I Dream of Yellow Kites: What if it was all just a nightmare?

by Unknown

  "Dahlia? Are you in there?" Emma was waving her hand in front of my face.

  "Oh, yeah. Sorry. What do you think that means?"

  "You need to find out more about Tom. He might need to go on your suspect list."

  All of a sudden, I remembered a conversation I had overheard two of the teachers having one day when I had fallen asleep in class.

  Two of my teachers had been talking in my history classroom before lunch, without noticing that a student was asleep in one of the desks in the back of the room. Or maybe they did and just assumed I couldn't hear them. I was a very light sleeper though, and could vaguely hear every word.

  "Schizoaffective disorder can be very serious. His parents have warned me that he has hallucinations and hears voices, and it sometimes becomes very dangerous." This was the school counselor talking.

  "That Halsey boy? Shame. He is so smart, too. When did his parents find out?" This was coming from one of Tom's teachers.

  "Over the summer. It can kick in without warning in adolescents. There's good medication for the disorder, though, and if he does his part, he should be able to manage it. It will never go away, but he can live a good life."

  "That's horrible. Rest assured, Sylvia, I'll do all I can to help him."

  "Thank you."

  I had forgot about the conversation quickly, maybe because I didn't really know what any of it meant, maybe because I had been half asleep and just assumed I had misunderstood the conversation altogether. I was too busy with the newness and chaos of high school to dwell on it.

  Looking back, it all makes sense now. Tom didn't avoid just me, he avoided everyone. He hadn't changed, he'd been taken over by an illness. And it wasn't going to go away. That's why he wanted to give up on his medication, on life. With severe mood instability and a lost grip on reality, Tom probably didn't know what was real and what wasn't anymore.

  Emma was still staring at me.

  "Em, the day I died, Tom was in the grocery store."

  "And?"

  "My brother, Jack, told me about Schizoaffective Disorder once. It can be pretty severe. Maybe Tom had a manic episode, where he didn't know what reality was? Who knows what Daisy told him in there... she could've triggered something, he could've gone mad, and he could've shoved me over that cliff."

  ***

  A few horrible weeks of anxiety and fear have gone by. Is it really possible that Tom could've killed me that night? He never seemed crazy. So his medication must've been working well enough. And anyways, his parents never would've sent him to the store if he was having a psychotic episode.

  No, Tom couldn't have killed me. Our friendship had faded away until there was no hope of anything more, but he had no reason to kill me. Even if Daisy had acted like a fool.

  You're probably wondering how Daisy has been lately. How everyone in my old life has been. There isn't much to tell, because I'm not there with them anymore.

  Daisy is fourteen now, and she seems to be doing okay, although she's quiet and on edge, and doesn't have many friends other than a few friendly acquaintances at her school.

  My parents are wrapped up in their work as usual. Their lives seem normal, and they seem to have almost moved on. Almost, but not quite. They never speak of me anymore, but they would if they had truly moved on- every once in a while, viewing me as a beautiful memory to be cherished, and putting flowers on my grave on Sunday afternoons.

  For a parent in the face of tragedy, forgiveness and letting go doesn't happen in the space of two and a half years.

  Jack. My wonderful older brother, whom I miss more than anyone else. He's graduating medical school in three years, and everyone's pretty excited that he hit the halfway mark. Especially Jack and his girlfriend, Allison. Only she isn't just his girlfriend anymore.

  One night, I heard Jack and Daisy arguing outside my bedroom door.

  "I don't know, kid. If I go in there, she'll really seem gone."

  "That's not the way it works at all! She's still alive in there, Jack. Everything in that room is a piece of her."

  "Maybe for you, but not for me."

  "Come on! You have to tell her the news! She'd be so excited," Daisy pleaded.

  "I guess so." His voice sounded sad. "You really are delusional, you know? She's not in that room, and she can't hear us talking to her."

  Daisy wasn't listening to him. Deep down, I think she knew. She was right, and Jack was wrong. I was in that room. Literally. And I could hear every word.

  She opened the door slowly, looking over her shoulder to watch Jack's reaction. His eyes were wide, and he looked all around him in a big, sweeping gaze. Then his face crumpled and he choked on something. Sorrow isn't tangible until the tears come.

  Daisy led him to the old armchair, which had once been his own, and started rubbing his back in slow circles.

  "How do I talk to her? What do I say? I don't know what to do." He finally said when he was calm.

  "Just as if she was right here next to us."

  "Um, okay. Uh, hi Dahlia. How's life? How's... everything?" He stopped suddenly. "This is ridiculous."

  "You're right," Daisy agreed. "It is ridiculous, because no one talks to their sister like that. Especially not you. Try again, and lose the pleasantries."

  Jack took a deep breath, and after what seemed like forever he began talking again. "Hey weirdo. Don't get mad or freaked out, but I have some big news for you. You know Allison, right? Well, I asked her a pretty big question the other day and she said yes. So, Dahlia, you're going to have another sister. The wedding is in February. That's all, really. Oh, and you should make your bed. It looks terrible."

  Jack stopped suddenly, the smile that had been growing on his face disappeared. He had put a lot of effort into that conversation, and it had almost seemed real for a second.

  "Good job. I told you it wasn't so hard." Daisy smiled at him.

  "Yeah I guess. It felt hard to me." Jack mumbled.

  "It gets easier. I talk to her every night."

  How was my brother getting married? Time was passing rapidly, and I wasn't even there to spend it with them. I could go to the wedding, sure, but I couldn't hug Jack and Allison and wish them congratulations. I couldn't get sick off of wedding cake, and dance with Daisy until I couldn't see straight. I was merely a spectator looking in on my own family, and they had no idea I was there at all.

  "I'm going to go now," Daisy said, putting her hand on Jack's shoulder.

  "Me too. Hey Daisy?"

  "Yeah?"

  "Next time you come in here, take me with you."

  "I will."

  A tear ran down my cheek.

  Jack had finally come to visit me.

  Some people hold in everything. Every sorrow, fear, and bit of remorse.

  There's a price to pay when you don't let the bad out: you also don't let the good out. Like Jack, and my parents.

  Daisy wasn't like them. She made herself vulnerable to the pain and bad memories in that room. In exchange, she found the good memories, and she found me.

  Jack opened up too, eventually, and stopped holding in all that had happened in the past. He came to my room as often as he could, just to talk to me. Hopefully my parents would someday as well. I had a mixture of emotions. It was hard for me to see face to face what my siblings were going through, that I hadn't seen before. At the same time, I felt connected. I felt just a little bit alive again.

  My mind also became clearer, and I found hope of remembering again. Remembering how I had left life in the first place. Remembering how to get to the next one.

  Every night that Jack was home, Daisy would take him to my room and they would sit there, sometimes talking, sometimes not. Some people would say they were totally messed up, and they probably did look pretty messed up- unless you knew what they were feeling. Grief does strange things to people.

  The last night that Jack came to my room, he came alone.

  "I'm getting married in exactly one week, Dahlia," he said abruptly. "
It feels just as scary as movies always say- but I'm happy about it too."

  He took a deep breath.

  "I wish you could be there... we always did everything together, and it feels so wrong to do something as crazy as a wedding without you there." Jack shook his head wearily. "What am I talking about? Everything's wrong."

  He stared into space a few moments, before quietly getting up and leaving the room.

  I had thought he was over my death by now, and was able to start a new chapter of his life, but his grief was too deep for that. I realized then how stupid I had been. For me, it was easier to move on- but for my family? For them, there was something missing they could never get back. Someone. Going to my room and talking to me as if I were still alive wasn't going to change much, if anything, and I should've realized that.

  Everything happens for a reason, Dahlia.

  Did Jack still believe that? Did I still believe that?

  ***

  The wedding was beautiful.

  Allison was radiant in a peach-colored dress, with a crown made out of white roses. Jack had never looked happier.

  Seeing his face as she walked down the aisle was surreal, and the rest of the wedding went perfectly.

  But the strangest part happened at the end of the wedding.

  As Jack walked down the aisle with Allison, he looked straight in my direction for a split second. He smiled a little, as he had smiled at Daisy when he walked by her pew. Smiled like he had done to both of us whenever he was really happy, because he knew we would smile back ten times as big.

  For a second, I wondered if I was really dead at all.

  And I smiled ten times as big, even though he couldn't see it.

  Emma and I watched the wedding reception, which was held in a nearby park, from a tall oak tree. We could see from miles around, but our focus was on what was right below us.

  "She's so pretty," Emma commented on Allison.

  "I know. I wonder what she's like."

  "Your brother seems to love her like crazy."

  "Is that an answer to my question?" I laughed.

  "Not really. But if people weren't crazy in love on their wedding day, I'd say the whole thing would end up disastrously."

  "Theirs won't."

  "From what you've told me about Jack, he'll make it last."

  She was right. Jack was such a good person, and he'd finally found someone perfect for him.

  Just like it had when I was alive, the thought, will I ever be happy like that? popped into my head.

  "Stop it!" I yelled at myself, and wondered if anyone could hear me. Of course they couldn't, so I kept thinking out loud. "You have to get over it. You have to get over life. People. Your family. You have to move on, because they're going to move on too."

  I knew that no matter how much my family still missed me, they would eventually get mostly over me.

  Eventually. They had lives to live. I had nothing but a shadow and a dream.

  Tom had been at my brother's wedding. I didn't realize it at first.

  When I was watching everyone dancing at the reception with Emma, I had seen his familiar, yet unfamiliar, face as he danced with everyone else.

  I remembered it afterwards. Tom had shook my brother's hand, and hugged him. They both smiled sadly at each other as Jack said something, and I knew they were talking about me.

  I had been an idiot. I mean, people fade off in high school all the time. You're growing up. He's a boy, you're a girl. And suddenly, it doesn't make sense anymore. That's normal. But how could I have judged Tom, accused him of wanting nothing to do with me? Of being snobby? You don't remember those things until afterwards. Tom never would've came to my brother's wedding if he wanted nothing to do with me. He had been through so much. I had never noticed.

  At the same time, I couldn't help but feel offended. I was one of his best friends. He could have just told me.

  There was more to the story. I was sure of it.

  And I was going to find out.

  ***

  "Any news? I haven't seen you in a while."

  "You're acting like we're high school buddies that just got back to school after an eventful summer break." Emma smiled one of her rare smiles.

  "You know what's nice about being dead? No homework. No school. No responsibilities. Why are we so unhappy like this?"

  "Because, Dahlia. We're not dead."

  {Ten}

  Emma's words haunted me. I was obsessed with my future, obsessed with my past, and obsessed with my reality.

  My parents had despaired of finding my killer, and so had the police. Daisy certainly hadn't encouraged their efforts or given any clues.

  "What did the police do in your case?" I had asked Emma.

  "Questions. Lots of them. They questioned Morgan and Katy the most I think, mainly because Ted and Isabella had no idea what was going on and because Benji had just lost it. Benji took all the blame eventually, but there was no doubt that his guilt was innocent guilt. If that makes any sense."

  "I know what you mean."

  "Benji was fine for a while, just very upset. He didn't go crazy for a about a year. It happened when he went camping with his family, and I guess it reminded him of the camping trip we all went on. Because that night he was screaming, and it wasn't from a nightmare. He had seen me coming for him, heard whispers. She knows I killed her and she's coming for me, he kept saying over and over. They had to sedate him. looked like he was possessed by Satan in a movie or something."

  "I wonder if whoever killed me feels that way."

  "Maybe."

  "Dahlia- I have some news."

  Chris had walked up behind us, unheard and unseen.

  We stopped talking and waited for him to continue.

  "Two pieces of news, actually.

  First of all, the woman who killed me with her car- she died of a heart attack last night."

  We stared at him in shock. Whether you're alive or not, death is still sad for all.

  At the same time, this meant Chris was closer to leaving this wretched middle ground. The news was bittersweet.

  "The second piece of news is this: I think I know who your killer is."

  Was it true? Had he really found my killer? Although I wasn't alive, I could've sworn my heart was beating rapidly.

  "Chris." Emma said softly, laying her hand on his shoulder.

  "That's amazing news. For you, and for Dahlia. Please, go on."

  "Do you know a Mr. Fuller? High school science teacher at Portland High?"

  "Hm. Yes actually. He taught me in sophomore year. But what does that have to do with anything?" I looked at him quizzically.

  "He was arrested last night. He has an extensive crime record, with a history of mugging and robbing naive teenagers."

  "That's... very specific."

  "He was your teacher. Maybe it's a long shot, but he easily could've found out where you lived, and followed you, and from there done the deed that ended up as a much bigger mess than he had probably planned."

  "I don't know. That amount of evidence says something, but not enough. Not enough to suspect him anymore than anyone else."

  "Thanks for your help, Chris." Emma nodded at him as he got up to go.

  "Yeah. It's not much but it's the best I could do." He frowned.

  "Thank you."

  He nodded, and then he was gone.

  "Don't look so downcast, Dahlia. There's always hope."

  "It's hard not to feel let down when I have no idea what to think from one minute to the next. First I'll feel hopeful, and in the blink of an eye I feel like giving up and resigning myself to whatever limbo I'm stuck in now."

  "Don't ever do that." Emma said sternly. "I've been here way longer than you, and have I given up hope?"

  No. She hadn't. As usual, Emma was right. There were others who knew who their killers were, and could do nothing about it. Or they had been stuck here, like me, for years and years. Only three years had passed since I was murdered. It could
always be worse.

  The only problem is, thinking rationally and logically doesn't always solve the problem at all.

  ***

  "I'm worried about Daisy."

  My parents were sitting in the living room, as my mother spoke worriedly to my father.

  "She's become so quiet. So... empty. Her grades are average, she has a few friends, but it's like she's a robot."

  "Maybe it's just a phase. She is fifteen, after all."

  "Somehow, I don't think that's it."

  "Well, there's nothing we can do but be there for her. If she has a problem, hopefully she'll tell us."