Corrosive

5:04 PM

News of my sister's death breaks quickly, and soon the inbox of my email is beeping as emails pour in. I don't need it for homework, so I can put it aside, but the beeping becomes more and more incessant and irritating. Nearly two hours after I started, I finally finish my homework.

I open my laptop, and squint at the pulsing number icon beside my email. It can't possibly be accurate. I can't really have more than five-hundred-fifty emails, can I?

Apparently I can, and I marvel at the inoriginality of the first lines. 'Sorry for your loss.' 'Just heard about your sister.' 'Sorry for your loss.' 'Sorry for your loss.' 'Missing her already.' 'Sorry for your loss.' The rich irony is many of the 'Missing her already' ones are from people neither of us have spoken to in years.

In fact, most of the emails are from people I haven't spoken to in years. I even find myself wondering if I know the people, and how they found Mill's page, and then mine, and my email. It reminds me of my other great aunt's funeral, where Dad saw family members who hadn't shown their faces at family gatherings for generations, never mind years or months, but were there, present that day. We learned afterwards that many had been banished by my great aunt, and were there to pay their respects. Deaths create congregations, I guess.

I should remove my email from my page, I think. Then I'll stop getting emails. So I open up my page, and I go to settings, and then I pause.

Deaths create congregations. People like to pay their respects to the dead person and the dead person's family. I should leave it. I sigh and message Dexter. He doesn't answer, which I take to mean they're attacking the Sheppard College base.

I click onto Milly's page, and scroll down through the messages with the exact same sentiment as on my page. I check my sister's uploads only- and get a shock. Under her death warrant is a message she uploaded, the afternoon of the night she died.

Going to the movies, in the Front Line Cinema! Going to that film that smashed the Grammys and nearly got an Oscar.

Where's the Front Line Cinema? I've never heard of it. I look it up, and discover it's about ten minutes walk away from the street Milly died on. So that's where she was going. She and the red-haired woman were going to see a film!

The website says the 47 bus stops right in front of it. The 47 also passes my school, and stops near the hospital where Milly was. Well, I suppose Milly was never there- her body made it, but she didn't.

The screen wobbles and I can't see any words anymore. I wipe my eyes angrily, and make a decision.

Did Milly make it and was returning, or was she still on the way? Back on her page, I find a nice picture of her, and check the time. My parents will be watching the news in the living room, so I send the picture to the printer in the office and sneak downstairs. I don't want my parents to hear. They'll want to know why I'm sneaking around, and what I'm doing, and how I'm coping, and in the hall, they'll hear the printer whirring. They'll want to know why I'm printing a picture of Milly, and call me selfish, but I want to solve this by myself. They never cared about what I was doing before Milly died, and I don't see why they should start caring now. They have their jobs and they were always enough for them before.

The living room door is shut and I hear them talking. I wonder if my mom is crying again, or if they're even discussing it. I doubt it will ever come up in conversation again.

The office is small and cosy, and I watch Milly's face appear from under the printer's jets. I hold her up to the last rays of sun through the window, and think, for the first time, how pretty she is. She was. I never told her. But then, I didn't need to. Milly was proud and self-confident, at school. At home, she became extremely introverted. I always found that odd.