Forgetting Francesca

Chapter 15

The pictures I was given are scattered over my bed. From start to finish. I look at all of them, touching the ink, the date and time were written in, Francesca's loopy handwriting inscribing every photo. I breath in the smell of the stuffed animals I was given, the scent not yet faded away. It smells stale, but it's there. The pyjamas are softer than I remember, and I breath them in and feel that same sense of home, which is what I felt every time I wore them. Francesca was always good at picking pyjamas for me.

Her oldest book is there too, a purple leather-bound book with dozens of names and dates written on the front pages. At the very bottom, there's Francesca's name, her writing so familiar among all the unfamiliar. Like a light in the darkness. It's the first time I've gone through the box in a year. I don't know why I ever avoided it, it's like she's in the room with me, and her soft short hair is tickling my cheeks while she looks over my shoulder.

That's  such a bad picture of me, I can almost hear her say. It is, her eyes are half closed and her mouth is open in a laugh, her head thrown back. Despite this, she looks beautiful. She looks real.

"It's really not," I whisper into the shadows of my room. I can almost see her shaking her head, laughing too hard to speak as we flip through our pictures, together but not quite.

"Marcy—oh." Mom walks in, carrying a plate of freshly baked cookies with a puzzled look on her face when she notices the box's content scattered around my bed. She's been baking all weekend for me, trying to help my rejection sorrows with sugar, which I have to say is working pretty well.

"Hey," I say, and I sit up and wipe the tears that pooled in my eyes away. "I'm just..." I gesture around me, grinning sheepishly.

"Oh, right." Mom says quietly, and she sets the plate down on my dresser. She sits down on my bed and looks at the content with me, picking up a stuffed turquoise hippo. "It smells like her," she remarks, smiling down at the flimsy animal and flopping its head about affectionately.

"I know, it's uncanny, right?" I laugh quietly, and she joins in. I love Mom's laugh. Her mouth lifts up at one corner and her blue eyes crinkle in a certain way that makes her look sad and happy at the same time. "It's almost as if she's here with us." she whispers quietly, and her voice trembles slightly. Mom misses her, I hear her talking about it to my Grandma on the phone every now and then, but I don't think I've ever really seen it until now.

"I think she is," I respond; I smile fondly at the space next to me. I look crazy, I know. But we all need a little bit of crazy.

~~~~

I stepped into Francesca's room carefully, almost as if I was trying not to scare a deer. She looked up at me, despair on her face while tears streamed down her cheeks. Her mother had called me here to look after her.

I didn't even have a chance to speak before she spoke. "I'm worthless," she whispered, her voice breaking. I took a step forward, my heart breaking a little.

"No-"

"I am. I'm just a bother and I bring you down all the time. I'm selfish and rude and I know that no one loves me and—"

"No." I said, more firmly. She paused her spiel and looked up at me, her tangled hair framing her face in desperation. "You are loved, you are so incredibly loved, and enough. I love you, Francesca, not the sadness in you, not the happiness or any other emotion, I love you."

"Will you love me when I'm a hollow shell? Will you love me through my depression and my self-hate and my loathing? Will you love me even though I can't talk about my brothers—" Francesca broke off. She seemed to think these things were deal breakers. I leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her forehead, threading my fingers through hers and leaning into her. She was stiff for a moment before melting into me, her back slouching while she sighed. She was broken, I knew that. I knew that a part of me was broken too. o one is ever not in pieces.

"Even then."

~~~~

I don't know I'm crying until Mom leans forward to wipe the tears from my cheeks. She's crying too, it seems, her eyes glistening with tears. Picking up a picture, she looks down and smiles again.

"If you want to talk about her, I'm here," she says quietly, and she goes to reach for my hand before drawing back. I reach out to her myself and thread my fingers through hers, like I had with her when I was younger. 

"I just...I thought that forgetting her would be easy, and I needed to move on and..." I trail off, and I glance at the picture of Francesca laughing. How could I ever want to forget you?

"Do you think she wanted you to forget her?"

"I think that I was wrong. I think that she wanted me to be happy, but I don't think she wanted me to not feel anything at all. She always pushed against that, and then I had done exactly what she hated about herself, what she wanted to disappear."

Mom nods, tears finally spilling past her eyes. "I don't think she wanted that either. Grief or pain, as John Green says, demands to be felt. And you pushing it away won't help, I don't think."

"I don't think so either."

~~~~

Avoiding people has once been a dance for me. Side stepping, spinning, bending my head and down and sliding down a wall to avoid someone's gaze. I was always light on my feet, so I take up this dance now, desperately praying that the familiar flash of pink hair doesn't appear in my field of vision. Instead, her scent washes over me once again, and when I look up, her hair is a tangerine colour, blending into dark red at the roots. She's dyed her hair apparently.

"Hey," she says softly, tucking her soft curled hair behind one ear. I nod my hello, tentatively silent; she clears her throat and readjusts her books. "Look, I'm—"

"You don't have to apologize, Tessa. I made a move and I was in the wrong. I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable."

"No, it's not that." I let myself go silent. "My sister is pansexual, and I was just...caught off guard by it. And I outed you..." She looks down, shuffling her feet. "I was so used to guys forcing themselves on me and expecting me to kiss them, and when a soft girl took my flirty attitude for something personal, I was surprised...it wasn't your fault." 

I swallow and look down at my feet, shuffling them and taking a moment. "I really appreciate this, Tessa. Like, I was prepared to avoid you for the entire day, I didn't want you to think that..."

"That you were still going to make a move?" I nod. "It's okay, I wouldn't have minded if you did. I'm sorry if you thought anything else." She runs a hand through her hair and looks at me, her grey eyes are twinkling. A slight smile plays on her lips, and my heart gives an extra, tentative beat. Traitor. My heart is a freaking traitor.

I clear my throat. "Friends? I know it'll be awkward for a while but I can work on...this."

Tessa nods gratefully, and she steps to my side to loop her arm through mine.

"Definitely."

To break the silence, I exclaim: "I love your hair!" as we walk down the hall, loving the way the curls bounce in happy tangerine bursts with her footsteps. 

"Do you want me to dye yours?"

"Absolutely not."