by Rina Kent
People can become ghosts.
They can exist, even if at the same time they don’t. They can go unnoticed so that even though everyone looks at them, they don’t really see them.
That’s how I spent the last two days at the hospital, sleeping on benches, using the bathroom’s soap to freshen up, surviving on coffee – actual coffee, not the one cocktailed with vodka.
Being sober for two days straight sucks. It’s like seeing the world from non-grainy eyes, and the view isn’t pretty.
Alcohol makes it less harsh, more tolerable. Being drunk makes me accept myself, or maybe it makes me think less about myself and as a result, I kind of accept it.
I considered going to the grocery store and fetching a bottle of vodka, but I stopped.
This isn’t the time to lose myself. I have plenty for that later.
So I nursed a two-month hangover.
And yes, it hurts like a bitch with an STD.
But it doesn’t hurt as much as that night.
Witnessing Kim bleed out will haunt my nightmares for life. I still can see her blood marring the tiles, bright and red. It was life leaving her with no intention of returning. I had my suspicions, but when I heard the confirmation that I’m one of the reasons behind that decision, something inside me broke to bloody pieces.
That night she told her father everything and asked for his help, I stood in front of the door with my fists clenched by either side of me.
Every sob she released was like a stab, and every confession she made twisted the knife deeper.
She just needed someone, and I did everything not to be that someone, and as a result, I almost lost her.
I thought I could never hate myself more than when I woke up and realised touching her wasn’t a dream. Seems the self-hate has huge degrees and mine reached its max that night, listening to her confessions and sobs, seeing her hold on to Calvin like she’d break to pieces if he let go.
She’s been doing that a lot these past days, holding on to people, hugging them. First Calvin, then Elsa, Teal, and the fucker, Ronan.
Those are the only four people she’s allowed to visit her. The only people she’s allowed to see her in her true form, not the fake Kim who hid behind the façade, but the real one who held back tears as she talked about her scars.
Elsa cried and Ronan comforted her. Teal, the goth girl, who doesn’t touch anyone, let Kim hug her.
And yes, I watched all that through the opening of the door or the glass like a creep.
I’ve been contemplating the best way to go in there and tell her, to relieve her from the pain, even if it’ll add a different type of pain.
However, I haven’t managed to.
I’m not only a creep but also a coward and a selfish bastard, because even now, I want to protect her in my own fucked up way.
Calvin is the only one who spends the nights with her and she sleeps almost immediately whenever he sits beside her.
I’ve never seen a father so devoted as him, even if he is a bit late at it. He brought the psychiatric doctors and they had some sort of a family therapy – without Jeanine.
That bitch is now sitting on the bench, glaring at a boy who’s playing with his parents, probably because he’s making some noise. As usual, she’s holding a phone to her ear and speaking in her typical snobbish tone. She’s acting as if the girl inside isn’t her only daughter.
As if she didn’t attempt to kill herself.
Kill herself.
Thinking about those words drives the knife in deeper still. I can try to put roses and unicorns on it, but that’s what Kim did. She wanted to leave this world and never return.
Fuck.
I’m in the corner, watching the entrance to Kim’s room, but staying away from Jeanine’s field of vision.
“Yes, of course,” she snaps. “I will not delay the exhibition for any reason at all. She’ll be fine, she’s not a kid.”
I’m about to go in there and punch her in the face. Maybe she’ll delay the exhibition if her damn image is disfigured.
I hate that woman. And not only because of the past, but it’s mainly because she never deserved a daughter like Kim.
Selfish people like Jeanine are not fit for motherhood. Just like my mum.
Kim’s room door hisses open and Calvin comes outside, his face worn, but he doesn’t appear sad, just tired.
“Go home, Jeanine,” he tells his wife, stopping in front of her.
“This is the second time I’ve come and haven’t seen her.” She rises to her feet and places a hand on her hip. “I have things to do.”
“And I’m telling you to go back and do those things. You won’t see her until she’s ready.”
“You’re spoiling that brat and I won’t stand for it. I’m her mother.”
He laughs with a biting edge. “Mother? When was that, Jeanine? When I caught you hitting your stomach, saying this demon needs to disappear? Or when you didn’t want to hold her when the nurse brought her over? Or was it when you threw her at me and refused to even look at her, let alone feed her? Newsflash, she was never your daughter and from today onwards, you have no right to speak to her or try to exercise your motherly rights on her.”
For the first time in her life, Jeanine appears speechless. It only takes her a few seconds to recuperate, though. “Is that what she said?”
“Go home and take care of Kirian.”
She taps her shoes on the ground. “He keeps asking about her.”
“Then you tell him she’s at camp and will call in the morning. Be useful for once in your entire useless life.”
“Fuck you, Calvin.” She yanks her bag from the bench. “I won’t be coming again.”
“Even better,” he calls behind her back as she stomps out of the hospital as if her heels are on fire.
Bitch.
Calvin is about to head inside when he notices me lurking there, both hands in my pockets.
I haven’t released the star bracelet, scared it’ll disappear the moment I do. Just like she almost disappeared.
He sighs. “Go home, Xander.”
Calvin has seen me over the past few days and always tells me to leave. I’m like a dog who keeps coming back even after being told off.
I remain silent, but I don’t make a move to go.
Another sigh rips from him. “Lewis must be searching for you.”
I scoff. “He’s not. He has long conferences, he probably doesn’t know what time it is right now.”
“Still, go home and freshen up. You look like you’ve been in a fight.”
That’s because I have.
When I still don’t move, Calvin motions behind him. “Or go in.”
“I’ll probably make it worse,” I confess, my voice thickening with emotion.
“As long as it’s real, I don’t think you would. Besides, sometimes, things have to get worse before they get better.”
I stare at him for a beat as I weigh his words.
You know what, a human can be a ghost only for so long.
I make a move towards the door, but Calvin clutches my shoulder forcing me to halt in my tracks. “If you blame her for what happened, I’ll beat you up worse than in those newbie fights you get yourself into.”
How the hell does he know about those?
“Yes, sir,” I say, and there’s surprisingly no sarcasm like when I speak to Dad.
Maybe it’s because I respect Calvin and the role he’s playing in his daughter’s life.
“I’ll go grab a coffee.” He releases me and vanishes around the corner.
I continue watching him, making sure he’s gone before I step inside the room. It smells of antiseptic, but there’s also that slight lime smell from her.
Kim leans sideways, rummaging through her drawers. Her skin isn’t as pale as that night. Her hair falls on either side of her shoulders like a green halo.
She’s so beautiful, it’s physically painful.
And she’s alive, breathing, moving.
She’s alive and right there.
If I don’t do something, she might try it again, and maybe next time, Calvin or I won’t be there and it’ll be too late.
“Dad, did you see my Kindle? I think I put it here, but maybe –” Her words cut off as her eyes meet mine.
They widen to a huge green colour and sparkle a little, shine a little, but die a little, too.
Ouch.
I deserve that.
“What are you doing here?” she whispers. “Get out.”
I deserve that, too.
But I’m not leaving until she knows everything.
It’s the moment of truth.
23
Kimberly
Today, the therapist told me to say what I hate, that I should let it out.
I said I hated how Mum treated me and how the bullies at school talked about me. I said I hated fat shaming and diets.
But I kept what I hated the most to myself.
I hate how much my heart flutters when Xander is in sight or how I forget what I was trying to do the moment he comes into my vicinity.
Both his hands are shoved into his jeans. His lower lip is busted and cut and his ocean-deep eyes appear even more bottomless, exhausted, as if he hasn’t slept for days.
He appears a little bit broken, a little bit haunted, a little bit wounded.
Just like me.
And I hate that even more.
I hate that he was the one who found me and that he saw me in that state.
I hate that I’m grateful to him in ways words can’t express.
I hate that I keep looking at the door, expecting him to come in any second, and how I feel gutted every time he doesn’t.
I hate that I wanted to see him, even though I have no interest in seeing my mum.
But most of all, I hate him.
The boy, the person, who cut me off from his life and left me to fend for myself.
The knight I took refuge in, but he offered no shelter.
The person I shared my life with, but he erased me as if I were never there.
I trusted him and he betrayed me. I can forgive anything but that.
“Get out,” I repeat in a firm voice.
Now that I had my fill of him – as dishevelled as he is – I can live without wondering about him one more day.
I told Elsa and Dad about everything, although I had to struggle with the tears in Elsa’s eyes and how they both blamed themselves for not seeing the signs sooner.
They couldn’t have, because I was pro-level at hiding them. Besides, they both had a lot to deal with. Dad had his demanding work and Elsa had her complicated family situation and volatile relationship with Aiden.
Now that they offered their full support, I don’t need Xander to see me anymore.
I might be broken, but I’ll pull myself together. I might have fallen, but I’ll get up. There’ll be a day where I look behind and say I survived.
And I don’t need him to be there for that.
Xander sits on the chair Dad usually occupies, his attention never leaving my bandaged wrist. A small voice inside me tells me to hide it, but I squash that voice.
There’ll be no more hiding. This is me, the only me.
“Didn’t you hear what I said?” I continue in my confident tone. “I told you to go. I don’t want to see you, just like you don’t want to see me.”
“I lied about that.” His voice is calm, too calm. It raises goosebumps on my skin.
“You lied?”
“I lie about a lot of things. I’m a liar.” He’s still speaking in that neutral tone as if any other range will ruin his composure.
“Things like what?”
“Like how much I hate you. I don’t. Or how much you’re nothing. You aren’t. Or how I can live without you. I can’t.”
My breathing hitches and I dig my nails into the hospital’s sheet. “If you’re saying that because of what happened to me or out of pity, I swear –”
“I don’t pity you.” He cuts me off.
“Then why are you saying those things now? Why do you think you can come in here and say shit like that after you told me to disappear from your life?”
“I told you –”
“You lied, you don’t mean them.” I cut him off, repeating his earlier words. “Doesn’t mean I didn’t believe them. Doesn’t mean you didn’t make me cry every time you pretended I was nothing. Why would you ever do that to me? That child prank doesn’t warrant this much torment. It doesn’t warrant that you treat me as if I’m invisible. I’m visible, I’m here, and I’m always looking at you, so why don’t you look at me?”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“You’ll hate me if you know.”
“Tell me and I’ll decide myself. I lived through this torment for years; I have the right to know.”
He lifts his eyes and the wretchedness in them nearly breaks me all over again. “The truth isn’t always good, Green.”
“I want to know why. Tell me why!”
“Because you’re my sister.”
24
Xander
Age eleven
“Luna!” I call the cat’s name as I walk into the forest. “Come here, kitty.”
She’s such a pain, like Green sometimes.
I called her for more than five minutes and she still didn’t show up. Here’s to hoping she didn’t get caught in one of the trees.
Actually, if she did get caught, she would’ve brought the entire world down with her mewling.
I slide down a small cliff to the riverbank. Maybe she came here to drink.
Kim must be worried. She’s always weird whenever Luna disappears, saying things like maybe she was hit by a car and died.
Luna doesn’t even go to the road. She’s too lazy for that.
There are many weird things about Kim, like the way she smiles and the way she eats and the way she laughs.
I say weird, but Cole says that’s because I want to kiss her. He’s wrong, I don’t want to kiss her.
Okay, maybe I do, but I also don’t want her to hate me, so I only did it once.
She smiled, though, her eyes sparkling, so maybe she doesn’t hate me?
Cole says I have to do it a few more times to find out and that’s what I plan.
I search beneath the bushes for a silver tabby, but there’s no trace of Luna. It’s getting dark and it reminds me of that time when Cole, Aiden, and I were taken away.
It was dark and cold, and I kept hearing voices, speaking in hushed tones, but no one gave me any food.
I remember thinking about Dad and Aiden and Cole and if they were okay.
After I was thrown out of the van into a similar forest like this one, I didn’t cry or call for help. I couldn’t, even if I’d wanted to. It could have been because Dad said to never cry and to think of solutions instead of thinking of problems.
But I remembered having one purpose: I had to go home to Kim.
She hates spending time with her mum and I promised to never leave her alone. I’d planned to keep that promise, just like she kept her promise about never leaving my side.
And that’s exactly how I got home.
I fought the cold and the hunger and continued walking until I found a police station.
Since then, Kim and I have grown even closer. She’s the only one I told about the kidnapping and how cold it was. She’s the first person who comes to mind when I wake up in the morning and the last thought in my head when I go to bed at night.
Aiden and Cole have been making fun of me, saying I’m being controlled by a girl and that I should wear her skirt. I punched Aiden and kicked that tosser Cole in the chin.
He said that she’ll grow up and not care about me anymore, because that’s what girls do. They change their minds.
That’s why I’ve been keeping a distance from her, not because I don’t care about her anymore like she said, but because I don’t want her to hate me with time.
I don’t know what I would do if she hates me. It’d be worse than losing Mum. At least I had her back then. If I lose her, I’ll have no one.
“Absolutely not!”
I come to halt at the very familiar voice. Jeanine, Kim’s mother. What is she doing here?
Tiptoeing behind a tree, I peek through the branches to find her standing in front of her white car, folding her arms. She’s wearing huge sunglasses that cover half her face and a scarf around her head, but I know it’s her from the voice and the car and the shiny brown hair.
Kim is always jealous of that, wishing she had hair like her mum, a body like her mum, and everything like her mum.
If only she knew she’s more beautiful than her mum.
“I want my daughter, Jeanine. You’re obviously not doing a good job with her.”
My nails dig into the trunk as the person she’s speaking to comes into view.
Dad.
He stands in front of his Mercedes, wearing his hunting hat.
His words slowly trickle in my brain. Daughter. He said, daughter.
“Fucking someone doesn’t make you a father, Lewis.” She flips her hair back. “I’m the one who carried Kimberly in my womb for nine fucking months.”
“Doing that doesn’t make you a mother either.” He glares down at her.
“You should’ve fought for her as soon as she was born. But no, you had that other bitch to worry about. Your home and your pretty little family. Remember what you told me back then?” Her voice turns mocking as she mimics his, “I already have a son, Jeanine. Don’t get on my nerves, Jeanine.”
“Well, I didn’t think you’d be this useless as a mother. She was crying the other day because you yelled at her.”
“I get to raise her any way I like. Mind your own business and take care of your precious son.”
“Jeanine,” he mutters her name through clenched teeth.
“I have a reputation, okay? I can’t just announce I have a daughter outside of marriage, an affair, and with my neighbour and my husband’s friend. Do you even realise how that would smash my and Calvin’s careers? Yours, too, in fact.”
“I’m not asking you to announce it, but to at least tell her about it, so I can openly treat her as my daughter. She already spends so much time with Xander anyway.”
