by Beck, Eden
I need to figure out where they have gone and what to do.
I need to find a way to make them come back.
I have to fix it. I have to.
I push open the door of my cabin and even though I can tell my mom is standing there in the kitchen, I don’t see her. All I can see is the look in Kaleb’s eyes when he told me they were leaving me behind.
“Sabrina, I’m talking to you!”
My mother’s shouts finally register in my head.
“What is wrong with you lately? It’s like you’re not listening to a word I say, or a word anyone says for that matter. I get the whole angsty, hormonal attitude and all, but it’s really not an excuse for acting so—”
Even as her voice raises to an ear-splitting shriek, she suddenly stops and looks at me as if she’s finally realized there’s something not right with me.
“What’s wrong?” she asks. Her voice is still more edgy than it is concerned … but she’s no longer yelling.
“They’re gone,” I whisper.
“What? Who’s gone?”
“The boys,” I say, numbly. I should be sobbing, but instead … I’m just empty. “Rory, Marlowe, Kaleb. They’re all gone, and they aren’t coming back.”
My mom doesn’t have much more to say at that point.
She can’t possibly understand what it means, or the feeling of deep despair that makes me want to bury myself alive just to avoid feeling what I’m feeling right now. She stands there for a minute as if she’s trying to think of something to say, but then realizes nothing she says right now is going to matter.
I climb up into my loft and reach for my phone, instantly spamming the boy’s numbers with texts.
I don’t care if I sound desperate. I have to know more. They have to tell me what’s going on—reassure me that this is some terrible dream.
But after a few seconds, each and every one of them comes back as undeliverable. The numbers have already been disconnected.
There’s no way for me to reach them now.
They’re really gone.
And I am suddenly and completely cut off with no lifeline to grab onto.
I lie here, staring at the ceiling until my eyes burn because I don’t know what else to do. Even if I ran around in the woods all night searching for them; I know that they are long gone. I reach for Kaleb’s hoodie that is sitting on the side of my bed and bury my face in it until I eventually am comforted and tormented just enough by the smell of him lingering in the fabric, that I fall asleep.
* * *
That night I dream of being in the forest again. I am standing with Remus near the river and I am staring at the rows of yellow eyes peering out from the line of trees.
Kaleb, Marlowe, and Rory are there too. They stand next to us and their glance shifts between the wolves that are crawling out of the forest, and me. I start to be afraid as I see the wolves bare their teeth and hear a low growl grow up from the earth. I look at Remus and see him smiling with teeth that seem much too long for his jaw to contain. Then I look back at the boys and am frightened by the way they look at me, with the same vacant look Romulus gave me when he told me they were leaving.
I feel a hand on my shoulder and turn to see Lydia there. She’s smiling again, but it’s not a real smile this time.
It’s too sad to be a real smile.
“I’m sorry,” Lydia says as I watch a single tear fall over her perfect cheekbone.
“Sorry for what?” I ask.
But she doesn’t answer me, and soon all that I can hear are the snarls of wolves in my ears as the pack of yellow eyes descend upon me.
I let out a cry for help and reach my arms toward where the boys stand. I see the three of them looking at me and wonder why they aren’t coming to help me; to protect me like they always do.
I struggle and pull against the claws and jaws of the wolves that are pulling me down until I can barely manage to see the faces of the three boys between the bodies of the wolves.
“Please,” I cry quietly as I look out at them and stretch my fingers toward them, as I feel my body falling against the hard earth of the forest floor.
Kaleb steps forward, and for a single moment I allow myself to have hope as I look into his dark, familiar eyes that stand out amongst all the glowing yellow reflections.
“I’m sorry, Sabrina,” he says, void of any emotion at all. “But we aren’t here anymore.”
But it’s Rory who delivers the final blow.
“And it’s all your fault.”
17
Sabrina
They’re gone.
Rory, Marlowe, Kaleb … after everything … are gone.
Really gone.
And I have no one to blame but myself.
I knew this would happen eventually, knew that one day I’d find myself without them if I couldn’t get them to turn me. Either they’d grow tired of me and my rapidly aging body, or I’d slip away … no longer able to bear falling behind.
But I never imagined it would happen now. Here. Without warning.
And certainly not because of my own recklessness.
I know that Jess, and Aimee, and Tom are talking in front of me. I can see their mouths moving as if they are stringing countless sentences into one. But I don’t hear them, at least not in any discernable way. Their voices sound hollow and distant, as if I’m hearing them from beneath the surface of water. When Jess finally looks at me and calls my name repeatedly, I hear the vague familiar echo of her voice. She waves her hand in front of my face.
“Sabrina!” she says, repeating herself for what must be the fifteenth time. “Are you even listening?”
I stare at her with vacant eyes, the same vacant eyes that I see in my dreams.
No, I’m not listening. I don’t even feel like I’m here at all.
I try to wave them off, say something vague of my own, but my throat is so dry I’m not sure I make a sound.
When the three of them get up to go to class, Tom tries to pull my arm to tell me that I’m going to be late. I don’t even look at him. I can see him out of my peripheral vision as he shakes his head and walks away. Aimee has always been the sweetest of the bunch, and also the most naïve.
“Should we call the school nurse or something?” she asks as her and Jess walk away.
There’s nothing the nurse can do. There’s nothing anyone can do.
They should have learned that six weeks ago, when this all started.
When everything that mattered to me ended.
Eventually I stand up when the cafeteria is empty and the late bell has already rung. One of the cafeteria workers comes by and scolds me for being late to class. She threatens to call the assistant principal and I look at her as if I don’t care or even see her, which I don’t. I walk out of the room, leaving her protesting calls behind me.
I think I’m headed to class until my feet carry me straight past the door.
I continue down the hall, past the lockers, to the doors at the end. And I walk straight out of school and don’t stop until I get to the cabin.
It’s not much different when I step inside, the door slamming carelessly behind me.
My mother jumps, making a sound of surprise I don’t hear. She tries to talk to me too, but it all just looks like moving, soundless lips. Her words, like everything else, have turned into a senseless stream.
I ignore her until she starts to yell, staring blankly forward at the wall … and then I ignore her even more. I climb up the steps to my loft and lay down face-first until my breath grows so thick and hot, I think I’m going to suffocate.
I’d stay there, let my consciousness fade into blackness without doing anything to stop it if I could. But eventually the screaming in my lungs wakes me up, bringing with it the sharpness of clanging pots down below and the ear-splitting scrape of tree branches on the other side of the glass above me.
I wish I could lay here, face down, forever—letting the pain in my lungs burn away all the other pain. But I can’t.
/> I take a gasping breath and turn over, the betraying rush of oxygen into my lungs triggering a wracking sob that I can’t push down. It bubbles out of me, spilling over until it overtakes my entire body.
My vision, already hazy, is blurred by tears.
Down below, I hear a moment’s hesitation in my mother’s furious scrubbing … but then, a moment later, it just begins with new fury.
By now she’s used to this routine.
It’s not the first time we’ve played this game.
I know she must be growing tired of me. She, like everyone else, thinks I should be getting over it. Getting over them.
I should be moving on. But they don’t know what I lost.
I lost more than Rory, Marlowe, and Kaleb. I lost more than the chance at a life that was more than the humdrum of school, work, and sleep.
I lost a bond.
And try as they did to convince me that as a human I couldn’t feel it, they were wrong.
Because why else would I feel as if I’ve been shattered into three separate pieces? Why else would I feel as if each one of them has taken a part of me with them that I’ll never get back?
I lay here in my bed, staring up at the forlorn moon painted on my ceiling by one of the boys who stole a piece of my soul when he left. Even the moon looks vacant, even that has left me only emptiness.
At some point in the night, I hear the cabin door close as my mom leaves for her shift at work and I find myself glad that she is gone. If I am to be alone, then I want to be very, very alone.
More days pass into weeks, and I start to feel like my body is a mechanized piece of equipment, just going through the motions of daily doldrums until eventually I’ll break and be unrepairable. I don’t see things, or hear them, or feel them; I just simply do them.
Jess comes up to my locker one morning as I’m pulling a book out. I don’t even know which book it is or if it’s the right one for class, and I don’t care one way or the other. At this point, thanks to all the time I spent playing hooky alongside the boys, I’ll be lucky to pass anyway.
I stick the book under my arm and see Jess’s face behind my locker staring at me once I close the locker door.
For once, it jolts me present enough to hear the words that drop from her lips.
“Hey stranger,” she says with a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “Still feeling a little under the weather?”
Understatement.
Not that I have the energy to correct her.
That’s the worst part about grief. Everyone expects you to get over it, when all you want is for it to swallow you whole.
She continues on before I can drown in my own thoughts again, before her voice can dull into a sound as blurred as my vision.
“There’s a Renaissance faire coming to town tonight. It supposed to last through the weekend. Me and Aimee and a few of the guys are going after school today. Do you want to come?”
I know I should think it’s sweet of her to invite me, but I have no desire to go do anything at all. When she sees my reluctance, she sweetens the deal by making the alternative sound much worse.
“It’s either that or spend a night at home with your mom,” she says, grinning. “You must be getting pretty tired of that by now.”
Since it’s all you do.
I stare at her blankly for a minute, ready at first to turn her down—as I must have done a dozen times—when I pause. If I just go, just do this one thing, maybe she’ll back down for a while.
Maybe she’ll just leave me alone if she sees that even she can’t make this pain go away.
And even the darkest, numbest part of me has to agree almost anywhere is better than home right now. And it’s not because of my mother, who’s increasingly loud voice seems to have doubled with the empty bottles found shattered in the garbage can every morning.
It’s because every inch of it reminds me of them. It’s constant. Never ending.
I need to get away. Drown myself in foreign noise and sights and smells, just for the day.
Just to survive.
Since my body doesn’t seem able to just let me die.
“Sure,” I say, finally, and I think to both of our surprise. “I’ll come.”
* * *
The Ren faire is quite a production.
If I didn’t already feel completely void of life or thought, I would probably enjoy it. But instead, I do the same thing I’ve become accustomed to doing lately; I wander around aimlessly, not looking too closely at anything at all.
Still, a small part of me appreciates the change in scenery.
Even if I still feel numb.
Eventually, even Jess gives up on trying to convince me to have fun. Every so often she checks over her shoulder to make sure I haven’t wandered over to drown myself in a rain barrel, even though the look on her face makes me wonder if she’s thinking that would just make all of this a little easier.
If I had any will in me to feel anything, I’d be grateful to her.
Anyone else would’ve given up a long time ago.
Like they did.
Like Rory, Marlowe, and Kaleb did.
And just like that, a stabbing pain washes through me—another grim reminder of what they did to me when they left.
I shove the pain down so deep, that for a moment, I overhear the conversation in front of me again. Jess, Aimee, and Tom have walked on ahead to where some other kids from school are loitering by the edge of the river that winds along the edge of the fairgrounds here.
Behind me, a Ferris wheel blares a tinny tune in my ear, but even that’s not enough to drown out the taunting lilt of the voices up ahead.
“I am not chicken,” Tom’s voice raises above the rest. “Forgive me for not wanting to break my back.”
He points towards the river, and for the first time, I see what they’re arguing over.
A bungee jump station.
As I walk up to where my friends are standing, I can hear some of the other guys from school taunting Tom further, goading him closer to the poorly constructed stand. Even the attendant looks wary, glancing over his shoulder at the water below like he’d never be caught participating in his own attraction.
“Whatever, man,” one of the boys says. I think I recognize him from the halls, but lately, most of the faces have just become featureless blurs. “You’re just a wuss, and you know it.”
One of his friends jostles him from the side, encouraging another round of insults hurled Tom’s way.
I’d feel bad for Tom if he didn’t kind of deserve it.
He’s all talk and no substance.
“Bet you a hundred bucks he won’t jump,” one of the boys says, stepping forward.
The first boy who spoke throws his head back and lets out a guffaw. “Two hundred that he won’t ride the kiddy coaster.”
Tom’s face grows red. “I couldn’t … you have to be like twelve to ride that.”
Even I, in my state, get tired of the insults … and step forward. I don’t look at them. Instead, my eyes stay glued to the rope in the man’s hand on the edge of the river.
“I’ll do it,” I say.
When at first, no one hears me, I repeat myself. I say it louder this time, my own voice sounding foreign to me as it raises up above the others’.
Jess and Aimee look at me like I have lost my mind.
“That bet, the hundred bucks,” I say to the guy who was tormenting Tom. “Does that stand for anyone willing to jump?”
“Sabrina, I’ll just give you the money,” Jess says as she reaches into her pockets, even though I know she won’t have enough. I doubt anyone here does. “It’s way better than having you jump off this cliff into the water.”
“It’s not about the money,” I say to her. “You can give that to him for all I care,” I say, pointing at the guy who started the whole thing. “This is just painful to watch.”
The boys tormenting Tom sneer.
“Look at her go,” one of them says, elbo
wing Tom so hard that he almost topples over, “you’re going to let a girl fight your battles for you?”
“If it’ll get you to shut up,” I growl.
“Let her do it,” Aimee says, suddenly. “It’s honestly the only thing she’s seemed interested in in weeks.”
“Whatever,” Jess says as she shrugs her shoulders and goes back to stand next to Tom. “It’s your life.”
Yep, I think to myself. It’s my shitty life so I can do whatever I want. There’s no one here to stop me from doing anything anymore. I can hear the bitterness of my own thoughts resounding in my head.
The boy’s insults dull as they watch in surprise as I walk over to the rig at the edge of the cliff, their sneers turning to stares of disbelief. Even the attendant looks skeptical—but that’s no change from how he looked earlier.
I peer down over the edge at the churning water below.
I’ve never been bungee jumping before. I always thought it looked dangerous and stupid.
People do it because of the rush that they say it creates, something to do with endorphins and the body’s response to fear. As I stare down at the water below, I wonder how much more the endorphins would kick in if you didn’t know you were attached to a long bungee cord.
I wonder how much even more they would kick in if you knew that you weren’t a very strong swimmer.
For the first time, I feel a slight tingle begin at the base of my spine.
For the first time in ages, I … well … I start to feel. And it’s something other than agonizing pangs of pain.
The guy that works at the faire starts talking to me about the whole process and giving me the safety precautions run-down. I’m not listening.
I’m wondering what the air is going to feel like on my face as I fall.
He gets ready to attach the clip to my belt with affixes the cord to me, but hands me a pen and a clipboard first and tells me I have to sign the safety release before I can get ready to jump.
What a silly thing for him to think that he could stop me from jumping if I really wanted to.
What a silly thing to make me stand here without a cord attached and ask me to sign a paper.
