Grave Lies

A glass of water

 

"You can tie the heart, make it silent, blindfold it,

but when it trembles, there's little to be done."

The room was messy and dusty as always. The desk would have been beautiful if not for all the chaos and sticky brandy stains left by the glasses. But it didn't matter. He kept his eyes down. Rigel knew the veins of that floor by heart. 'Look at him. He's a disaster,' the doctor said to the woman. His voice resonated with a hint of pity, and this time Rigel hated him with every fiber of his being. He hated him for his compassion because he didn't want it. He hated him because it made him feel even more wrong. He hated him because he didn't want to despise himself any more than he already did. But above all, he hated him because he knew he was right. The disaster wasn't in his dirty nails. It wasn't in the eyelids he sometimes wanted to tear off. It wasn't in the blood on his hands. The disaster was inside him, rooted so deeply that it was incurable. 'You may not accept it, Mrs. Stoker. But the child is showing the first obvious symptoms. His inability to relate to others is just one of the signs. And as for the rest...' Rigel stopped listening because that 'rest' was what hurt the most. Why was it like this? Why wasn't he like the others? These weren't questions for a child, but he couldn't help asking them. Maybe he could have asked his parents. But they weren't there. And Rigel knew the reason. The reason is that disasters are not liked by anyone. Disasters are inconvenient, useless, and burdensome. It's easier to get rid of broken toys than to keep them. Who would ever want someone like him?

 "Nica?" I blinked, snapping out of my daydream. "How did you translate it? The fifth..." I rummaged through my translations, trying to focus. "She greeted him," I read from my sheet. "She greeted him before leaving." "See?" Billie turned triumphantly. "You see?" Miki, next to her, stopped chewing her gum and gave her a skeptical look from under her hood. "And who told you anything?" "Well, you wrote it wrong!" Billie insisted, pointing at her notebook. "Here!" Miki's eyes fixed on the paper, coldly. "It says 'She had saved him.' Not 'greeted.' That's the next exercise." Billie scratched her head with her pencil, unsure. "Ah," she realized. "That's what it seemed like... You really write like a dog, huh? I mean, look here... Is this supposed to be a 'b'?" Miki squinted her eyes, and Billie beamed at her. "Can I copy the others too?" "No." I watched them bicker, getting lost in my thoughts again. We had met to study, but for some reason, I couldn't concentrate. My mind would wander at the slightest distraction.

 I knew that, in reality, that distraction had eyes as black as the night and an impossible temperament. What Rigel had told me had lodged itself in my head and refused to leave. The doors of the veranda swung open, and Billie's grandmother emerged in all her booming pleasantness, regal and powdered. "Wilhelmina!" she thundered, making her granddaughter jump. "Did you make the chain I sent you over the phone?" Billie hid her head, exasperated, but tried not to be seen. "No, grandma..." "What are you waiting for?" the grandmother declaimed. I didn't understand what they were talking about, but my confused expression earned me a partial explanation. "Grandma still believes that messages bring saints to your doorstep..." Billie enlightened me, but she flinched when her grandmother puffed up her chest. "Do it!" she ordered, and then pointed the rolling pin at Miki. "Miki, you do it too! I just sent it to you!" "Oh, come on, grandma!" Billie complained. "How many times have I told you that those things don't work?" "Nonsense! It protects you!" Billie rolled her eyes, then gave in and took the phone in her hand. "Fine... But can we come for a snack afterwards?" The grandmother's face lit up proudly. "Certainly," she enunciated with an almost heroic pose, slamming the rolling pin into her palm. Meanwhile, Billie had started typing furiously on her phone. "So, I'll send it to a bunch of people... Oh, Nica, I'll send it to you too!" I stiffened as the grandmother's gaze sliced through the air and landed on me. "T-To me?" "Yes, why not? That way we'll be in an ironclad circle!" "But I..." "You have to send it to fifteen contacts," she explained, and I swallowed hard because the grandmother still had me in her sights.

 Fifteen contacts? I didn't even have fifteen contacts! "Done!" Billie concluded, and immediately my phone and Miki's phone vibrated lightly. The grandmother gave us a proud look, her apron fluttering in the wind. "I'll finish preparing your snack," she said, turning to go back inside. Then she seemed to reconsider. "By the way, were you able to hear them?" Billie glanced at her, shoulders hunched. "The line dropped again," she muttered, and I understood she was referring to her parents. "But I think I heard the sound of a camel. They're still in the ." The grandmother nodded, but gave her a sweet look before going back inside. Silence settled between us like dust. "Any news?" I was surprised to hear those words. Perhaps because it was Miki's always indifferent voice that spoke them. "No." Billie didn't lift her face; she continued to doodle absentmindedly in the corner of a page. "They postponed the date again. They're not coming back at the end of the month anymore." Suddenly, the image I had of Billie took on another shade. The hunched back, the strands falling on her shoulders like drooping branches. That light that always illuminated her eyes was now a trapped speck in a dull gaze. "But... Dad had told me that we would go together to that beautiful photography exhibition. He promised me. And a promise is a promise... right?" She lifted her face, and I found myself holding her gaze. "Right," I whispered clearly. Billie tried to lift the corner of her lips, but it seemed to cost her a great deal. Then she blinked when a hand moved a book on the table. Miki pushed her text under her nose. She gave her a quick glance before muttering, "Didn't you want to copy the others too?" Billie looked at her for a moment. Then she slowly smiled.

 Later, Billie tried to get in touch with her parents. The line dropped a few times, but in the end, just when she was about to lose hope again, someone on the other end answered. No joy could compare to the one I saw on her face when her father's voice echoed from the other end of the phone. Unfortunately, the call ended before it could finish, but she didn't get discouraged as I had feared. She let herself fall back onto the bed, blissful, fantasizing about the exotic wonders her parents had just told her about. "How beautiful..." she murmured with closed eyes. "Such beautiful places... You'll see one day, when I'm there too! Watching those sunsets from the tents... The dunes, the palm trees... Together... Photographing the world..." Her voice slowly faded into a whisper, then just a movement of lips, and finally nothing at all. That's how Billie fell asleep, in the middle of the afternoon, with the phone still in her hand and hope behind her eyelids, lost in that cloud of curls. I gently took the phone from her hand and placed it on the bedside table, watching her sleep. "They seem like good people," I remarked, referring to her parents. She had put them on speakerphone, and they had enthusiastically greeted us; I could tell where Billie got all her exuberance from. "They are." Miki's eyes didn't look at me; they were fixed on her sleeping friend's face. Her gaze was as impenetrable as ever, yet I was certain I detected a hint of melancholy in them. "She misses them more than she admits. She has the courage to acknowledge it only at night." "At night?" "When she calls me," she murmured. "She dreams that they'll come back... Then she wakes up, and they're not there. Sometimes she knows she's exaggerating. She knows it's their job, that they're fine... She would never admit it. But she misses them," she whispered. "They've been away for so long." "Miki can be really sweet," I recalled Billie's words. "She's so sensitive." Until that moment, I had never fully understood it. Yet, I could imagine her, in the heart of the night, after a day spent behind her impenetrable expressions, going to sleep with the phone by her side. She was just waiting to see it light up, and by answering, she became the only witness to the moments when Billie didn't have the strength to smile. Miki... she was her family. "She'll never be alone," I met her gaze and gave her a sweet smile. "She has you." Miki continued to watch me as I tucked the blanket over Billie. "I'm going to get a drink of water." I got up, straightening my wrinkled shirt, and walked out the door, trying not to make any noise. I hoped it wouldn't be too much of a disturbance to search for a glass in the kitchen, but then I remembered that the grandmother had gone out to play bridge with her friends. However, before continuing, I went back to open the door that I had closed behind me. "Miki, sorry. Do you want some water t..." I never finished the sentence. The words died on my lips. With wide eyes, all I saw was the cascade of black hair lost among all those curls. And she was leaning forward, with her lips pressed against Billie's.