Starry Eyed

Chapter Fifty

Chapter Fifty

It's raining when the little ladybird car pulls up in the park. I look at it out the window, and my heart trembles in this empty hallway.

I have one last goodbye to make before I leave.

The door at the end of the corridor is pulled to, and I only have to give it a nudge for it to swing open. Inside, the room seems just as I left it. A text from my mother flicks through: 'waiting for you out in the car x'.

I step inside and shut the door behind me; dust spits out from under my feet, making me cough and splutter. The bed is covered in white. A spider crawls around the space between the drawers and the headboard, and I stay away from it as I drop onto the matress.

Clouds of dust billow up and spiral in the air. I cough and lean back onto the bed, flat on my back, staring up at the ceiling. Mysterious stains and cracks cover the paint job. Reaching up, I try tracing each line, imagining constellations and galaxies above my head.

"She was a marvel."

I say it to myself in the silence, picturing every cog in my mind clicking and spinning and jamming up. I've lost my sanity by now. My brain no longer knows how to cope.

"She was a miracle."

I won't be getting the girl back. I replay it in my mind, clenching my fists, watching her fall in slow motion time and time again. What step am I at on the scale? All I know is that I loved her, that I love her still, that she's drove me to the point of insanity. And nothing follows what they told me. A counsellor told me all the 'steps of grief' and let me know how I'd be feeling, as if she could tell. But that counsellor never met Star.

That counsellor didn't meet Star, who was art, and who was painted in the brightest ink that oozed and dripped trails across everything she touched. She was a masterpiece saturated in pinks and blues and oranges. She drew all over me, turned me into something just as vivid as her. And then the world rained down on her. All of her ink faded away, and all that was left were the dribbling stains on my skin, dried up so they'd never wash away.

The steps of grief were the last marks she left me. Supposedly, they went like this:

1. Denial. But God, I never denied her. I watched it all happen and as soon as I woke I understood. All this time I knew she was gone, because I was gone, too. So-called denial brought out the purples on my body, rising up like bruises all over my skin.

Slowly, I sit up on the bed, swinging my feet over the edge to stand. The room smells musty, and I try to push open the window, but the latch is jammed. With a sigh I turn back around and picture step two.

2. Confusion. There isn't anything to be confused about. I never touched step two. I never wondered how something like this could happen, because I knew Star. And this is why the counsellor could never help me. Star was destructive, she was wild, she was free. And I understood that. I'd be saturated in swirls of blues and greens if I were confused about it all, but I understood, I understand.

I pull the curtains shut again. The darkness swallows the room and yet it doesn't seem to touch me.

3. Sadness. Can you ever pass that step? Is it ever something you can leave behind? Sadness is constantly around. It envelopes me, pushes down and forces itself down my throt, suffocating me. It never goes away. Sadness brings out the blues in my soul and the colours in every tear.

Moving on auto-pilot, I walk to the bathroom, twisting the door knob and fumbling around for the light switch. More dust stirs up as I click it on.

4. Anger. Maybe this is where I sit, because it feels like a lot of the time I'm constantly angry. I'm angry because she left me in the very worst way. She was always so dramatic, so over-the-top, but she took it too far with me. The theatrics did nothing but scald me. She threatened me, she kissed me, she tortured me, she jumped. And as much as I miss her I can't ever forgive her for that. Every part of me is swollen up and burning red, boiling and bubbling and fizzling in scarlet.