Our indelible pasts|✔

forty nine - bryson

THAT BOMB DROP put an abrupt end to the dinner. We all sat in an uncomfortable silence, with the tension so undeniably evident, you could cut it with a knife. Kiana had stormed off, her dad got a phone call and left and her mom was just sitting there crying silently. I have never been more confused and shocked in my life.

Nia was the first to leave out of the rest of us, looking like she was about to drown herself in a puddle of her own tears and Noah quickly followed after her. That left the rest of us misplaced sheep wondering what to do next. Fortunately for us, Ms Flores came in and told us we could take some plates of food up to our rooms if we wanted to and of course, that seemed like the only sensible thing for us to do, and so we did.

Since I got back to the room I'm sharing with Mason, it didn't take too long for Mason to black out. That left me to be a prisoner in my own mind, with no viable distraction.

Realising and witnessing with my own eyes how what I thought to be a picture perfect family actually be so broken in reality takes me back to my own broken family. In the years that I haven't seen or heard from Hazel, there's always been this aggravating, condemning voice in my head that keeps trying to convince me that she's dead. It's a voice that seems to keep getting louder as time passes by and tonight, it's been loud as hell. All this talk about...death, and today being the death anniversary of someone important to my friends, is allowing me to submerge further into the depths of my mind, where that voice lays.

I mutter to myself, "I need a distraction," which really means, I need to get high.

Unfortunately for me, I didn't take the risk of carrying weed with me. Not with the crippling fear that Sandra knows and she's going to dump me for not quitting when I told her I would. All I brought was a pack of cigarettes that's a couple of months old. Cigarettes are not really my thing, but when I don't have weed and I'm on edge, they're good enough.

With shaky hands, I unzip my duffle bag and impatiently fish around for the pack and lighter I carried. When I find them, I pull on a hoodie, pocket them, and quietly make my way out of the room, and out of the house.

I walk through the perfectly trimmed grass, looking for a hidden spot. To my luck, there's a high shrub not too far from me that I can hide behind for a bit.

I don't waste a second and immediately light a cigarette and place it between my lips. As I breathe out a puff of smoke, I hear my sister's voice.

"Promise me we're going to stay together forever." The voice is like an echo, swimming through my head.

"I promise." My fourteen year old voice rings back.

"You failed her. You fucked up." This time it's the nagging voice in the back of my head. "And now she's dead." The word 'dead' echoes through my head way too many times and my hands fly to my head, trying to shut it out.

Desperate to reach any level of calmness, I start to take long, deep drags from the cigarette. The voice in my head however keeps repeating the same thing, claiming Hazel is dead, screaming Hazel is dead, competing with the nicotine that's coursing its way through my body.

"Hello?" I hear a voice call out through the noise in my head. Except, it's not one of the voices in my head. "Earth to Bryson."

I turn my head to look for the source and feel my heart skip a beat when I see Kiana standing not too far from me.

"So you snuck weed to my sister's death anniversary, huh?" Kiana places her hands in the pocket of her hoodie.

I look awkwardly between the cigarette and Kiana. "Actually it's um...a cigarette. But I'd still say its shitty of me."

"No actually, I would have done that myself if I knew how badly I'd need it." A little pain-filled laugh escapes her mouth as she makes her way to me.

"You smoke cigarettes?"

She shakes her head. "I coughed like a maniac the first time I tried and never went for it again. But if you brought weed, I wouldn't hold it against you. Matter of fact, I'd join you."

Not knowing what to say, I just take another drag.

She looks around for a moment before starting to walk further away from the house.

"Come on, I know a better place you can hide." She says and I follow her.

"I'm not hiding." I lie.

"Sure."

Shortly after, she sits herself on a bench swing that's attached to a tree.

"I used to come smoke here a lot after my sister died." She says, an emotionless look etched on her face. "It's much further from the house so it's hard to be caught here."

I stay silent, just listening as I sit beside her. After what happened at the dinner tonight, I don't even know if there's anything right to say to her. I feel like I'm walking on eggshells.

For a few moments, we sit in silence as the cool night breeze washes past us.

"I'm sorry." Kiana suddenly says.

I look at her, eyebrows arched in confusion.

"The dinner. I'm sorry about the dinner–the way I acted. I completely lost my shit with complete disregard for you guys. You didn't have to witness any of that." As Kiana rants, I hear a slight slur in her voice. She must have been drinking a lot. I've never seen her drunk, tipsy even, yet I've been around her when she's drinking. "I was just so...angry. It's been such a long time since I last saw my mom, and it just brought back way too much. I mean, that's no excuse for-"

"There's nothing to be sorry about." I interrupt her. "After the whole...when you got a panic attack the other time, I haven't been your mom's biggest fan so in my opinion, your anger seemed...justified."

I can see it on her face that she doesn't believe me. It's almost like she's trying so hard to be angry at herself and look at herself as the bad guy.

I decide to shift my focus to the glowing crescent moon in the distance, not wanting to push further on the topic. I might have tested the waters a bit much when I mentioned the panic attack, so it's probably best for us both if I stayed quiet.

"You must think I'm crazy." Laughs Kiana and a smile grows on my face.

"Yeah...maybe a little bit." I smile.

"Hey." Kiana playfully punches me.

"You dated Noah, I think that secures your place in the high parts of the crazy spectrum." I tease.

"You will never let that go, will you?" Kiana shakes her head at me.

"No. Never. How did that even happen?"

Kiana takes a long sigh. "I don't know. We were just always around each other more than we were with anyone else...and feelings were eventually caught. So yeah, we had a thing going on for a couple of months, but then we lost Kayla and I guess we both just weren't in a strong enough position to handle a relationship."

"I think it's really cool that you guys are still so close after all that."

"I mean, we've always been better off as friends so it still somehow worked out for us." She explains. "Wait, stay here. I left my drink in my car."