This Life Isn't Mine

by Dominique Laura

  “Don’t play with me, it’s been a few months since we turned seventeen and we have yet to properly celebrate with each other,” I said, wrapping my arms around his neck and pressing myself fully against him. “We were born a few days apart, we’re the best of friends, and we just started our last year of high school. We can celebrate all three of those things in one night. It’ll be fun.”

  “I don’t know, Ever, what did you have in mind?” He gently squeezed my sides, his fingers digging into my skin lightly.

  “Do you really even have to ask?” I wiggled my brows at him, suggestively.

  “We just did that the other day, how is that celebrating?” He looked appalled that I’d even suggest it, but I knew he didn’t really mind it all that much.

  “It’ll mean more, just trust me okay?” I widened my eyes, giving him my best version of puppy-dog eyes. “Star gazing is literally my favorite thing to do, you know that.”

  Lio and I had made a sort of truce the night after he came over for my sixteenth birthday. It was the necklace that did my heart in. He ended things with Natalie, and I never went on another date, with Jeremy at least. He didn’t seem to mind, apparently after I cited bro code, he was fine with it.

  Lio and I shared kisses, sometimes a bed, and most of our free time together, but we didn’t have a serious label. Labels complicated things and I was just starting to find my footing in this life, so we were both content with staying whatever it was that we were. We were young, and we were having fun, and that was really all that mattered, right?

  “Fine, fine, I trust you.” He looked around us before pressing a longing, deep kiss to my lips. I sighed as he pulled away, my heart tripping over itself at his smile.

  “We’ve got to get to class,” I said, pulling away from him.

  “I’ll try to call you tonight, alright?” He said as he walked away from me.

  “Sure you will!” I yelled at his retreating back.

  I watched his shoulders shake with laughter before turning away and walking in the opposite direction, heading to my own class.

  I walked into my English class, taking my designated seat in the back by the window. I might have been making an effort but for the most part I kept to myself whenever possible, preferring to get lost in a good book or in writing a poem. Words had become my solace. Where others preferred actions over words, I would always choose the latter.

  “Hi, Everly,” a soft-spoken voice said from my left.

  I gave Georgia a small smile, acknowledging her greeting. She was a nice enough person and probably one of the few people I actually did talk to, aside from Lio’s friends who liked to think I was theirs too.

  “Are you ready for today?” She asked, and I finally turned to look at her. She was smiling a little wider than usual and her voice was more perked up. “I just know that you have something good up your sleeve.”

  “What’s today?” I asked, suddenly getting the feeling that I was forgetting something.

  “It’s your turn to share your poem with the class.”

  “My turn to—what?” I sputtered, mentally trying to remember what it was she was talking about.

  And then it hit me.

  Mrs. James had been selecting a student to read a piece of their own poetry at the end of every class, and today was my assigned day. I cursed myself for forgetting. I wasn’t embarrassed of sharing my words, but I was unprepared as to which one I was going let everyone in on. A lot of my poems were personal, and I didn’t want them making any assumptions about me based on my words. I shook my head. Who cares what others thought? I was happy, and that was really all that mattered at this point.

  “You just remembered, didn’t you?” Georgia asked with a light laugh. “Well, I’m sure you’re going to do great, you’re great in everything you do.”

  “Uh, thanks, I think.” I smiled at her, a little taken aback by her compliment.

  I spent the rest of the class period flipping through my journal, trying to find a poem to read out loud. It took me forty minutes, and I still wasn’t confident with my choice, but really it would have to do.

  “Everly, are you ready to share your poem with the class?” Mrs. James asked, setting up the podium in front of the chalkboard for me to stand at.

  “As ready as I’ll ever be.” I walked through the aisle and stood behind the wooden fixture, placing the sheet of paper with my words on top of its surface.

  I cleared my throat, made eye contact with the whole room, and then proceeded to recite my poem by memory. I ignored the tremble in my hands and somehow my voice carried strong throughout the classroom. These words were some of my most personal, but it was a powerful poem, one that I felt a lot of the students in the room could relate to, even if it tore my heart in the process.

  I woke up alone,

  To the shrill of my voice,

  Begging to someone,

  Please take me home

  My soul tried to leave,

  I begged it to stay,

  Promising tomorrow

  Would be a far better day

  I look in the mirror,

  Don’t know who I am,

  Close my eyes,

  Get lost in my mind,

  The memories keep me alive

  I wanted to leave this life,

  I was losing my fight,

  But I held on tight,

  My heart convinced me otherwise

  I woke up alone,

  To the shrill of my voice,

  Begging to someone,

  Please take me home

  I heard a whisper,

  From deep within my soul,

  “You’ve always been home”

  My heart pounded, and my body shook from the rush I felt that came from sharing those words with someone other than myself.

  Writing had been a recent outlet of mine, one that allowed me to channel my anger and frustrations in a healthy way. It was much more productive than hating everything in sight because I was afraid of living and afraid of being stripped from this life like I was from Penelope’s, but I was starting to realize that I had no control over that. What I did have control over was how I lived this life and lately I had just been living it in the moment.

  My classmates stared at me with varying expressions on their faces, some wore smiles while others stared with eyes wide open—I assumed that was a positive reaction. I turned and looked at Mrs. James.

  “Is that all?”

  “Yes, unless you want to share the meaning behind that poem or where your inspiration came from with the class?”

  I thought it over for a second, but after weighing the pros and cons in my head I decided against it.

  I shook my head and gave her a small smile. I walked back to take my seat at the back of the class.

  My insides were rattling, but I made sure I was calm and collected on the outside. The bell rang a few minutes later. Still, I sat in my seat, my eyes focusing on nothing in particular. I had just shared one of the most personal pieces I had ever written. With the. Whole. Class.

  Wow. I really had just done that.

  I blinked away the shock and tried to convince myself that it wasn’t a big deal. That sentiment held some truth to it. I mean, it wasn’t a big deal to everyone else but to me it was. Sharing that poem had been the closest I had ever come to telling someone about the dreams that I lost sleep over because I fought against them, some night opting to skip sleep at the hope of avoiding the pain and confusion they brought. They weren’t as frequent, but still, they were as random as anything else, and I had no idea when a memory would consume me and force its way to the forefront of my mind.

  Penelope had a way of haunting me and not too long ago I was embracing her, but I was in a place now where I wanted—no, needed—my life as Everly to work. I knew all too well, better than anyone else, that a life could end without a second to even realize what was happening, which is why I was putting everything into being this new person, this new me. Most days that was easy to
do, but others, the days that followed the dreams, it was nearly impossible.

  A hand waved in front of my face. I blinked away the blank state I was in and looked up at Georgia, who looked at me with worry and curiosity on her innocent face.

  “Are you alright Everly? Do you need me to call Lio? I just heard him and the team walk by.” Her voice was filled with concern and it made me wonder what I looked like to the outside world at that moment.

  I stood up and slid the strap of my bag over my arm. “That’s not necessary. I was just lost in my thoughts for a minute.”

  “Or five.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve been sitting there for five minutes with a blank look on your face.”

  “Oh, well, time must have got away from me,” I said with a shrug. “No big deal. I’ll see you next class.”

  I gave her a small wave before leaving the classroom. To say that was weird wouldn’t have even began to cover it. I took two steps into the hallway before Lio grabbed my hands and pulled me into an empty space between two of buildings.

  He had a goofy-looking smile on his face and my heart fluttered at its brightness toward me.

  “I’m already late for my next class, Lio,” I said, halfheartedly trying to escape his arms as they wrapped around me. “But I guess for you a few more minutes won’t hurt.”

  He smiled and pulled his lower lip into his mouth before leaning down to wrap my lips in his. My body hummed, high on the happiness he brought whenever he was around.

  “Okay,” I said, gently pushing his body away from mine. “I really do need to get to my next class. And so do you.”

  “Fine,” he said against my lips. “Fine, but you owe me some best friend time later.”

  “We both know what that translates into for you.”

  “You know you love it.”

  “I’ll love it even more when you start putting on football shows that actually interest me.”

  “Fine, I’ll look into it,” he mumbled.

  “Until later, Elliot.” I laughed as he backed away.

  “Later never comes soon enough Ever.”

  Life with Lio really was a gift. Not many people were lucky enough to have someone like him in their lives. We were friends who kissed, but we were friends nevertheless. He was the one person I never wanted to lose, but if I were willing to admit it to myself, there were other people I was starting to fear losing too. This life was making its mark on my soul and as frightening as it was, I wasn’t going to push it away anymore. No, I was going to embrace it with everything I was. At this point, what choice did I really have?

  “You’re perfect, Penelope, so effing perfect,” he said harshly against my forehead before placing a rough kiss against my skin. “You’re too good for me, you always have been.”

  I twisted my hands in his shirt, holding him to me. “Don’t say that. I love you. You’re everything in this life.”

  “Life is falling apart right now, what do you want from me?”

  “I want you to be honest, you jerk. Why are you trying to push me away huh? You want me gone? Fine, then consider me gone.” I shoved against his chest as hard as I could and turned to run off. He gripped my arms and pressed his body against my back. His chin rested on my shoulder and his heavy breathing tickled my skin, causing goosebumps to spread.

  “Marry me.”

  “What?” I froze. “Two seconds ago you were trying to get rid of me and now you want to get married? Are you on something, is that what this is about?”

  “No, I just, things have been rough at home, and I’m sorry, I don’t know what I’m doing.”

  I turned myself in his arms and looked up into his sea-blue eyes, placing my hand against his cheek. He leaned into my touch and my heart beat for him, just like it always did. We were barely adults with more love than I think anyone had ever had—more than anyone ever would.

  “No matter what you’re going through, you never have to push me away,” I said through oncoming tears. “I’m always going to be here, and honestly, you don’t have much say in that. I’m going to be by your side, inside of your heart, forever, so you’re just going to have to deal with it.”

  His eyes stared into mine, unblinking. He quirked a lip up in a half smile and wiped my tears away with the pads of his thumbs. “Marry. Me.”

  He wasn’t asking anymore, he was stating, which meant that whether I accepted or not he was going to do it anyway.

  I narrowed my eyes, my tears stopping in their tracks as my heart filled with the love he poured into me with just the lift of his lips. “Okay.”

  “Okay?” He asked, his voice pitched high with excitement. “Okay? Penelope Grace, you’ve just made me the happiest man.”

  “What are we going to tell out parents?”

  “We’re adults, they’ll have no choice but to support us.”

  “Shawn,” I said, a little worried about what their reactions would be.

  “Trust me, Penny,” he bent his forehead and leaned it against mine, gripping my hands in his as his fingers mindlessly rubbed over the empty ring finger on my left hand. “I love you. You’re my destiny, my forever.”

  “I love you too, Shawn.”

  I woke up abruptly, hastily escaping dreamland. My heart pounded against my chest and sweat covered my body. I sat up, blinking against the darkness.

  “You’re okay, Everly, everything is okay,” I said softly to myself. I rubbed at the skin directly above my heart and tried to slow its haste beating.

  I sat in the darkness and eventually the sound of my breathing slowly let up and my beating heart returned to a more natural pace. The dreams were few and far at this point, but they were also more powerful. I always felt like I had participated in a triathlon after, and my heart and mind were the ones getting the workout from it. They exhausted me and as much as I dreaded them, there was still a small part of me—the one that longed to be Penelope—that looked forward to them.

  “Shawn,” I said out loud to myself. My tongue grew heavy in my mouth as I spoke the name.

  My eyes watered and my body filled with a sense of loss and pain. I laid back down and gripped the blankets against my mouth, sobbing into the fabric as my heart broke all over again. I was reminded of the day I first had the dream, the dream of myself—no, of Penelope in a hospital room all alone.

  Is that where she died?

  Is that where her life ended?

  Is that where she was stripped from her world and thrown into this one without a choice in the matter?

  Is that where she disappeared and Everly took her place?

  I would never know. All I had were glimpses, fuzzy memories that were scattered all over the place with no real time frame and that rarely made any sense. Connecting the dots, trying to remember each dream, had grown more difficult with each one I had.

  When my body calmed, I reached for the journal below my bedside table and wrote out what I remembered from the dream slash memory. I started doing it when I turned sixteen. The more time I spent as Everly, the more strength those memories as Penelope seemed to be. They were strong but useless. I could barely make out features, and I rarely discovered names aside from my own. Except now. Now I knew who Penelope left her heart with when she left that life—Shawn. Whoever Shawn was, he had an effect on Penelope like no one else. Dreams that included him were the hardest to recover from. It was like my whole being hollowed out and my heart lost its beat. He was hers, and she was his, but neither had the other.

  I let out a sob, my soul cracking at the constant realization that came whenever I thought too deeply about the situation I was in; the realization that whoever this Shawn person was would never have his Penelope back, that the person he gave his forever to had left him before forever truly had a fighting start.

  I scribbled out the last of the dream I could remember and curled in on myself, praying to whoever would bother to listen that sleep wouldn’t take me again. I wasn’t strong enough to handle another memory
; I wasn’t sure I would survive it. They were crippling, soul-breaking dreams that I wanted no part of. There used to be a time when I would have thrived off of those dreams, but that time had passed. Now, I wanted to forget more than I wanted to remember, and that confession alone made me regretful. This life imprinted itself further into my soul the longer I lived it, and I no longer fought that fact.

  There was a back-and-forth, a push-and-pull understanding that this life and I had. I still didn’t really know how I felt about it, but I was trying, and that was really all I was able to do.

  “Hi honey, are you not feeling well this morning?” Claire asked when I walked into the kitchen and gingerly sat at the table.

  “I just didn’t sleep very well,” I said cautiously, giving her a quick smile.

  She set a mug with coffee in front of me and sat in the opposite chair, slowly sipping from her own mug. “Any reason in particular?”

  “Just dreams keeping me up, nothing major,” I said, confessing another half-truth. With Claire, that’s all I had ever really been able to share.

  “Aren’t dreams supposed to do the opposite?” She asked lightly.

  “Yeah, but sometimes I wake up and don’t want to go back to sleep because of how intense they are.” That was the closest to a full confession I had ever given her, I even shocked myself.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No, not really, I’m just grateful it’s the weekend because I’ve needed some alone time for a while.”

  “Any particular reason?” She asked concerned.

  I shook my head and wrapped my hands around the warm coffee cup, inhaling its comforting scent. “I’m not really a big people person anyway, but Lio has been dragging me to more public events than I would like lately.”

  “Is there something going on with you two?” She asked with a hint of a smile.

  “Isn’t there always?”

  “No, I mean, something more than usual.”

  “We’ve been messing around but, I mean, he’s Lio.”

  “Elliot has never been just Lio to you,” she said with a full on smile now. “Emily and I knew from the moment you two were born that you would always be in each other’s lives. We just never knew the connection you would eventually have. I mean, we understood it but the more you grew up together, the more your fates sealed.”