Trapped in Forever

66 ~ So, Annie, Are You Okay?

A/N: Sorry I took so long posting this. I started writing a new novel and focused on that, but it fell apart and on page 3, I was already pushing myself to write it. Not a good sign for me. So I was pretty bummed that I didn't have a new novel idea and kind of forgot about posting. And then I did get a new novel idea, and I'm still mulling it over, but I remembered to post! :)

I had barricaded myself in my Smart Car, rolled the windows down just an inch or two to let the evening air drift through the ajar crack and tickle the back of my neck, rustling the dark strands of hair against my skin, and smelled the crispness of the air, as if it had decided something that night as I sat there in the driver’s seat, gliding my thumb over the smooth buckle of my seatbelt and holding my phone in my hand, my thumb lingering over the touch-screen button to finally listen to her, to let her voice fill my eardrums, to comprehend her words, to hear the last piece of her that I would ever hold now that she was gone, and once the last sentences of her message echoed in my ears, she would truly be gone. There would be nothing of her left to discover, to hold onto, dissipating those shards of hope that maybe her last words would suddenly clear the fog, answer lingering questions, reassure me. I felt as if adorning her in that black sleeveless dress, clasping her heels on for her, and laying in her in a padded coffin and burying it into the ground, leaving her in a place no eighteen year old should be left, were just the embellishments of her death but listening to the last of her, discerning the last fragments that I still held and gave them resolution, that it would really be the end for us now, that she was gone.

And she wasn’t coming back, even if I actually won the Braverly award for her, even if I had posed in front of every camera I came across, even if I hadn’t broken up with Orion, even if I became pretty. Even if I had done all of these things, and perhaps even more, until only my bones accounted for my weight and golden trophies were aligned on my shelves instead of books, and allowed Orion’s name to crumble in my mind to dust, forever only associating it with the constellation of stars instead of a blond haired boy with the fragrance of icing sugar lingering on his clothes, she would still be asleep in that coffin, her hair neatly and delicately sprawled on her white pillow and her hands clasped together over her midsection, as if her death had been something peaceful, as if she were over eighty years old and just passed away in her sleep, and people would only comment that at least she lived a full life, that at least it was in her sleep, that at least she got to say goodbye. She would never leave that coffin, buried deep into the ground, amidst the others who died years before but lived longer, fuller lives than her anyway, and her eyes would never open to watch the brush of my lips against Orion’s and her lips wouldn’t grin if she saw that I had won the Braverly for her and her head wouldn’t nod in approval if I were one day beautiful.

Everything that she ever will be was voiced in that message, and beyond that her life would be still and quiet, like the limbs of a tree on a windless day, and the world would finally be rid of Roxanne Jones. And I felt guilt prickle my fingertips as I pressed the button to listen to her message, because I had hoped that whatever she might say would make me miss her less, that once I heard the last of her words everything I had ever felt about her death would disintegrate and all that would be left was a sense of concord. I would nod my head, understand a little better, and then I would delete the message and let that chapter of my life, the chapter of Roxanne, end.

. . .

I had listened to her voice emitting from my cell phone as she told me that she was glad that I wasn’t answering, probably assuming that I was sound asleep in my bed with wistful and hazy dreams deafening the trill of my phone on the nightstand and not that I had glanced at the bluish glow it radiated as it sat upon a stack of my textbooks, and turned my face away from it, burying into my pillow, irritation slowly resonating as the deepness of sleep overtook me again before it had stopped ringing, and her saying that she was sorry. Her voice warning me that tomorrow was going to suck, but that she tired, really tired, her voice rattling on examples of exhaustion and her quivering sighs filtered into my eardrums like the sea of the ocean but I remained unfazed as I sat in my Smart Car, running my index finger across the stitches of my leathery steering wheel, and I felt the dryness of my cheeks as the breeze grazed against my skin, chilling it dully without the wet slickness of tears to freeze it.