Out of Ink | A Short Story

Revelation

It's been five days since that midnight conversation with my mother, and since then, everything has been a technicolor blur of school and family. It's the same old excruciating cycle since day one, and, as I walk the halls of high school, listening to meaningless gossip and pathetic whining, as I eat dinner with my mother in silence, I realize numbly:

None of this matters. What shoes you should wear tomorrow, why hasn't he texted you back, look at Erica with so many followers they're probably fake — it doesn't matter at all. Because the world is so much bigger and it doesn't give a damn about how expensive your perfume is or if you have the latest iPhone, it'll do terrible things to you despite all of it. No matter how much you try, how much you burn and rage.

But what I could do was decide how to handle the awful shit thrown at me and maybe, just maybe, when the world comes for me again, it'll go running back.

So, the next day, I walked into school with my shoulders square, my gait strong. I stayed that way for the rest of the day. It was harder than I thought it would be, especially when I saw and passed all the things that reminded me of Ethan. But I did it.

I could do it for a few more months.

Afterwards, I talked with Matt. I was clear, concise, and honest with him, as he was to me. When I confessed how upside down everything now was, how different ... laying myself bare like that seemed to have an affect on him. Grief, heavy and dark, flashed in his brown eyes, but I felt it in my gut. It was shocking to see such sadness from a guy who used to laugh all the time.

Then I informed him about Lilly. Silver lined his eyes as the conversation went on, but I didn't falter.

I left the school feeling less lonely than I did before.

There is an unspoken, fragile connection between the three of us now. We all bear the burden of losing a friend, a brother, a love, but we do it together, holding each other up.

Death can do more than kill the living, I guess.

"Hey, Nadia!" Matt calls from the parking lot. Breanna Colton and her boyfriend, Daniel, accompany Matt.

"Yeah?"

"We're heading to another one of Marco's parties. Wanna join us?"

I hesitate. I haven't been to a party in a year, and crazy, irrational thoughts of all the things that could happen flit through my mind. Shadows of the past, of blood and knives and water tumble across my eyes —

"Come one, Nads!" Breanna hollors. "It'll be fun! Live a little! Besides, you wouldn't really leave me alone with these two goofballs, would you?"

Even though we're meters away, I can tell from the flicker on Matt's face that he knows — he understands. I'm not alone.

So I take my fears and my doubts, and string them up. I force a gag into the taunting whispers that tell me I'm broken. Shove it, I tell them silently, then expel them deep into a forgotten crevice of my mind. I take a deep breath. "Of course not," I yell back with a small smile, and break into a jog.

Breanna squeals and throws her arm around me. "Let's go get drunk and dance, bitches!"

Daniel mutters something exasperatedly, but we wisely get in the car. The couple starts bickering about some TV show two minutes in. "Look babe, I think Damon's incredibly hot," Breanna sniffs, "and if your jealous ass can't handle that, then that's your problem."

Daniel replies back dryly. Breanna sputters, then leans back in surrender. "Guys these days," she mutters to me, but I can hear the affection in her voice. I promptly stare out the window to cover my grin, though I feel a flicker of envy at their close relationship.

I catch Matt's eyes in the rearview mirror, and I know he feels the same — but with Lilly, instead. The two of them always gravitated towards each other, but never acted on it for some reason, perhaps in fear of Ethan's disapproval. I never told them that even though Ethan was oblivious about their attraction, he would have supported it undoubtedly. Matt was his closest friend. There was no one he trusted more.

I wonder if Lilly still feels the same way about Matt, now. If something like that can survive after everything that's happened. I hope so.

Breanna leans forward. "Matt, I swear to God, if you don't hurry up with your grandpa driving, I might just kick you out of your seat and take the wheel myself."

"Well maybe I might be more inclined to drive like a lunatic if you could turn off this death metal you like so much," Matt retorts, referring to the clash of screams and electric guitars currently filling the space. "My ears are practically bleeding."

"Oh, excuse me if I choose not to listen to boring old classical music before we go to a freaking party."

"I never said I wanted to listen to classical music! I just don't want to hear this noise!"

"Oh, for the millionth time, Matt, this isn't noise. It's art."

Daniel and I shake our heads at each other, groan, and cover our ears. As the muffled sounds of Breanna and Matt arguing — along with the death metal rock — surround me, I can swear I feel like a normal teenager.

I roll down the window, ignoring the indignant cries of Breanna. I lift my face to the sky, laughing with glee as the wind roars and whips my hair around. Too long, I think. Too long have I needed saving. It's my turn to save. My turn to be strong. 

It's my time to live.