It was Jade who called me that night, but I could barely remember what really happened.
All I had were hazy pieces of memories. And it was dark and I couldn’t feel my body.
I came to realize that my eyes were shut and I couldn’t move a bit, even lift my eyelids open. All I could do was to listen to the voices—they were Bryan’s, a friend of mine, and Carrie’s, my sister who is 3 years older than me.
“Macy, please fight for us. Don’t you dare die on us, Cy.” It was Bryan. We went to the same school in college.
How long have I been lying here? What happened!?
With so much confusion and inability to respond, I’ve got no other choice but to listen to their voices—which ironically, calmed me a bit.
I have known Bryan since college and now that we’re both in our same field of career, our friendship had grown stronger. Eventually, Jade joined us in the circle and
Bryan also introduced us his co-basketball player from college, Dave, my friend-turned-boyfriend.
Our bond was strong. It was unbreakable. But that was just what I thought.
Jade and Bry had decided to level up their relationship into a more romantic one, few months after Dave had courted me. After all those misfortunes in the past, I had always thought that this day would never come. Life wasn’t that kind to me but I had my sister Carrie and Bryan whom I thought were my best buddies before I met Dave. But Bryan didn’t know anything about my sister since I really wanted to keep my life private. Because the more I exposed myself to people, the more I got them into trouble. That’s why I also kept my circle small.
Bryan had never grown tired of listening to my pathetic life stories and that was what I liked about that guy. I felt comfortable with his company and he was the brother that I never had.
One day, we met after our work shift because that day marked the 10th death anniversary of my parents. Foster, actually.
“Macy,” he started.
And even with our distance, I could still feel his gaze on me. I didn’t want to look at him. I knew where this conversation would lead.
He paused and didn’t say anything as if he read my mind. We’re best of friends anyway so he really knew me so well. We then booked a grab taxi bound to Heaven Memorial Park.
When the car had reached its destination, we made our way to my parent’s tomb sitting under the round-crowned oak tree.
“Macy,” this time, his tone sounded more concerned, seemingly implying I couldn’t dodge the next question he would ask.
“How did your parents die? I don’t know if it is just me or you always try to avoid that question. Is that something I don’t need to know? I just get this feeling of helplessness when I see the same gloom in your eyes. What kind of friend am I if I can’t share your pain?”
I didn’t know the right words to say. I had a lump in the throat as I tried to recall the tragedy 10 years ago.
“Be brave, honey. Remember that it is always better to tell the truth and hurt your loved ones in the process than prolong something that would make things worse in the end. I will always have your back. Remember that. Let your voice be heard. Speak up. There’s nothing wrong about telling how you feel than letting it consumes you bit by bit,” my mother would always tell me.
With those comforting words in my head, I mustered up enough courage to finally share that part of my vulnerability with Bryan.
“Y-you see, Bryan. I really loved C-Christmas lights,” I never really knew how to start this kind of conversation without being awkward and guilty at the same time, and I could clearly see the confusion on his face.
“A-and I never thought that these things that I loved would take the people I value the most away from me,” I continued.
“Macy, you don’t have t-,” he tried to consolingly cut me off when he noticed the tears that started to well up in my eyes.
“T-there was a fire. And it burned our home to ashes. M-Mum and Dad were trapped inside. I-I was out to see a classmate that night. I’m sorry. I-I’m really sorry. My Christmas lights! I caused the fire, Bry. T-the fire. I started it, Bry, I killed my parents. I k-killed them both,” Bry wrapped me around his arms when I started babbling in pain of reopening old wounds. “I killed them! I should be the one lying there, not my parents. Not them, Bry!”
After that incident, I have never heard back from Bryan. It had been days, and he seemed to have distanced himself from me like how it was supposed to be. I should have known better. He must be thinking that I would only bring him misfortune.
These were my exact thoughts when Bryan became so preoccupied with so many things, he barely returned my text messages. He was my closest friend that even with Jade’s presence, I could still feel the void that he left. I tried to ignore the fact that it did hurt, but I couldn’t.
I was in the midst of recalling these past events when Carrie and Bryan engaged in serious conversation.
“I shouldn’t have left her. I was so busy trying to find ways how to track down the location of your parents,” said Bryan with regrets in his tone, suppressing his tears. “It hurt me so bad to see Macy breaks down and keeps on blaming herself for the loss of her foster parents.”
“Thank you for doing your best, Bryan. I should’ve introduced myself to you, guys, earlier. So you didn’t have to go through all those research,” said Carrie.
“She’s the sweetest person I know,” Carrie added. “She meant no harm; she only wanted to surprise Mr. and Mrs. Gonzales on the celebration of their Anniversary that day. When she found the old Christmas lights in the attic, she realized it would be very nice to add some brightness and lights of different colors for the celebration. She checked if these old decorations would still work, and they did. She then rushed to her classmate’s house to borrow some penny to buy some surprise cake. From a distance, I would watch her persevere for her loved ones. And even if I wanted to lend her some money, I couldn’t do so since she didn’t know back then that she had a sister. Our real parents just informed me about it when I was already in college. That’s the reason why I forced them to let me study near her school, so I could watch her from afar. Then, when she was on her way home, it was already too late. Their whole house was already on fire. She badly wanted to make her way in, but the firemen stopped her, saying it was no longer safe for her. I was really sorry for her, and felt miserable for not having the means to prevent it from happening. But until now, the police suspected that there was a possibility of a foul play. After the initial investigation, they found traces of force entry and sightings of an unknown person, lingering in the area moments before the crime. Speaking of which, I just received a call from the police department, stating that there was a significant amount of evidence to reopen the case.”
“Does Macy know all about this!?” Bryan exclaimed.
“No. I was about to tell her about it before this happened."
To silently hear and unable to respond to these words, it broke my heart to learn how they felt about my past actions. All these years, I really thought I was the one solely responsible for my parents’ death. Now, hearing about these made me feel a lot better. However, if that’s the case, I would want to fight for justice and make sure the person responsible for all these would be caught. Lord, give me the strength. Even the smallest amount of strength there is. I wanted to let them know I could hear them. That it’s okay, and that I was happy knowing I have a family fighting beside me.
I really thought Brian wanted to cut ties with me and the misfortunes I brought. Now I felt a little bit relieved.
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