Under the Gray Willow Tree

Prologue

"Willow, we're going out for lunch now. Do you want to join us?" Mum calls out from downstairs, concern laced in her voice.

"No, thank you. I'll just stay home," I yell back, doing all I can to keep my voice from breaking.

A tear escapes my eye and falls onto my pillow, creating a small, wet stain right in the centre of the white pillowcase. It hurts too much to leave. No, I'm staying right here until I feel better, whenever that is.

Even then, is this enough? My room which had once been a safe haven now only served as a reminder of the betrayal. My room which had once been an escape, is now a cage. But I didn't have anywhere else to go.

What would that achieve? a small voice in my head nags. Just staying at home won't make anything feel better. It won't take away the pain. You have to move on, Willow. That's the only thing you can do.

But I can't. I can't move on. I just can't. Not right now. It's too soon. Too soon. The wound is too fresh. Everything's too much.

"Are you sure, honey? It's good to go out and get your mind off things," Mum replies, bringing me out of my thoughts.

The worry in her voice pains me even more. She knows what happened. She knows. She and my sister the only one who understands. I have no one else. And I know that she only wants the best for me.

I'm sorry, Mum. But I don't think I can do it this time.

"Yes, I'm sure. Just— Just go. I want to be alone," I say, trying to sound firm and confident, but it comes out strained, broken.

I need to be alone.

I bury my face in my pillow. One muffled sob after another escapes my throat, now raw from crying. I hear the familiar sound of the car engine starting up. My hair is damp from the shower and my tears, my eyes red and swollen from all the crying, my breaths jagged and shallow.

I'm a wreck.

I can't believe her. I thought she was my friend, my best friend, and I would've trusted her with my life. But she betrayed me. She told everyone what no one but my family and her were supposed to know.

No one was supposed to know. I didn't want anyone too, not after everything that happened because of it.

And just as I was starting to open my heart, to trust people again.

No one is supposed to know that my sister nearly killed herself.

It happened several years ago. I was eleven and she was thirteen. She was bullied terribly in school, both physically and verbally, but no one in our family knew about it. No one but me. Except that I was too young to understand the urgency of her situation.

She had always come home with a smile on her face so everyone thought she was doing well in school. But she had us all fooled. She kept it so well hidden. She acted as though everything was perfectly fine.

She would tell me about what happened at school every night, crying as she did. I would go over to her and hug her and tell her to stop crying, that everything was going to be alright. She would smile through her tears and hugged me back and promised she would before telling me to go to bed. And I would listen to her and I'd go to bed but I could still hear her sobs, so quiet that I thought I'd imagined it.

But I didn't know the severity of it.

She was cutting herself, hoping that, by physically harming herself, she would stop hurting on the inside. She wanted to get away from life.

It was so bad, that she thought the only way to escape was to leave.

One Saturday afternoon, she did it. But Mum find her just in time, on the bathroom floor, covered in crimson, her hand gripping a bloodied knife like it was her lifeline. Mum stopped her just before she blacked out and brought her to a hospital.