The Truths Behind the Life of Maeve Sun Lively

102

THE HOPEFUL DAYS OF receiving my progress reports from my "private agent" slowly turned to times and hours of dread for Klarise.

Until one day, after all convincing and reassurance from Cameron and I, she no longer believed any of us. She no longer believed that Isabella was coming back.

And then the world turned. A strand already about to be torn, finally breaks. One I hadn't seen coming from all the confidence I had that I was doing everything correct.

Klarise changes, everything falling apart with her.

She breaks first, then, followed by Cameron who goes back to the way he was before this. It started with one drink, and then one snort of drugs, and then he had returned to the state he was when Mason first left. He didn't host the parties, not wanting to draw too much additional attention to our "breaking" relationship rumors which were already spreading about. He attended ones instead, but either way, it wasn't better than before.

And then I...

I was strong at first. I kept on pursuing after Klarise, telling her that Isabella was going to come back and that she needed to fix herself up for her daughter. She listened the first few times, but after, my words were merely flies buzzing by her ears.

Klarise was beginning to have health issues. Well, we didn't know if they were serious health issues because we didn't want to risk press leaks we didn't want by hiring a new doctor and Dr. Fernandez had disappeared right after the commotion we made about my miscarriage. I wasn't surprised that she didn't want anything to do with us anymore, wiser people like her stayed away from causes people like us made.

But because we couldn't trust any doctors at this late timing and where everyone was too eager to learn anything about us they didn't know, no one professional attended to Klarise.

She was paler and way too thin for someone healthy. She complained about her terrible shape, the marks on her stomach from giving birth to Isabella, but those weren't what worried me. She started to not want to go anywhere, staying in her bed all day. I fed her when she wouldn't come out and eat, and the forcing of spoonfuls of food was like pushing at something you know can't budge to move but you keep pushing while hoping it does. Her body temperatures were often lower than average, and besides all of that, the weakening of her muscles and decreasing appetite, she just slept all day.

I started to get back to taking films after much convincing from Juno, and I would always come back as early as I could to find Klarise cuddled up either in her bed or in the very edge of the room with her hands wrapped around her legs. I don't know how to explain the sight of her when she does it but...it's not pleasant. Have you ever seen something so hopeless and depressing you start to feel it dawn on you too? That's a little of what it felt to see Klarise, with the lights off and curtains drawn closed, hold herself while she stared lifelessly at one spot, not even realizing that I was there. It'd take minutes just to get her to notice me, and then when she does, she looked at me weakly and often said:

"Oh. Hi. Sorry. I lost a little track of time. What day is it?"

I started to break myself after that.

Two years passed, and Klarise hadn't healed. Things fell apart the same way for two years straight. Then, one day Bridget told me that Isabella had a family.

She would be two by then, two years in the system, waiting for a family.

I spent an entire week wondering what to do, planning out what I wanted to say to Bridget to tell her to the family that had adopted Isabella. I spent my nights twitching and peeling at the skin on my fingers, biting at my nails, to decide what to put on the list that I had written out for Isabella. But towards the end, when Bridget finally asked me what I wanted to give her, I did nothing. I just did nothing.

The guilt was overbearing me, and it came to my realization that for my guilt to not hurt so much as I saw Klarise's broken form, I'd rather not hear from the family that has adopted Isabella at all. I needed to cut myself off from all relationship related to this girl.

"Just make sure they're good to her, that's all I want. Make sure they take good care of her." I told Bridget, and I hung up before getting a reaction from her that would make me take it back.

—————

Despite all the mess; Cameron partying to avoid the guilt that embodied him, Klarise mourning for Isabella even though I told her several times, and most often than not, some truths about Isabella that I learned about Bridget; we still had our fair share of good times left in those days. We were broken, we hated each other's presences sometimes, but we were at least still alive. Still together.

Once in a while, I remember, when Cameron would be sober and Klarise would be eating a little more and smiling, we'd play small board games and card games. We'd laugh. We'd tease and joke. We'd nag other about something on our minds, not worrying about consequences. We'd put everything aside, forget why we were broken and sad all the time, and just come together to remember what it might be like if we weren't the way we were.

During those times, I don't find a ghostly Klarise that I don't know in my arms. I find the her that I fell in love with, her eyes though glassy and tired, still had small lights of ambition in them that I recognized from when we met when we were teens. She was a person, not just a body filled with blood and no soul.

Cameron, in those rare times with us, would pull jokes and stunts that I can almost see an imagined Mason next to him, slapping him gently on the back and telling him something only the two of them shared. I could forget about my hatred for him, and Cameron himself would forget about the need to find my forgiveness every single second he saw me. We'd just smile at each other, enjoying the moment and forgetting everything else.

We weren't perfect, but when we were together and there was a special time, we'd never leave the other. We cared for each other, whether any of us said it out loud or not.

I should've been more appreciative about what I had left. That those few times when we could be shields for each other, they were so precious when compared to not getting any at all. I should've cherished those times better.

Because after three years since giving Isabella up, I was going to lose even that little bit of what I had.