tension in the room, a secret talked about and I want to yell at them to finally tell me. Am I dying? Is that it? That big secret that makes my mother cry, I hope it is because right now I would gladly welcome it if it would stop my head from hurting this much.
“Alice, your mother told me you’re in pain,” the voice is a soothing one, a doctor. I wonder if it was his voice that determined his career. It’s easier to think about this, it calms me down, every time I tried to think about what could happen the pain strengthens. Maybe it’s the protective shield, hiding the truth from me.
“My head,” I manage to say, nothing more though because darkness overcomes my mind, it´s spilling from everywhere, drowning me in. I scream, scream from pain, from realization, because deep down I knew what happened, deep down I understand why.
“Alice, you need to calm down,” the doctor says in slightly panicky voice but it isn’t helping me. It can’t help. I feel pain, it tears at me, my bones, my muscles, everything is disintegrating and I scream louder than I ever screamed before. A memory surfaces from the darkness, of a little boy and girl playing together in the garden.
“I’ll marry you,” the boy says and hands the girl a ring made from grass, it’s already falling apart but the girl doesn’t mind, she giggles and lets him put it on her finger. “I’ll marry you too,” she says and kisses him loudly on the mouth. In the distance, their mother calls them for dinner.
“I’m sorry,” Rob says inside my mind and I finally stop fighting it, letting the darkness in. My soul breaks and I die. Well, not exactly.
.
I wonder if I would be able to feel again. I do feel sadness and anger, an overwhelming anger. I don’t even know on who is the anger aimed at, usually is the first person that dares to say something to me. It’s usually the same, “how are you feeling, Alice?”, “do you need something, Alice?”. No, I don’t need anything. I just want this nightmare to be over. I want to wake up and run over to Rob’s room and I want him to be there, not just boxes and heaps of clothes that no one dares to touch. I want Rob, I want his arms around me, his scent tickling my noise, his voice calming me down from this.
But Rob isn’t coming back and this nightmare won’t simply end. Reality is worse.
I’m slowly descending the stairs, mom is in the kitchen talking to my aunt, I don’t want them to see me. They’re talking about the funeral, flowers and casket and who they need to invite for the wake. I stop by the door to listen.
“Which photo do you think I should use?” my mother asks her sister-in-law and I lean slightly to see which ones she’s referring to. They’re sitting behind the kitchen table and I step closer hoping I won’t rouse them. Two pictures lay in front of them and my mother is moving them from side to side. Both are school portraits, Rob is wearing a jacket and a shirt. He hated that, on these photos isn’t my brother, it is someone my parents wanted him to be.
“You can’t use those,” I say and both women flinch, they didn’t see me coming, strangely it makes me feel very good. The fact I hadn’t left my room since I came back from hospital also adds to their shock. It was easier for me, there I could still pretend Rob is alive.
“Oh, sweetheart, of course we can use them,” my mother says sweetly, like calming an upset child. I’m definitely upset but no longer a child.
“No,” I say more forcefully, I’m on the edge of crying. I think I underestimated how much upset I am but I don’t care, they can’t, Rob wouldn’t want that. I take the pictures from her hands. “This isn’t Rob, you can’t use them, he hated them.”
My mother looks at me and I can see pity and sadness, I don’t want any of it. “These are good pictures, Rob looks like a proper young man on them, the only other ones are with those ridiculous t-shirts and we really can’t display them on the cemetery, how would it look,” she’s trying, I can see that but the more she talks the more angry I become. I want to yell; instead I tear those photos apart.
My mother screams as they slowly fall to the floor, I turn on my heel and run. Rob would want that too.
.
I don’t really know where to go after that. It was Rob who always fought with our parents, not me. When he was angry, he always went to granddad’s house and I find myself on my way there. My father was never really close to his father, Rob always said it was because granddad always called him out on his bullshit. I usually stayed out of these arguments.
I was the good child, Rob wasn’t. It seems I feel the need to fill his place now.
The journey reminds me of our childhood, we used to spend the whole summer at grandparents´ house. Grandma baked for us, fed us with food and catholic truths that might one day save our souls. Rob helped grandfather with his cars and I watched them while playing with my dolls, reading when I was older. That was our summers but then grandmother died and long hidden conflict between our father and granddad burned with new flame. It also meant we were forbidden from visiting him as often as we used to. Our parents told us he was a bad influence, Rob said he was the only one telling the truth. I, as a good daughter obeyed, Rob didn’t. He run to our grandfather at every possible opportunity and while helping him repair his cars, got the same passion.
I stop in front of the house, the time flew by too quickly and I realize I’m not ready, I can’t face granddad, I can’t see Rob´s things neatly spread in the garage. Tears come back to my eyes like they never left, they are the permanent members now. I wonder if this will ever stop.
I’m ready to turn and leave, ready to find a new place to grieve but something stops me, someone to be precise. My grandfather exits the house and immediately spots me.
“Alice,” he calls out and I can see how much he aged since I last saw him. It was few days before I left for college, I came to say goodbye, we had beer and chips and sat on the front porch while Rob swore loudly while laying under his new baby.
“Granddad,” I say quietly, already crying in full and suddenly there isn’t a better place for me than his arms. He envelops me in a bear hug and I feel like he’s hiding me from the whole world, keeping me safe. I cry. He cries too and after a while he takes my hand and we enter the house.
“I’m glad you came, no one visited me since...,” granddad starts but stops himself, he can’t say it either. It makes me feel a lot better; I thought I was the only one truly grieving. I don’t care for flowers and funerals and what every damn person might think. I just want Rob back.
“I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner,” I feel guilty; I was drowning in my own misery not realizing they’re more people who loved Rob for what he really was. My parents wanted a lawyer, a doctor, a perfect son that could take over my father’s job, I wanted Rob as he was, so did granddad.
He smiles sadly. “It’s okay, Lil, I heard you were in a hospital,” he reaches for my hand and I try to smile too, it didn’t use to be this difficult. “Do you feel better now?” he asks and his question is different because he understands what I mean when I say “no”.
“It’ll get better, I promise. Do you want something to eat? I just wanted to order something for dinner,” I know what he’s doing, he’s trying to make me stop to think about it, about Rob and death and things that can’t be fixed anymore.
I nod because I want to stay. Granddad smiles and I see his age even more clearly.
.
We used to play that the stairs were leading towards the Wonderland that they could break any moment and we would fall. It couldn’t be easy to get to the Wonderland so we made ropes out of grandma’s old clothes and threw them as far as possible, and then we climbed them, expecting something magical at every corner.
We never found it but it didn’t matter, it was the journey that was important. We understood that even then. Now, climbing those very same stairs I expect many things at the end. I expect more heartbreak, more tears, more misery.
Granddad told me that Rob moved her two weeks ago when the fighting was too much for him, when he was sick and tired of hearing the same thing again. I didn’t know and it hurts more than anything. I told Rob everything, every little secret, everything that ever bothered me. I know he wanted to spare me, to keep me out of the constant conflicts he was having with our parents. I know that, it still hurts though.
He moved to the room we used to sleep as children, it’s a small one with one big bed taking most of the space. Grandparents always asked us to sleep with them, or separately but we never did, we needed to be together, to feel each other close. They said it was because we were twins, I know it was because we were Lil and Bo.
Only Rob and granddad called me like that, the invented name I planned to use once we move to the Wonderland, Alice was boring and besides, the Wonderland already had one.
The door is open but I see only darkness. Rob liked curtains drawn, he always said he can’t think when there’s too much light. I used to laugh at him that he’s a vampire that sun could burn him, he then made a silly face and tickled me till I haven’t took my words back.
My eyes sting as I move forward, pass the familiar pictures on the wall. My grandparents´ wedding photo, my father and aunt as children, the whole history in few pictures. On the last picture is me, smiling and holding up a glass of lemonade. I was eight.
There’re no boxes on the floor, no one is fighting the urge to sort through Rob´s things and I don’t want to start either. I smell his scent the moment I enter, shaving foam. Rob never used any fragrances, laughing that they’re too girly but he was always clean-shaven. Sometimes I think he wanted to look younger, that he craved the feeling of children innocence we lost while growing up.
The bed is still taking most of the space, a small cupboard is a new addiction along with opened sports bag on the side. His clothes are strewn along the bed and there’s a sketchpad with his notes and designs. I reach for it. It’s already quiet full with motors and cars, some accessories I still didn’t recognize even though I spent hours with Rob in the garage.
I skip through few pages and am very surprised to see my portrait there. I didn’t know he tried to draw people too, I always thought that he’s using his ability to create only his designs. But I knew how talented he was. It’s just a sketch, my hair is falling to my face hiding the most of it but I’m looking up and smiling. I imagine I’m looking at him.
“Alice,” granddad speaks from the door and I’m so startled I drop the sketchbook.
“Sorry, I scared you. I just want to ask. Will you be staying here? Because I think we should call your parents,” he carefully steps inside, like he expects Rob to be hiding somewhere and is scared he will send him away by invading his room. It’s strange, I feel the exact opposite.
I nod because the last thing I want now is to be dealing with my parents. My outburst probably caused them even more pain but I can’t feel guilty now, my heart is forever enveloped by sadness.
Granddad nods back and when I turn slightly I see that he’s happy that I’m staying. This house was empty for too long, now it’ll be empty again and I can imagine myself living here for a while. It is closer to Rob than his room at my parent’s house.
I smile. “Can I stay here for a while? I don’t want to be a part of all that funeral preparation, it makes me want to scream,” it’s the first honest thing I said in a long time and I know granddad will understand; only he can.
“Sure, you’re always welcomed here,” he says and moves sitting on the bed next to me. Then he notices the notebook and takes it out of my hands. I don’t want to part with it but his pain is the closest to mine, I can feel it. My parents don’t understand the loss we just went through, they never understood how special their son was.
“This is beautiful,” he notes with a sad smile and then looks at me in a very strange way, like he wants to know how I feel about the sketch, and to be honest, I don’t think I feel anything at all. “Rob loved you very much,” he continues and I sit further on the bed folding my legs against my chest to numb the very expected pain.
“I love him very much too,” I whisper. Granddad looks like he wants to say something more but I stop listening, the same darkness that I felt in the hospital is coming back. It’s making me lie down and ignore everything around me. I close my eyes.
It feels slightly better that way but the headache comes back as well and I furrow my brows, take a few deep breaths. Granddad covers me with a blanket, Rob´s blanket and I fall to a dreamless sleep.
.
When I wake up, the room is even darker than before. The digital Batman clock on the window sill shows exactly three minutes after two. The headache is slightly weaker, I don’t feel the thumping anymore but I’m weak, very weak. My throat is dry and I reach behind the bed where I know Rob always stacked bottles of water.
I fish out a beer can, it´s warm and probably won’t probably taste any better but I need something to fill in my throat. It does help a little and I push myself more up and lean against the wall. The curtain lets in a small streak of moonlight and I see our faces next to each other, we are smiling and happy and I pull at one particular photo that awakens a memory.
Rob just repaired one of granddad´s old cars and asked me if I want to go for a ride, he didn’t need much to persuade me. It was a summer, the year we both got our driving licenses and instead of lying all day on a beach, we spent most of the time together both doing whatever we felt like.
It was supposed to be an hour-long drive but the road was open and we really didn’t have to be anywhere, so we drove and drove, listening to music, singing and screaming on top of our lungs on empty field roads. I smile at the memory; it was the most perfect day.
After few hours we stopped at a gas station, bought few sandwiches and made a picnic on a small clearing behind it.
“I want us to stay here,” Rob announced, his head in my lap, the sandwich all over his Spiderman shirt. I laughed, swept the crumbs from him and took a large bite out of mine. The sauce spurted out on his face, which only made me laugh maniacally while he used my shirt to clean it away.
I didn’t mind, it was an old one.
“We can’t dream about the Wonderland anymore,” I said sadly.
“Why?” he asked and I remember seeing the little boy in him, the little boy that fought witches and red queens just to protect me. I didn’t respond then, I didn’t have the right answer and he didn’t pursue it anymore. It wasn’t like him. But it took him precisely 10 minutes to ask another question.
“Do you really want to leave to become a lawyer?”
“Yes,” I answered right away then. I wanted to be a lawyer, wanted to fight for something I believe but I didn’t want to leave. There was a university in the nearby city but my father wanted me to attend the best one. And I obeyed.
“I don’t want you to leave,” Rob pouted and despite being 18, he looked like a child that is about to lose his favourite toy. I felt almost the same. We took the picture then, with his head still in my lap, both smiling despite a small goodbye. It was last time we spent together more than an hour. Shortly after the summer ended and our lives went in opposite directions and now, now I am alone.
I drop the picture and curl up on the bed, but I can’t go back to sleep. It’s not the headache or the sadness that seemed to become a permanent part of my moods. I feel watched, like someone sat at the end of the bed, like someone wanted to say something to me.
“Don’t cry, Alice. It’ll be good again,” I wish they would say and I want it to be true.
.
When I woke up next morning, instead of granddad I find a note on the kitchen table. He went to get something for his car and he wants me to stay for lunch. It’s only nine and I need to get out to clear my head.
The sharp autumn sun welcomes me and I curse myself briefly for leaving my shades at home. I left in a hurry yesterday and my clothes are starting to feel uncomfortable as well. On the porch I turn around and run back to Rob’s room to change in one of his shirts.
I’m not sure where I should go, wander aimlessly around the town, wait for people to give me their condolences, ask me about my parents or why I am not at home helping with the funeral. No, I need to be alone, to let my mind rest and to get right of that damn headache. It’s not as bad as last night but I already don’t remember how I felt without it.
I’m lucky, I don’t meet anyone as I make my way to the old park. It’s on the outskirts, no one goes there anymore, it’s far and the cold weather doesn’t make it a nice walk. It’s exactly what I need.
Last time I was there was on my prom night. The party ended and my friends decided that an old kindergarten might be the right place to continue, I was too drunk and to giddy to disagree. Rob was there too, as my high school sweetheart, Tim. They fought and I broke up with him the next day. The memory isn’t sweet, it´s bitter but it’s a memory of Rob and I walk between the swings and benches and see myself dancing, my friends laughing and Rob frowning while leaning on the wall.
“I didn’t want to come here,” he said and I laughed and pulled him to dance.
The wind blows past me and my eyes water. I know that I won’t ever stop missing him, he was a part of me. They say that twins from a special bond, that they came from one person but me and Rob, we were the one person, understanding each other completely. He knew what I was thinking just by looking at him, as did I. But then I left, and two months later, he died.
The ground under me suddenly sways and I need to sit down, everything is dark again, dark and alone. It’s becoming me, I can feel it and I accept it, the choice was taken away from me precisely three days ago.
The time passes around me and I feel the sun gather in intensity, then hide behind clouds and I still sit on a bench near the abandoned kindergarten.
“Alice?” someone asks behind me and I spun around. Sarah is standing behind me, there’s a very worried expression on her face. I’m not surprised it was her who found me, beside Rob she was my best friend. I don’t even know why I’m using past tense now.
“So you found me,” I note moving slightly and motioning for her to sit next to me. There’s coldness in my voice that wasn’t there before and I try to figure out what changed, did I? Did something else happen to me and I didn’t notice?
“Alice, you have to come back home, your parents are worried and the funeral is tomorrow...,” she has more to say but I stand abruptly cutting up her little speech. She had it prepared, I’m sure my parents had their ideas in it too. What shocks me even more is that one word, funeral, it means the end, that there’s no hope of Rob coming back. I simply cannot accept that.
Since the moment they told me, I was avoiding thinking about how final it is.
“I don’t care about the funeral. Tell my parents I’m coming home when I feel like it,” I say sternly, my back to Sarah. I don’t want to talk to her, to anyone. I just want to live in my own world, in world when he is coming back and the grave will stay empty.
She doesn’t move but I can hear her release a sigh. Seconds tick away and I feel her thinking, she has something on her mind, something that she thinks needs to be spoken. I almost want to ask what it is. Almost. I still would rather be left alone.
Eventually, she stands and moves closer to me. Her presence used to feel nice, I liked to talk to her, to share secrets and dreams. As a daughter of a pastor, Sarah was always welcomed in our house. She was the right friend for me, parents-approved, only now I realize this. How I didn’t even have a choice, maybe we weren’t friends because we understood each other, maybe it was because they wanted us to be.
“Look, Alice,” she speaks up finally and moves to my side. “I know you’re hurting, your relationship with your brother was...,” Sarah stops rapidly and I turn to her. I want to know what the end of the sentence was supposed to be. But she quietens down, thinks those words over and over and I feel annoyed.
“What?” I spat out. “What did you want to say?!”
She looks hurt now, she probably thinks she doesn’t deserve such treatment and I must admit she’s right. She was a good friend, maybe it was only me seeing that manipulation, maybe there wasn’t any. Maybe I am becoming Rob now, the problematic one.
I shake my head, I don’t care anymore.
“Unusual,” she says quietly, like speaking out this one word might be a sin itself.
I laugh. “Unusual? Rob is my brother and I love him, of course I do. Isn’t what sister Anne taught us?” I ask in a mocking voice and I see Sarah tense, did I hit a nerve?
“Alice, Rob is dead and no matter how freakishly close you were, you need to accept that,” she is explaining, methodically but this time it’s her who hits a nerve.
“Freakishly close? What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I know I’m not ready for this argument, I don’t think I ever was. It was one of the reasons I never see it coming but it woke me up, the anger is bubbling inside me, it has for a long time because people always judged Rob, judged him for not being like they wanted him to be. Somehow is escapes me that I was part of it too.
Sarah exhales loudly, she runs her hand through her hair, it’s long and blonde, just like mine. “I never said anything to you because you were, still are, my friend. But your relationship with your brother wasn’t normal. You were always together, always hugging, you broke up with Tim because he jokingly called Rob a freak. Show me one other person who spends so much time with their sibling. Even your parents though you were weird,” it’s like a waterfall, words are falling out of her mouth and I want to scream “no” all over again, I want to stop her.
I close my eyes tightly, refuse to listen to her. Not true, not true, Rob was, is my brother and I love him like you supposed to love your brother.
She finally stops speaking and when she sees my distress, tries to touch me.
“No,” I scream and run and only when I see the road I realize I didn’t even try to defend us. Was it because I knew it was true? No, I continue to chant in my head. My knees weaken and I fall into the mud. There is a crack in my knee and it hurts, the darkness is suddenly back, but this time is hurling the same accusations. You’re sick, the voice says and it’s a different one, sounding like my father. Sick, sick, sick.
“No,” I whisper and a loud noise makes me raise my head. A truck is speeding down the road and it’s so wonderfully loud, helping me to overhear the voice, helping me to push the darkness out. It’s a distraction and when I manage to stand I realize it might be a permanent one.
I count to three and step forward.
I hear the brakes, the wheels are screaming and I stand there with my eyes closed and wait for the end. But nothing comes.
“Fuck,” I hear. “Are you alright?”
I expected to see death, Rob waiting for me on the other side but instead I see an old truck driver, he’s swearing, looking shocked. The truck was too close, he couldn’t manage to stop it, it’s impossible and when I look into his eyes I see I’m right. I’m not dead and both he and I know that I should be.
.
I run again, adrenalin pumping through my veins. I left the driver there and run away without any explanation. I don’t have one. I know he should’ve hit me; I should be lying there dead, broken. But I’m here. The only question is, why?
What if I can’t die? What if I’m already dead? It’s a crazy theory, an illogical one as well but it’s the only one I have and I want to prove it. If I’m wrong I’ll die and that’s not something I’m opposed to.
The old railway bridge was the forbidden place, Rob was always trying to persuade me to go there but I was a good daughter and never gave in. Going there feels somehow right. I could see the whole town from up here and the wonderful nothingness below my feet. It feels final, maybe I’m not ready for Rob’s finality but right now I’m ready for my own.
The voice is gone as is the darkness and I feel happy, I see no future, no future without one person I can’t live without. Maybe Sarah was right, maybe I really love Rob more than it´s normal, maybe we really were weird and unusual and all those other words my father uses when something isn’t like he thinks it’s supposed to be.
I spread my arms. “I’m coming,” I whisper and feel the nothingness, it´s accepting me, calling me in and I welcome it, grasp it but no, something is pulling me back.
“Hold on,” the “someone” says and despite everything, I do.
He pulls me up and I crumble on the dirt. “You were lucky I was around. Because you didn’t really want to die, right?” he asks and I look up. I have never seen this man before. He looks just slightly older than me; his face is hidden by a baseball cap and beard. He looks lost.
I don’t answer and he doesn’t ask anymore. Mostly he looks like he wants to vanish. And shortly afterwards he does.
I don’t believe in guardian angels. I used to as a child, I prayed to mine, have talked to him at night but then Rob said I was being silly and I stopped. But it seems he hasn’t abandoned me or maybe I really can’t die, maybe it’s a curse, a punishment, maybe I did something very wrong.
.
I don’t know what to do anymore, there isn’t any resolution, nothing. I can’t die and I can’t live. I find myself on my way home. Maybe accepting Rob’s death might be a start, no matter how much I refuse to do it. It’s the only thing, the only one that could bring me some clarity.
The first person I meet is Kylie, she looks lost and for a moment I feel guilty. I have abandoned her, let her alone to fight with her grief. She’s too young to deal with it on her own and with our parents preparing the funeral and me dealing with whatever I’m dealing with, she was left completely alone.
When she spots me, there’s anger in her eyes. But before she has time to say anything, to yell at me for being selfish, I see out mother exit the kitchen. I know she has more things to say to me too.
“Alice, are you alright? Where have you been? We were worried,” she speaks quietly, like she’s afraid I would bolt, or vanish and steps forward reaching for my arm. I want to say I’m not sick or broken, just sad, very very sad but somehow it doesn’t seem right. They should understand it, right?
I sigh. “I just needed time,” I say not wanting to fight again, and I realize I really don’t, I want to deal, I want everything to be good again. “But it won’t be”, a voice whispers in my head, “it’ll never be.” It sounds like Rob.
“Of course, sweetheart, but now you’re back, with your family and we all need to hold together in this difficult time. Tomorrow is the funeral and we need to be there, together,” she’s repeating herself now. Somehow the world “together” is very important and Rob´s anger flares in me, his anger for “how would it look?”, “what would people think?” and all those other sentences he was being rebuffed with all his life. It’s burning up in me now, I took it in the day he hit the tree.
“So that’s the most important reason for you wanting me here, right?” I spat. “Not because you were worried about me, but because you were afraid how it would look if I don’t turn up at the funeral. The perfect Bensons family fallen apart, what a scandal.”
I want to laugh and cry at the same time, why did I think I can take it all back? Become the person they wanted me to be once again?
My mother is angry now too. Good.
“How dare you think something like that? Of course we were worried, we lost one child, we don’t want to lose another,” she says and stars crying and I should feel guilt, remorse and probably love but I don’t know how, not anymore.
“Don’t pretend with me mother. You never listened to Rob, to his wishes, never let him do what he wanted. It was the reason he left,” it’s my anger now, the one I pushed away for so long. He wasn’t the son they wanted and he felt it every day.
“And what would it be? To begin some immoral relationship with you? You think we didn’t know? That anyone knew? People were whispering about Benson’s twins and their sick closeness, do you have any idea what it did to your father? And on the top of that he did this, he managed to hurt us the most even after his death. So I ask you, Alice, are you both happy now?” I ignore her mention of “immoral” and “sick” because something else catches my attention.
“What do you mean?” I ask. “What did Rob do?”
She’s crying again, tears are falling down her face smudging her perfect make-up. Kylie moves to her side and takes her hand. Her glare is full of hate and resentment but I ignore it, I can make up for this later.
Our mother sniffs loudly, gripping her youngest daughter´s hand and I see that all my truths might be only half-truths but they’re real. Rob was right and so was I. “They love you, of course they do,” I told him when he refused to go to college, when his decision was so much different from our father’s wishes. Seems disappointment cancels out the love, at least from his view.
“You don’t know?” she asks and I shake my head. “I thought you would, you were always so close, but maybe that’s the reason he didn’t want to tell you.” Her anger is dead as well, is replaced by sadness and the guilt is back now, I want to step forward and hug her, I want to be the daughter I was before, the one they always wanted. But I’m not sure I can.
“The sheriff stopped by yesterday. He came to tell us that they didn’t find any reason Rob could lost control ever the car because he didn’t,” she can’t continue and I don’t have trouble piercing together what she wanted to say.
He didn’t lose the control, there isn’t any explanation why he would and that only means one thing. Rob killed himself.
Tears sting in my eyes and I don’t understand. He didn’t tell me that something was wrong, he didn’t ask for help. Only then more pieces keep coming together. “Rob loved you very much,” were granddad´s words, “freakishly close”, “immoral relationship”, everything comes together before my eyes. The days we spent lying on the grass talking about future, his hand holding mine, his hot breath on my cheek when he suddenly rolled over and hovered over me, he looked like he wanted to kiss me and it always made me giggle.
Rob loved me. I loved Rob but only now I realize how much.
.
I wake up to darkness. I don’t remember moving from the living room, I only remember my mother crying, Kylies last “I hate you” and I remember the realization. We were sick, sickly in love.
The last few days are showing in my mind like a movie, the pain suddenly forcing me to my knees in the middle of my lecture, the darkness coming out in my mind, the anger, the hate, the love and the one voice in my head. It´s Rob, I feel it, he isn’t always telling me what I want to hear but he’s there.
I try to analyze my feelings, the state I’m in but I feel blank and lost. I can’t believe Rob would do that, he was always a fighter, never giving up. Was our situation really so desperate? Was it so bad he couldn’t talk to me about it? I try to imagine my answer and I know it won’t be one I would have now. I would try to persuade him that what he feels isn’t real, that he imagines something that we could never have.
I would hurt him, I know it for sure.
But I still can’t believe he would take his own life and after a while I realize why. He wouldn’t, it wasn’t in his nature, which means, there must be something that caused him to lose the control of the car, something that made him crash into the tree, something that can’t be proven now.
I thought I was feeling Rob´s pain, that I blacked out because I felt him dying but what if he felt mine? The headaches are still coming back, I feel one lingering in my head right now and it isn’t because I feel what Rob feels. He’s dead and there is something telling me I might be the cause.
I need to be sure but it can’t be now, it’s only few minutes after midnight and no one could help me find my answer right now but it haunts me, the possibility.
A movement in the corner makes me flinch, but when I turn on the light, there’s nothing. Just shadows of a girl that once was, my tennis trophies, jewellery hanging from a lamp shade, my old dolls and pictures of my friends. It’s all past, and feels like a very distant one. Was this really me? Parties on the beach, hanging out and talking about fashion and boys was one part, second one was sitting in the garage and listening to Rob working, which was one real? Was any?
.
I slip out of the house unnoticed. There’re noises coming from the bathroom but I don’t meet anyone. A large flower decoration is standing in the middle of the living room, Rob is smiling from its middle. It looks unnatural and wrong, I kick into it just to feel better.
I run to granddad´s, and am very relieved when I see his curtains drawn. Rob always kept the car keys in the garage and I don’t have any trouble finding it. His presence still lingers in the car, it was his, repaired and designed the way he wanted it to, black with green front door and a little angel wings on the side, they were to keep him safe. I insisted. In the end, they did, he crashed in a different car.
There isn’t much traffic and I reach the hospital in fifteen minutes, on the reception I ask for Doctor Johnson and in mere seconds I’m already nervously knocking at his door. I’m not scared that there’s something wrong with me, I already know it is, but I’m not sure what the knowledge will do to me.
“Yes,” the Doctor opens and it’s obvious he just got in, he’s still in his normal clothes and I can see a small coffee stain on his shirt.
“Doctor, I’m Alice Benson and I was in your care few days ago,” I spill out a little too quickly and he looks confused for a while but then I see recognition in his eyes and I push myself in his office as he steps aside in invitation.
“Yes, I remember, my condolences for your brother again. Is there something wrong?” he asks and I can see he’s already checking my pupils; he then reaches for my hand to check my pulse. My hand is sweaty; I wonder what it tells him.
I shake my head. “You did a head CT scan while I was here, right?”
Doctor Johnson nods.
“I want you to look at it again,” it sounds like an order but I feel desperation pushing me, making me. I need to know.
“Are you having headaches? Nausea?” he looks worried for a moment. I’m not sure if it’s because of me or because he’s afraid he sent home a sick person. I’m not going to blame him, I don’t plan to.
I haven’t come here to get a check-up and I keep shaking my head repeating “please, just look at it”.
The doctor looks like he wants to disagree but something in my eyes forbids him. I see the precise moment he decides and he turns toward his desk, flipping through the files on the top. I’m lucky, I might don’t need to wait too long. It takes him few minutes to find it, then he flicks on the light and looks at it.
“Just look at it as if you’re looking for something,” I say impatiently.
He ignores me, instead he really stars looking at the scan and after a while I hear a quiet gasp. So there might be something. “I’m sorry, I hadn’t noticed before,” he apologizes and puts the scans on his desk. “There is a small tumour in you...”
“I know,” I say, I came here only because I wanted him to confirm it, to tell me it was me who caused my brother’s death. It leaves me strangely empty. I hear him speaking about chemo, operations, about more tests and talking to my family. I ignore him.
What should I do now? For some freaky reason I can’t die, I have to live with this forever, with this knowledge, this burden. I killed the person I loved the most and someone is punishing me for it. I don’t believe God could be this cruel, so it must be someone else. Maybe I should start to believe in devil.
“Thank you,” I mumble quietly. “I would like to tell my family myself.”
That’s all I say before I run, without direction or destination, just somewhere.
.
Driving calms me down, but only slightly because when I look where I drove, I see a dry smudge of blood on the road and candles burning on the side of it. I came here, where it all happened, where my own pain caused Rob´s death. It almost seems poetic, almost.
“It isn’t your fault,” he says and I turn towards the voice. Rob is sitting next to me and looks very alive, his long brown hair is falling into his eyes and I reach to push it away. I try to touch him briefly but then he vanishes and reappears on the backseat.
“Sorry, it doesn’t work this way,” he has a sad look in his eyes. Maybe you’re supposed to be sad when you’re dead, there’s nothing more coming. The world ended and you just wait till it ends for the rest of the people. The waiting must be tedious.
I nod. “You look good,” I say and he smiles, I smile too and even though I have million questions I remain quiet staring at the burning candles on the side of the road.
“Let’s go home,” Rob says and I turn on the engine.
I’m not sure which home he meant but I drive towards the parent’s house. There are a few decisions need to be made. What will I do? Where will I go?
“San Diego,” Rob says materializing inside my room.
“Sounds good,” I say as I reach into my closet. The house is empty, everybody went to the funeral, they didn’t bother to look for me and I don’t blame them. They wouldn’t know where to look anyway.
I look into my closet, at summer dresses and colourful shirts, sandals and heels and I know those aren’t mine anymore. When I look in the mirror, I see myself for the first time since everything happened. Long blonde hair, blue eyes, very same as Robs and I realize I’m not that girl anymore. She died with her brother on a field road five days ago.
In the bathroom is a long forgotten hair dye, black and before I take it out and mix it together I go look for scissors. I don’t have anything in mind so I just start cutting. The hair falls into the sink and Rob sits quietly on the edge of the bathtub. He approves though when I put them down. I never dyed my hair before but the instructions are enough and after an hour I look at new me in the mirror, she doesn’t look as the good daughter her parents wanted and loved.
She looks like me now.
“It suits you,” Rob says and steps toward me. He comes close, as close as possible for us not to touch. “I wanted to tell you, I wanted to tell you every day and when you left I picked up the phone every morning but I didn’t, I wanted the choice to be yours.”
In the mirror I see his lips nearing my cheek and I imagine how would it feel, would his breath tickle me? Would it make me squirm? I turn to him, our lips are nearing and I know they could never touch. We linger like that for a moment till I finally speak.
“I would say no,” I whisper and Rob nods.
“I know, but I would’ve waited,” he steps away then and sits back on the tub while I clean up after myself. Hair into the bin, the rest of the hair dye into the sink, I’m getting rid of my past, replacing one Alice with another, it feels liberating. But I’m still sure for what I’m liberating myself, for a lonely ill-fated life?
I leave my summer dresses in the cupboard and pack some of shirts he left behind, I drove myself back to granddads and take some more. “There is some money under the bed, in an old can, take them,” he says when I zip the sports bag I used to take to my tennis practices.
“Thank you,” I say and reach under. There is around 2 000 dollars, I should be okay for a while.
I drop the bag in the backseat, the passenger seat already occupied and I know I should leave, leave everything behind and just start anew but there’s still one stop before that and even though I see Rob´s disappointed look I drive in the direction of the cemetery .
.
I avoid the crowd gathered around the grave, instead I go the lone figure standing in the back. Granddad looks grief-stricken and I slip my hand inside his. It’s much larger and for a moment I feel like a little girl going to her popa to comfort her because she had a bad dream. He couldn’t help me now but maybe I can.
“I’m glad you came,” he says and looks down on me. “Rob would want us here.”
I nod even though I know Rob didn’t want to come here in the first place, I see his ghostly figure sitting in the car where I left him. A ghost who doesn’t want to see his own funeral, I just know there’s a joke about that.
I look over at the crowd and see my family, my mom is crying again, supported by dad and Kylie and I know that me leaving is the best for everyone. I wouldn’t stop blaming them for chasing Rob away, for not noticing how special he was and they would just want to be the person I was before. It could never work. I still don’t know what my future may bring and I must admit there’s a little flame of excitement burning already. I am turning a blank page, waiting to start writing.
They’re lowering the casket down, it feels final, like a sign.
“Call me when you settle down,” granddad suddenly speaks and I nod. I don’t know how he knows but I owe him that much.
“Tell them I’m sorry,” I say and send the last glance towards the gathering, the family I no longer have. I’m turning my back on them, on the life they built for me, made my live. There’s something waiting for me in the future, many questions need to be answered but I have time. Maybe more than I need.
.
There’s a state, a state between life and death, sometimes named purgatory, sometimes named not-life. It’s not a privilege and it’s not a curse, it’s just a state, difficult to explain and impossible to experience. Many people tried to gain knowledge, to overcome death and lose their life at the same time but no one ever succeeded.
How do we know then that such a state exists?
It’s simple, between black and white, there’s grey, between cold and hot is lukewarm, everything has its middle, the balance between two opposites. It really is that simple. Everything has its middle, as it has start and the end. It’s the journey, that’s important, not the destination, it’s well-known.
So how does one achieve this state? How someone not dies and not lives at once? How could you fight death by not-living?
When a soul is breaking, you can hear it. A terrible, terrible sound, like a blunt knife on a glass table, a shriek of a cat when you step on her tail, a scream of a person that just lost someone they loved more than their life. It breaks windows, makes you cry and send a cold deadly feeling through every single person.
Did you feel death passing you? It just left beaten by someone who just had his soul broken and no, they hadn’t see it as an achievement. For them, for them it was a curse because achieving this, meant loosing something much more precious.
And exactly this happened to Alice.
.
End Note: Thank you for reading, this is one the first original stories Im really passionate about, therefore I want to make it as good as possible. I would appreciate very much if you could answer few questions for me. The comments are screened and I enabled anonymous comments, so feel free to criticize, it will hopefully help me improve myself. Thanks in advance :)
Qs:
1: First of all, after reading this story, are you interested in how Alice’s life goes? //
2: Was there anything plot wise that bugged you? If yes, please give me an example. //
3: Did the story flow nicely? Did you have a feeling it goes naturally? //
4: Did anything seemed too much out of blue? //
5: Does the theme of incest fit into the story? Would the story be better without it? //
6: Is Alice’s state explained enough? Does it need more, less? //
7: While reading, did you have a feeling that something wasn’t explained enough? //
8: I choose to explain Alice’s backstory, her family, friends, as I went. Do you think it was the right choice, or I should’ve simply started with it (e.g. My name is Alice and two days ago my brother died in a car crash. My parents never understood my brother’s choices and it was me who presented the model child.....). //
9: Did Rob’s ghost need a more proper introduction into the story? //
10: Was the plot very predictable? //
11: So far, do you Alice could be a likeable character? //
12: Other suggestions, ideas, issues? //
Author: karlamartinova
Genre: Drama, Fantasy
Rating: R
Warnings: allusions to incest, mentions of suicide and general non-cheerfulness.
Words: 8 860
Disclaimer: The quote belongs to wonderful BBC writers, mine is the rest.
AN: This is an introduction to something I right now call The Wonderland Series, written in1st person POV.
Summary: There’s a state, a state between life and death, sometimes named purgatory, sometimes named not-life. It’s not a privilege and it’s not a curse, it’s just a state, difficult to explain and impossible to experience. Many people tried to gain knowledge, to overcome death and lose their life at the same time but no one ever succeeded.
“The universe has to move forward. Pain and loss, they define us as much as happiness or love. Whether it’s a world, or a relationship… Everything has its time. And everything ends.”
Sarah Jane Smith, Doctor Who
“Alice, Alice, sweetheart,” someone is calling to me. The voice is coming from a great distance, it sounds worried but I just want to sleep. Something it’s telling me not to wake up, that it’s better to stay like this, hidden from the world, from everyone and I want to listen.
“Alice, please,” someone’s crying, a woman. I recognize the voice. It belongs to my mother but it still doesn’t make me want to wake up. Whatever she wants could wait, I know, she cries, it might be important but I can’t. Something is pulling me back, making me not to care. “Don’t Alice,” a voice whispers inside my head, and I want to listen. It’s a nice voice, smooth and silky and I feel someone enveloping me, it’s warm and comfortable and I decide I never want to wake up.
“Oh God, she isn’t waking up. What if something is wrong, what if...” my mom is evidently distressed but I’m only sleeping, just sleeping, floating inside my own consciousness and it´s beautiful and peaceful here. A protective shield is around me, I feel it, it´s stopping me from waking up, from responding to my mother’s pleas.
“It’s okay, Denise, the doctor said she’s only sleeping,” it’s my father’s voice and I realize the shield is failing, I hear him more clearly, like the distance it´s getting shorter and shorter. I scream, call for the other voice to stop it, to pull me back but he’s quiet. I suddenly feel so very alone.
“But we need to tell her, she needs to know,” my mother’s cries are more insistent and I want to ache for her but something tells me that my ache will be much greater.
“Mom,” I whisper casted out of my unconsciousness, it wasn’t willing on my part.
I still haven’t opened my eyes but I feel her movement, she falls to her knees, I can hear the crack, and grasps my hand between hers. I’m definitely starting to feel anxious now, what’s happening? What’s the something I need to hear so desperately?
“Oh, Alice, sweetheart, how are you feeling?” she is leaning toward me; I can feel her breath on my cheek. I can feel her tears too, they’re still falling and few of them land on my face. It makes me open my eyes.
A sharp pain immediately lets me know that it wasn’t the best course of action and I close them back. “It hurts,” I whisper and she touches my forehead. I can hear my father moving, probably calling the doctor. I hope he’ll bring something for the pain. It’s unimaginable, like someone was trying to open my head and look inside. I don’t think they would find something interesting there.
“It’ll be okay, I promise,” she’s lying, I know, her voice is shaking and the anxiety changes into dread. What happened? What happened to me?
More people enter, I hear shuffling of feet, hushed voices, voices I don’t recognize. Someone closes the door. There’s tension in the room, a secret talked about and I want to yell at them to finally tell me. Am I dying? Is that it? That big secret that makes my mother cry, I hope it is because right now I would gladly welcome it if it would stop my head from hurting this much.
“Alice, your mother told me you’re in pain,” the voice is a soothing one, a doctor. I wonder if it was his voice that determined his career. It’s easier to think about this, it calms me down, every time I tried to think about what could happen the pain strengthens. Maybe it’s the protective shield, hiding the truth from me.
“My head,” I manage to say, nothing more though because darkness overcomes my mind, it´s spilling from everywhere, drowning me in. I scream, scream from pain, from realization, because deep down I knew what happened, deep down I understand why.
“Alice, you need to calm down,” the doctor says in slightly panicky voice but it isn’t helping me. It can’t help. I feel pain, it tears at me, my bones, my muscles, everything is disintegrating and I scream louder than I ever screamed before. A memory surfaces from the darkness, of a little boy and girl playing together in the garden.
“I’ll marry you,” the boy says and hands the girl a ring made from grass, it’s already falling apart but the girl doesn’t mind, she giggles and lets him put it on her finger. “I’ll marry you too,” she says and kisses him loudly on the mouth. In the distance, their mother calls them for dinner.
“I’m sorry,” Rob says inside my mind and I finally stop fighting it, letting the darkness in. My soul breaks and I die. Well, not exactly.
.
I wonder if I would be able to feel again. I do feel sadness and anger, an overwhelming anger. I don’t even know on who is the anger aimed at, usually is the first person that dares to say something to me. It’s usually the same, “how are you feeling, Alice?”, “do you need something, Alice?”. No, I don’t need anything. I just want this nightmare to be over. I want to wake up and run over to Rob’s room and I want him to be there, not just boxes and heaps of clothes that no one dares to touch. I want Rob, I want his arms around me, his scent tickling my noise, his voice calming me down from this.
But Rob isn’t coming back and this nightmare won’t simply end. Reality is worse.
I’m slowly descending the stairs, mom is in the kitchen talking to my aunt, I don’t want them to see me. They’re talking about the funeral, flowers and casket and who they need to invite for the wake. I stop by the door to listen.
“Which photo do you think I should use?” my mother asks her sister-in-law and I lean slightly to see which ones she’s referring to. They’re sitting behind the kitchen table and I step closer hoping I won’t rouse them. Two pictures lay in front of them and my mother is moving them from side to side. Both are school portraits, Rob is wearing a jacket and a shirt. He hated that, on these photos isn’t my brother, it is someone my parents wanted him to be.
“You can’t use those,” I say and both women flinch, they didn’t see me coming, strangely it makes me feel very good. The fact I hadn’t left my room since I came back from hospital also adds to their shock. It was easier for me, there I could still pretend Rob is alive.
“Oh, sweetheart, of course we can use them,” my mother says sweetly, like calming an upset child. I’m definitely upset but no longer a child.
“No,” I say more forcefully, I’m on the edge of crying. I think I underestimated how much upset I am but I don’t care, they can’t, Rob wouldn’t want that. I take the pictures from her hands. “This isn’t Rob, you can’t use them, he hated them.”
My mother looks at me and I can see pity and sadness, I don’t want any of it. “These are good pictures, Rob looks like a proper young man on them, the only other ones are with those ridiculous t-shirts and we really can’t display them on the cemetery, how would it look,” she’s trying, I can see that but the more she talks the more angry I become. I want to yell; instead I tear those photos apart.
My mother screams as they slowly fall to the floor, I turn on my heel and run. Rob would want that too.
.
I don’t really know where to go after that. It was Rob who always fought with our parents, not me. When he was angry, he always went to granddad’s house and I find myself on my way there. My father was never really close to his father, Rob always said it was because granddad always called him out on his bullshit. I usually stayed out of these arguments.
I was the good child, Rob wasn’t. It seems I feel the need to fill his place now.
The journey reminds me of our childhood, we used to spend the whole summer at grandparents´ house. Grandma baked for us, fed us with food and catholic truths that might one day save our souls. Rob helped grandfather with his cars and I watched them while playing with my dolls, reading when I was older. That was our summers but then grandmother died and long hidden conflict between our father and granddad burned with new flame. It also meant we were forbidden from visiting him as often as we used to. Our parents told us he was a bad influence, Rob said he was the only one telling the truth. I, as a good daughter obeyed, Rob didn’t. He run to our grandfather at every possible opportunity and while helping him repair his cars, got the same passion.
I stop in front of the house, the time flew by too quickly and I realize I’m not ready, I can’t face granddad, I can’t see Rob´s things neatly spread in the garage. Tears come back to my eyes like they never left, they are the permanent members now. I wonder if this will ever stop.
I’m ready to turn and leave, ready to find a new place to grieve but something stops me, someone to be precise. My grandfather exits the house and immediately spots me.
“Alice,” he calls out and I can see how much he aged since I last saw him. It was few days before I left for college, I came to say goodbye, we had beer and chips and sat on the front porch while Rob swore loudly while laying under his new baby.
“Granddad,” I say quietly, already crying in full and suddenly there isn’t a better place for me than his arms. He envelops me in a bear hug and I feel like he’s hiding me from the whole world, keeping me safe. I cry. He cries too and after a while he takes my hand and we enter the house.
“I’m glad you came, no one visited me since...,” granddad starts but stops himself, he can’t say it either. It makes me feel a lot better; I thought I was the only one truly grieving. I don’t care for flowers and funerals and what every damn person might think. I just want Rob back.
“I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner,” I feel guilty; I was drowning in my own misery not realizing they’re more people who loved Rob for what he really was. My parents wanted a lawyer, a doctor, a perfect son that could take over my father’s job, I wanted Rob as he was, so did granddad.
He smiles sadly. “It’s okay, Lil, I heard you were in a hospital,” he reaches for my hand and I try to smile too, it didn’t use to be this difficult. “Do you feel better now?” he asks and his question is different because he understands what I mean when I say “no”.
“It’ll get better, I promise. Do you want something to eat? I just wanted to order something for dinner,” I know what he’s doing, he’s trying to make me stop to think about it, about Rob and death and things that can’t be fixed anymore.
I nod because I want to stay. Granddad smiles and I see his age even more clearly.
.
We used to play that the stairs were leading towards the Wonderland that they could break any moment and we would fall. It couldn’t be easy to get to the Wonderland so we made ropes out of grandma’s old clothes and threw them as far as possible, and then we climbed them, expecting something magical at every corner.
We never found it but it didn’t matter, it was the journey that was important. We understood that even then. Now, climbing those very same stairs I expect many things at the end. I expect more heartbreak, more tears, more misery.
Granddad told me that Rob moved her two weeks ago when the fighting was too much for him, when he was sick and tired of hearing the same thing again. I didn’t know and it hurts more than anything. I told Rob everything, every little secret, everything that ever bothered me. I know he wanted to spare me, to keep me out of the constant conflicts he was having with our parents. I know that, it still hurts though.
He moved to the room we used to sleep as children, it’s a small one with one big bed taking most of the space. Grandparents always asked us to sleep with them, or separately but we never did, we needed to be together, to feel each other close. They said it was because we were twins, I know it was because we were Lil and Bo.
Only Rob and granddad called me like that, the invented name I planned to use once we move to the Wonderland, Alice was boring and besides, the Wonderland already had one.
The door is open but I see only darkness. Rob liked curtains drawn, he always said he can’t think when there’s too much light. I used to laugh at him that he’s a vampire that sun could burn him, he then made a silly face and tickled me till I haven’t took my words back.
My eyes sting as I move forward, pass the familiar pictures on the wall. My grandparents´ wedding photo, my father and aunt as children, the whole history in few pictures. On the last picture is me, smiling and holding up a glass of lemonade. I was eight.
There’re no boxes on the floor, no one is fighting the urge to sort through Rob´s things and I don’t want to start either. I smell his scent the moment I enter, shaving foam. Rob never used any fragrances, laughing that they’re too girly but he was always clean-shaven. Sometimes I think he wanted to look younger, that he craved the feeling of children innocence we lost while growing up.
The bed is still taking most of the space, a small cupboard is a new addiction along with opened sports bag on the side. His clothes are strewn along the bed and there’s a sketchpad with his notes and designs. I reach for it. It’s already quiet full with motors and cars, some accessories I still didn’t recognize even though I spent hours with Rob in the garage.
I skip through few pages and am very surprised to see my portrait there. I didn’t know he tried to draw people too, I always thought that he’s using his ability to create only his designs. But I knew how talented he was. It’s just a sketch, my hair is falling to my face hiding the most of it but I’m looking up and smiling. I imagine I’m looking at him.
“Alice,” granddad speaks from the door and I’m so startled I drop the sketchbook.
“Sorry, I scared you. I just want to ask. Will you be staying here? Because I think we should call your parents,” he carefully steps inside, like he expects Rob to be hiding somewhere and is scared he will send him away by invading his room. It’s strange, I feel the exact opposite.
I nod because the last thing I want now is to be dealing with my parents. My outburst probably caused them even more pain but I can’t feel guilty now, my heart is forever enveloped by sadness.
Granddad nods back and when I turn slightly I see that he’s happy that I’m staying. This house was empty for too long, now it’ll be empty again and I can imagine myself living here for a while. It is closer to Rob than his room at my parent’s house.
I smile. “Can I stay here for a while? I don’t want to be a part of all that funeral preparation, it makes me want to scream,” it’s the first honest thing I said in a long time and I know granddad will understand; only he can.
“Sure, you’re always welcomed here,” he says and moves sitting on the bed next to me. Then he notices the notebook and takes it out of my hands. I don’t want to part with it but his pain is the closest to mine, I can feel it. My parents don’t understand the loss we just went through, they never understood how special their son was.
“This is beautiful,” he notes with a sad smile and then looks at me in a very strange way, like he wants to know how I feel about the sketch, and to be honest, I don’t think I feel anything at all. “Rob loved you very much,” he continues and I sit further on the bed folding my legs against my chest to numb the very expected pain.
“I love him very much too,” I whisper. Granddad looks like he wants to say something more but I stop listening, the same darkness that I felt in the hospital is coming back. It’s making me lie down and ignore everything around me. I close my eyes.
It feels slightly better that way but the headache comes back as well and I furrow my brows, take a few deep breaths. Granddad covers me with a blanket, Rob´s blanket and I fall to a dreamless sleep.
.
When I wake up, the room is even darker than before. The digital Batman clock on the window sill shows exactly three minutes after two. The headache is slightly weaker, I don’t feel the thumping anymore but I’m weak, very weak. My throat is dry and I reach behind the bed where I know Rob always stacked bottles of water.
I fish out a beer can, it´s warm and probably won’t probably taste any better but I need something to fill in my throat. It does help a little and I push myself more up and lean against the wall. The curtain lets in a small streak of moonlight and I see our faces next to each other, we are smiling and happy and I pull at one particular photo that awakens a memory.
Rob just repaired one of granddad´s old cars and asked me if I want to go for a ride, he didn’t need much to persuade me. It was a summer, the year we both got our driving licenses and instead of lying all day on a beach, we spent most of the time together both doing whatever we felt like.
It was supposed to be an hour-long drive but the road was open and we really didn’t have to be anywhere, so we drove and drove, listening to music, singing and screaming on top of our lungs on empty field roads. I smile at the memory; it was the most perfect day.
After few hours we stopped at a gas station, bought few sandwiches and made a picnic on a small clearing behind it.
“I want us to stay here,” Rob announced, his head in my lap, the sandwich all over his Spiderman shirt. I laughed, swept the crumbs from him and took a large bite out of mine. The sauce spurted out on his face, which only made me laugh maniacally while he used my shirt to clean it away.
I didn’t mind, it was an old one.
“We can’t dream about the Wonderland anymore,” I said sadly.
“Why?” he asked and I remember seeing the little boy in him, the little boy that fought witches and red queens just to protect me. I didn’t respond then, I didn’t have the right answer and he didn’t pursue it anymore. It wasn’t like him. But it took him precisely 10 minutes to ask another question.
“Do you really want to leave to become a lawyer?”
“Yes,” I answered right away then. I wanted to be a lawyer, wanted to fight for something I believe but I didn’t want to leave. There was a university in the nearby city but my father wanted me to attend the best one. And I obeyed.
“I don’t want you to leave,” Rob pouted and despite being 18, he looked like a child that is about to lose his favourite toy. I felt almost the same. We took the picture then, with his head still in my lap, both smiling despite a small goodbye. It was last time we spent together more than an hour. Shortly after the summer ended and our lives went in opposite directions and now, now I am alone.
I drop the picture and curl up on the bed, but I can’t go back to sleep. It’s not the headache or the sadness that seemed to become a permanent part of my moods. I feel watched, like someone sat at the end of the bed, like someone wanted to say something to me.
“Don’t cry, Alice. It’ll be good again,” I wish they would say and I want it to be true.
.
When I woke up next morning, instead of granddad I find a note on the kitchen table. He went to get something for his car and he wants me to stay for lunch. It’s only nine and I need to get out to clear my head.
The sharp autumn sun welcomes me and I curse myself briefly for leaving my shades at home. I left in a hurry yesterday and my clothes are starting to feel uncomfortable as well. On the porch I turn around and run back to Rob’s room to change in one of his shirts.
I’m not sure where I should go, wander aimlessly around the town, wait for people to give me their condolences, ask me about my parents or why I am not at home helping with the funeral. No, I need to be alone, to let my mind rest and to get right of that damn headache. It’s not as bad as last night but I already don’t remember how I felt without it.
I’m lucky, I don’t meet anyone as I make my way to the old park. It’s on the outskirts, no one goes there anymore, it’s far and the cold weather doesn’t make it a nice walk. It’s exactly what I need.
Last time I was there was on my prom night. The party ended and my friends decided that an old kindergarten might be the right place to continue, I was too drunk and to giddy to disagree. Rob was there too, as my high school sweetheart, Tim. They fought and I broke up with him the next day. The memory isn’t sweet, it´s bitter but it’s a memory of Rob and I walk between the swings and benches and see myself dancing, my friends laughing and Rob frowning while leaning on the wall.
“I didn’t want to come here,” he said and I laughed and pulled him to dance.
The wind blows past me and my eyes water. I know that I won’t ever stop missing him, he was a part of me. They say that twins from a special bond, that they came from one person but me and Rob, we were the one person, understanding each other completely. He knew what I was thinking just by looking at him, as did I. But then I left, and two months later, he died.
The ground under me suddenly sways and I need to sit down, everything is dark again, dark and alone. It’s becoming me, I can feel it and I accept it, the choice was taken away from me precisely three days ago.
The time passes around me and I feel the sun gather in intensity, then hide behind clouds and I still sit on a bench near the abandoned kindergarten.
“Alice?” someone asks behind me and I spun around. Sarah is standing behind me, there’s a very worried expression on her face. I’m not surprised it was her who found me, beside Rob she was my best friend. I don’t even know why I’m using past tense now.
“So you found me,” I note moving slightly and motioning for her to sit next to me. There’s coldness in my voice that wasn’t there before and I try to figure out what changed, did I? Did something else happen to me and I didn’t notice?
“Alice, you have to come back home, your parents are worried and the funeral is tomorrow...,” she has more to say but I stand abruptly cutting up her little speech. She had it prepared, I’m sure my parents had their ideas in it too. What shocks me even more is that one word, funeral, it means the end, that there’s no hope of Rob coming back. I simply cannot accept that.
Since the moment they told me, I was avoiding thinking about how final it is.
“I don’t care about the funeral. Tell my parents I’m coming home when I feel like it,” I say sternly, my back to Sarah. I don’t want to talk to her, to anyone. I just want to live in my own world, in world when he is coming back and the grave will stay empty.
She doesn’t move but I can hear her release a sigh. Seconds tick away and I feel her thinking, she has something on her mind, something that she thinks needs to be spoken. I almost want to ask what it is. Almost. I still would rather be left alone.
Eventually, she stands and moves closer to me. Her presence used to feel nice, I liked to talk to her, to share secrets and dreams. As a daughter of a pastor, Sarah was always welcomed in our house. She was the right friend for me, parents-approved, only now I realize this. How I didn’t even have a choice, maybe we weren’t friends because we understood each other, maybe it was because they wanted us to be.
“Look, Alice,” she speaks up finally and moves to my side. “I know you’re hurting, your relationship with your brother was...,” Sarah stops rapidly and I turn to her. I want to know what the end of the sentence was supposed to be. But she quietens down, thinks those words over and over and I feel annoyed.
“What?” I spat out. “What did you want to say?!”
She looks hurt now, she probably thinks she doesn’t deserve such treatment and I must admit she’s right. She was a good friend, maybe it was only me seeing that manipulation, maybe there wasn’t any. Maybe I am becoming Rob now, the problematic one.
I shake my head, I don’t care anymore.
“Unusual,” she says quietly, like speaking out this one word might be a sin itself.
I laugh. “Unusual? Rob is my brother and I love him, of course I do. Isn’t what sister Anne taught us?” I ask in a mocking voice and I see Sarah tense, did I hit a nerve?
“Alice, Rob is dead and no matter how freakishly close you were, you need to accept that,” she is explaining, methodically but this time it’s her who hits a nerve.
“Freakishly close? What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I know I’m not ready for this argument, I don’t think I ever was. It was one of the reasons I never see it coming but it woke me up, the anger is bubbling inside me, it has for a long time because people always judged Rob, judged him for not being like they wanted him to be. Somehow is escapes me that I was part of it too.
Sarah exhales loudly, she runs her hand through her hair, it’s long and blonde, just like mine. “I never said anything to you because you were, still are, my friend. But your relationship with your brother wasn’t normal. You were always together, always hugging, you broke up with Tim because he jokingly called Rob a freak. Show me one other person who spends so much time with their sibling. Even your parents though you were weird,” it’s like a waterfall, words are falling out of her mouth and I want to scream “no” all over again, I want to stop her.
I close my eyes tightly, refuse to listen to her. Not true, not true, Rob was, is my brother and I love him like you supposed to love your brother.
She finally stops speaking and when she sees my distress, tries to touch me.
“No,” I scream and run and only when I see the road I realize I didn’t even try to defend us. Was it because I knew it was true? No, I continue to chant in my head. My knees weaken and I fall into the mud. There is a crack in my knee and it hurts, the darkness is suddenly back, but this time is hurling the same accusations. You’re sick, the voice says and it’s a different one, sounding like my father. Sick, sick, sick.
“No,” I whisper and a loud noise makes me raise my head. A truck is speeding down the road and it’s so wonderfully loud, helping me to overhear the voice, helping me to push the darkness out. It’s a distraction and when I manage to stand I realize it might be a permanent one.
I count to three and step forward.
I hear the brakes, the wheels are screaming and I stand there with my eyes closed and wait for the end. But nothing comes.
“Fuck,” I hear. “Are you alright?”
I expected to see death, Rob waiting for me on the other side but instead I see an old truck driver, he’s swearing, looking shocked. The truck was too close, he couldn’t manage to stop it, it’s impossible and when I look into his eyes I see I’m right. I’m not dead and both he and I know that I should be.
.
I run again, adrenalin pumping through my veins. I left the driver there and run away without any explanation. I don’t have one. I know he should’ve hit me; I should be lying there dead, broken. But I’m here. The only question is, why?
What if I can’t die? What if I’m already dead? It’s a crazy theory, an illogical one as well but it’s the only one I have and I want to prove it. If I’m wrong I’ll die and that’s not something I’m opposed to.
The old railway bridge was the forbidden place, Rob was always trying to persuade me to go there but I was a good daughter and never gave in. Going there feels somehow right. I could see the whole town from up here and the wonderful nothingness below my feet. It feels final, maybe I’m not ready for Rob’s finality but right now I’m ready for my own.
The voice is gone as is the darkness and I feel happy, I see no future, no future without one person I can’t live without. Maybe Sarah was right, maybe I really love Rob more than it´s normal, maybe we really were weird and unusual and all those other words my father uses when something isn’t like he thinks it’s supposed to be.
I spread my arms. “I’m coming,” I whisper and feel the nothingness, it´s accepting me, calling me in and I welcome it, grasp it but no, something is pulling me back.
“Hold on,” the “someone” says and despite everything, I do.
He pulls me up and I crumble on the dirt. “You were lucky I was around. Because you didn’t really want to die, right?” he asks and I look up. I have never seen this man before. He looks just slightly older than me; his face is hidden by a baseball cap and beard. He looks lost.
I don’t answer and he doesn’t ask anymore. Mostly he looks like he wants to vanish. And shortly afterwards he does.
I don’t believe in guardian angels. I used to as a child, I prayed to mine, have talked to him at night but then Rob said I was being silly and I stopped. But it seems he hasn’t abandoned me or maybe I really can’t die, maybe it’s a curse, a punishment, maybe I did something very wrong.
.
I don’t know what to do anymore, there isn’t any resolution, nothing. I can’t die and I can’t live. I find myself on my way home. Maybe accepting Rob’s death might be a start, no matter how much I refuse to do it. It’s the only thing, the only one that could bring me some clarity.
The first person I meet is Kylie, she looks lost and for a moment I feel guilty. I have abandoned her, let her alone to fight with her grief. She’s too young to deal with it on her own and with our parents preparing the funeral and me dealing with whatever I’m dealing with, she was left completely alone.
When she spots me, there’s anger in her eyes. But before she has time to say anything, to yell at me for being selfish, I see out mother exit the kitchen. I know she has more things to say to me too.
“Alice, are you alright? Where have you been? We were worried,” she speaks quietly, like she’s afraid I would bolt, or vanish and steps forward reaching for my arm. I want to say I’m not sick or broken, just sad, very very sad but somehow it doesn’t seem right. They should understand it, right?
I sigh. “I just needed time,” I say not wanting to fight again, and I realize I really don’t, I want to deal, I want everything to be good again. “But it won’t be”, a voice whispers in my head, “it’ll never be.” It sounds like Rob.
“Of course, sweetheart, but now you’re back, with your family and we all need to hold together in this difficult time. Tomorrow is the funeral and we need to be there, together,” she’s repeating herself now. Somehow the world “together” is very important and Rob´s anger flares in me, his anger for “how would it look?”, “what would people think?” and all those other sentences he was being rebuffed with all his life. It’s burning up in me now, I took it in the day he hit the tree.
“So that’s the most important reason for you wanting me here, right?” I spat. “Not because you were worried about me, but because you were afraid how it would look if I don’t turn up at the funeral. The perfect Bensons family fallen apart, what a scandal.”
I want to laugh and cry at the same time, why did I think I can take it all back? Become the person they wanted me to be once again?
My mother is angry now too. Good.
“How dare you think something like that? Of course we were worried, we lost one child, we don’t want to lose another,” she says and stars crying and I should feel guilt, remorse and probably love but I don’t know how, not anymore.
“Don’t pretend with me mother. You never listened to Rob, to his wishes, never let him do what he wanted. It was the reason he left,” it’s my anger now, the one I pushed away for so long. He wasn’t the son they wanted and he felt it every day.
“And what would it be? To begin some immoral relationship with you? You think we didn’t know? That anyone knew? People were whispering about Benson’s twins and their sick closeness, do you have any idea what it did to your father? And on the top of that he did this, he managed to hurt us the most even after his death. So I ask you, Alice, are you both happy now?” I ignore her mention of “immoral” and “sick” because something else catches my attention.
“What do you mean?” I ask. “What did Rob do?”
She’s crying again, tears are falling down her face smudging her perfect make-up. Kylie moves to her side and takes her hand. Her glare is full of hate and resentment but I ignore it, I can make up for this later.
Our mother sniffs loudly, gripping her youngest daughter´s hand and I see that all my truths might be only half-truths but they’re real. Rob was right and so was I. “They love you, of course they do,” I told him when he refused to go to college, when his decision was so much different from our father’s wishes. Seems disappointment cancels out the love, at least from his view.
“You don’t know?” she asks and I shake my head. “I thought you would, you were always so close, but maybe that’s the reason he didn’t want to tell you.” Her anger is dead as well, is replaced by sadness and the guilt is back now, I want to step forward and hug her, I want to be the daughter I was before, the one they always wanted. But I’m not sure I can.
“The sheriff stopped by yesterday. He came to tell us that they didn’t find any reason Rob could lost control ever the car because he didn’t,” she can’t continue and I don’t have trouble piercing together what she wanted to say.
He didn’t lose the control, there isn’t any explanation why he would and that only means one thing. Rob killed himself.
Tears sting in my eyes and I don’t understand. He didn’t tell me that something was wrong, he didn’t ask for help. Only then more pieces keep coming together. “Rob loved you very much,” were granddad´s words, “freakishly close”, “immoral relationship”, everything comes together before my eyes. The days we spent lying on the grass talking about future, his hand holding mine, his hot breath on my cheek when he suddenly rolled over and hovered over me, he looked like he wanted to kiss me and it always made me giggle.
Rob loved me. I loved Rob but only now I realize how much.
.
I wake up to darkness. I don’t remember moving from the living room, I only remember my mother crying, Kylies last “I hate you” and I remember the realization. We were sick, sickly in love.
The last few days are showing in my mind like a movie, the pain suddenly forcing me to my knees in the middle of my lecture, the darkness coming out in my mind, the anger, the hate, the love and the one voice in my head. It´s Rob, I feel it, he isn’t always telling me what I want to hear but he’s there.
I try to analyze my feelings, the state I’m in but I feel blank and lost. I can’t believe Rob would do that, he was always a fighter, never giving up. Was our situation really so desperate? Was it so bad he couldn’t talk to me about it? I try to imagine my answer and I know it won’t be one I would have now. I would try to persuade him that what he feels isn’t real, that he imagines something that we could never have.
I would hurt him, I know it for sure.
But I still can’t believe he would take his own life and after a while I realize why. He wouldn’t, it wasn’t in his nature, which means, there must be something that caused him to lose the control of the car, something that made him crash into the tree, something that can’t be proven now.
I thought I was feeling Rob´s pain, that I blacked out because I felt him dying but what if he felt mine? The headaches are still coming back, I feel one lingering in my head right now and it isn’t because I feel what Rob feels. He’s dead and there is something telling me I might be the cause.
I need to be sure but it can’t be now, it’s only few minutes after midnight and no one could help me find my answer right now but it haunts me, the possibility.
A movement in the corner makes me flinch, but when I turn on the light, there’s nothing. Just shadows of a girl that once was, my tennis trophies, jewellery hanging from a lamp shade, my old dolls and pictures of my friends. It’s all past, and feels like a very distant one. Was this really me? Parties on the beach, hanging out and talking about fashion and boys was one part, second one was sitting in the garage and listening to Rob working, which was one real? Was any?
.
I slip out of the house unnoticed. There’re noises coming from the bathroom but I don’t meet anyone. A large flower decoration is standing in the middle of the living room, Rob is smiling from its middle. It looks unnatural and wrong, I kick into it just to feel better.
I run to granddad´s, and am very relieved when I see his curtains drawn. Rob always kept the car keys in the garage and I don’t have any trouble finding it. His presence still lingers in the car, it was his, repaired and designed the way he wanted it to, black with green front door and a little angel wings on the side, they were to keep him safe. I insisted. In the end, they did, he crashed in a different car.
There isn’t much traffic and I reach the hospital in fifteen minutes, on the reception I ask for Doctor Johnson and in mere seconds I’m already nervously knocking at his door. I’m not scared that there’s something wrong with me, I already know it is, but I’m not sure what the knowledge will do to me.
“Yes,” the Doctor opens and it’s obvious he just got in, he’s still in his normal clothes and I can see a small coffee stain on his shirt.
“Doctor, I’m Alice Benson and I was in your care few days ago,” I spill out a little too quickly and he looks confused for a while but then I see recognition in his eyes and I push myself in his office as he steps aside in invitation.
“Yes, I remember, my condolences for your brother again. Is there something wrong?” he asks and I can see he’s already checking my pupils; he then reaches for my hand to check my pulse. My hand is sweaty; I wonder what it tells him.
I shake my head. “You did a head CT scan while I was here, right?”
Doctor Johnson nods.
“I want you to look at it again,” it sounds like an order but I feel desperation pushing me, making me. I need to know.
“Are you having headaches? Nausea?” he looks worried for a moment. I’m not sure if it’s because of me or because he’s afraid he sent home a sick person. I’m not going to blame him, I don’t plan to.
I haven’t come here to get a check-up and I keep shaking my head repeating “please, just look at it”.
The doctor looks like he wants to disagree but something in my eyes forbids him. I see the precise moment he decides and he turns toward his desk, flipping through the files on the top. I’m lucky, I might don’t need to wait too long. It takes him few minutes to find it, then he flicks on the light and looks at it.
“Just look at it as if you’re looking for something,” I say impatiently.
He ignores me, instead he really stars looking at the scan and after a while I hear a quiet gasp. So there might be something. “I’m sorry, I hadn’t noticed before,” he apologizes and puts the scans on his desk. “There is a small tumour in you...”
“I know,” I say, I came here only because I wanted him to confirm it, to tell me it was me who caused my brother’s death. It leaves me strangely empty. I hear him speaking about chemo, operations, about more tests and talking to my family. I ignore him.
What should I do now? For some freaky reason I can’t die, I have to live with this forever, with this knowledge, this burden. I killed the person I loved the most and someone is punishing me for it. I don’t believe God could be this cruel, so it must be someone else. Maybe I should start to believe in devil.
“Thank you,” I mumble quietly. “I would like to tell my family myself.”
That’s all I say before I run, without direction or destination, just somewhere.
.
Driving calms me down, but only slightly because when I look where I drove, I see a dry smudge of blood on the road and candles burning on the side of it. I came here, where it all happened, where my own pain caused Rob´s death. It almost seems poetic, almost.
“It isn’t your fault,” he says and I turn towards the voice. Rob is sitting next to me and looks very alive, his long brown hair is falling into his eyes and I reach to push it away. I try to touch him briefly but then he vanishes and reappears on the backseat.
“Sorry, it doesn’t work this way,” he has a sad look in his eyes. Maybe you’re supposed to be sad when you’re dead, there’s nothing more coming. The world ended and you just wait till it ends for the rest of the people. The waiting must be tedious.
I nod. “You look good,” I say and he smiles, I smile too and even though I have million questions I remain quiet staring at the burning candles on the side of the road.
“Let’s go home,” Rob says and I turn on the engine.
I’m not sure which home he meant but I drive towards the parent’s house. There are a few decisions need to be made. What will I do? Where will I go?
“San Diego,” Rob says materializing inside my room.
“Sounds good,” I say as I reach into my closet. The house is empty, everybody went to the funeral, they didn’t bother to look for me and I don’t blame them. They wouldn’t know where to look anyway.
I look into my closet, at summer dresses and colourful shirts, sandals and heels and I know those aren’t mine anymore. When I look in the mirror, I see myself for the first time since everything happened. Long blonde hair, blue eyes, very same as Robs and I realize I’m not that girl anymore. She died with her brother on a field road five days ago.
In the bathroom is a long forgotten hair dye, black and before I take it out and mix it together I go look for scissors. I don’t have anything in mind so I just start cutting. The hair falls into the sink and Rob sits quietly on the edge of the bathtub. He approves though when I put them down. I never dyed my hair before but the instructions are enough and after an hour I look at new me in the mirror, she doesn’t look as the good daughter her parents wanted and loved.
She looks like me now.
“It suits you,” Rob says and steps toward me. He comes close, as close as possible for us not to touch. “I wanted to tell you, I wanted to tell you every day and when you left I picked up the phone every morning but I didn’t, I wanted the choice to be yours.”
In the mirror I see his lips nearing my cheek and I imagine how would it feel, would his breath tickle me? Would it make me squirm? I turn to him, our lips are nearing and I know they could never touch. We linger like that for a moment till I finally speak.
“I would say no,” I whisper and Rob nods.
“I know, but I would’ve waited,” he steps away then and sits back on the tub while I clean up after myself. Hair into the bin, the rest of the hair dye into the sink, I’m getting rid of my past, replacing one Alice with another, it feels liberating. But I’m still sure for what I’m liberating myself, for a lonely ill-fated life?
I leave my summer dresses in the cupboard and pack some of shirts he left behind, I drove myself back to granddads and take some more. “There is some money under the bed, in an old can, take them,” he says when I zip the sports bag I used to take to my tennis practices.
“Thank you,” I say and reach under. There is around 2 000 dollars, I should be okay for a while.
I drop the bag in the backseat, the passenger seat already occupied and I know I should leave, leave everything behind and just start anew but there’s still one stop before that and even though I see Rob´s disappointed look I drive in the direction of the cemetery .
.
I avoid the crowd gathered around the grave, instead I go the lone figure standing in the back. Granddad looks grief-stricken and I slip my hand inside his. It’s much larger and for a moment I feel like a little girl going to her popa to comfort her because she had a bad dream. He couldn’t help me now but maybe I can.
“I’m glad you came,” he says and looks down on me. “Rob would want us here.”
I nod even though I know Rob didn’t want to come here in the first place, I see his ghostly figure sitting in the car where I left him. A ghost who doesn’t want to see his own funeral, I just know there’s a joke about that.
I look over at the crowd and see my family, my mom is crying again, supported by dad and Kylie and I know that me leaving is the best for everyone. I wouldn’t stop blaming them for chasing Rob away, for not noticing how special he was and they would just want to be the person I was before. It could never work. I still don’t know what my future may bring and I must admit there’s a little flame of excitement burning already. I am turning a blank page, waiting to start writing.
They’re lowering the casket down, it feels final, like a sign.
“Call me when you settle down,” granddad suddenly speaks and I nod. I don’t know how he knows but I owe him that much.
“Tell them I’m sorry,” I say and send the last glance towards the gathering, the family I no longer have. I’m turning my back on them, on the life they built for me, made my live. There’s something waiting for me in the future, many questions need to be answered but I have time. Maybe more than I need.
.
There’s a state, a state between life and death, sometimes named purgatory, sometimes named not-life. It’s not a privilege and it’s not a curse, it’s just a state, difficult to explain and impossible to experience. Many people tried to gain knowledge, to overcome death and lose their life at the same time but no one ever succeeded.
How do we know then that such a state exists?
It’s simple, between black and white, there’s grey, between cold and hot is lukewarm, everything has its middle, the balance between two opposites. It really is that simple. Everything has its middle, as it has start and the end. It’s the journey, that’s important, not the destination, it’s well-known.
So how does one achieve this state? How someone not dies and not lives at once? How could you fight death by not-living?
When a soul is breaking, you can hear it. A terrible, terrible sound, like a blunt knife on a glass table, a shriek of a cat when you step on her tail, a scream of a person that just lost someone they loved more than their life. It breaks windows, makes you cry and send a cold deadly feeling through every single person.
Did you feel death passing you? It just left beaten by someone who just had his soul broken and no, they hadn’t see it as an achievement. For them, for them it was a curse because achieving this, meant loosing something much more precious.
And exactly this happened to Alice.
.
End Note: Thank you for reading, this is one the first original stories Im really passionate about, therefore I want to make it as good as possible. I would appreciate very much if you could answer few questions for me. The comments are screened and I enabled anonymous comments, so feel free to criticize, it will hopefully help me improve myself. Thanks in advance :)
Qs:
1: First of all, after reading this story, are you interested in how Alice’s life goes? //
2: Was there anything plot wise that bugged you? If yes, please give me an example. //
3: Did the story flow nicely? Did you have a feeling it goes naturally? //
4: Did anything seemed too much out of blue? //
5: Does the theme of incest fit into the story? Would the story be better without it? //
6: Is Alice’s state explained enough? Does it need more, less? //
7: While reading, did you have a feeling that something wasn’t explained enough? //
8: I choose to explain Alice’s backstory, her family, friends, as I went. Do you think it was the right choice, or I should’ve simply started with it (e.g. My name is Alice and two days ago my brother died in a car crash. My parents never understood my brother’s choices and it was me who presented the model child.....). //
9: Did Rob’s ghost need a more proper introduction into the story? //
10: Was the plot very predictable? //
11: So far, do you Alice could be a likeable character? //
12: Other suggestions, ideas, issues? //