Already Gone

Never Forget You

It was time that I told them.

   They deserved to know the truth, they deserved to know who I really am and what my past was really like.

   I didn't want to lie anymore. I didn't want to live this lie anymore. I didn't want to live like everything was okay. I couldn't live like everything was okay because it wasn't.

And it wasn't going to be.

   I took a deep breath and swallowed hard, trying to figure out where to start, but I was drawing a blank which was stupid.

   There were plenty of places to start, there was plenty to tell. Too much to tell actually. It was rather overwhelming everything how much I had to say. How much I could say.

"Ste-," Arizona caught herself, "Summer, you can tell us. Is there anything else you're keeping from us?"

   There definitely were things that I was keeping from them, but was it really necessary for them to know what it was? Did they really need to know?

   Maybe not, but they deserved to know, and I knew that. I knew deep down, deep in my heart, that I should tell them.

"Yeah," I finally said, my voice hoarse.

   Arizona and Callie looked and each other before relaxing against the couch. They didn't say anything, waiting for me to tell them on my own terms.

   I cleared my throat, "The bus accident..."

Why did I choose to start there?

"I was on that bus, not because I was coming to visit Seattle without telling my mother," I let out a little cough, "Though you probably already knew that...you probably already figured out that I was lying...again."

   I felt my heart rate start to pick up and my stomach twist and turn. It felt like it was forming knots just to untangle them again.

"I...I was on that bus...because," I closed my eyes briefly before forcing them open again, "I was running...I was running away. From home. I was running away from home."

"Because you're mom was an addict?" Arizona asked quietly, gently. "Was she abusive?"

   I bit my lip and shook my head slowly, trying to bring myself to say it. To open my mouth and say it.

I have a sister. I had a sister? 

No.

   I had a sister, and now she is dead. I was running away from home because it reminded me of my dead sister. Everywhere I looked, all I saw was her toys, her clothes, her face.

"Stella," was what I managed to say, though it wasn't what I wanted or planned to say, "Stella. Stella is my sister, not my name."

   I looked up to see Callie and Arizona wide-eyed and concern written all over their faces.

"Where is she?" Callie asked, "Is she okay? Is she still living with your mom?"

   I couldn't bring myself to say it. I couldn't bring myself to open my mouth and say the words that I had been running away from all along.

Stella was dead.

   I let out a heart-wrenched sob before collapsing into a fit of tears. I quickly slapped my hand over my mouth but I couldn't stop the tears or the sounds of grief that I emitted.

"Oh, sweetie," I felt Arizona sit down next to me before wrapping an arm around my shoulders.

"She's dead," I whispered so quietly that I wasn't even sure anyone even heard what I said. "My sister is dead."

   At those words, I completely broke down, unable to contain everything anymore. I had never said those words out loud before and even though all along I knew Stella was dead, actually saying it just made it that much more real.

Stella is dead.

"I'm so sorry," Callie said softly and she sat down on the other side of me, "Summer, I'm so sorry."

"Stella is dead," I choked out through my sobs and shook my head, "She's dead."

   I felt someone's hand start to rub comforting circles around my back. Slow and gentle circles.

"She's dead!" I screamed, "She's dead! She's dead! She's dead!"

   I screamed and screamed and screamed until my throat went raw and my voice started to crack.

"My sister is dead!" I gave one last cry before crumbling apart.

Again.

   It was a good thing I was sitting down because had I been standing up, I'm sure my legs would have given in. I would have been laying on the floor, sprawled out, in a position that probably would have been painful for my knee.

Not that I would have cared.

"We got you," Callie whispered into my ear. 

   She and Arizona both had wrapped their arms around me and were practically holding me upright in my sitting position.

"But you don't have Stella," I cried, "I don't care about me! I don't care whether you have me or not! The one person I can say I love with certainty is dead! Stella is dead and she's not coming back!"

"I know..." Arizona murmured, "I know...and I'm sorry."

   My stomach hurt from crying, my throat had that strange dry feeling. My cheeks were wet and I was sure my eyes were red.

"I hate it!" I started screaming again, though my voice was crackly and hoarse, "I hate it! I hate her! I hate her for being dead!"

   A whole new round of sobs started again and my body shook with each wrack of pain that rippled through me.

"She shouldn't be dead!" I continued, my voice as loud as possible, "Of all people, why is Stella dead? She should be alive!"

   Stella was dead. Stella is dead. Stella is going to be dead when I wake up tomorrow because she's not coming back. Even in a week, a month, a year, a decade, a century, it's not going to change.

Ever.

Stella is dead and that's not changing.

"I hate her so much!" I screamed at the top of my lungs, "I hate her so much for dying!"

   My fury, my anger. My grief and my sorrow. It was all coming out at once and it was exhausting everything in me.

   When I could no longer keep the last bit of composure I had, my body sagged against Arizona, my tears flowing freely onto her top.

"Come on," Callie said gently and she and Arizona carefully helped me onto my feet, cautious of my bad knee.

   I was half-aware of being led down the hall and to the guest room and being half-placed and half-pushed onto the bed.

   The covers were pulled up to under my chin and tenderly tucked around my body. I let out a rather random sob and I felt the hands that were tucking the covers quickly pull away.

"What hurts?" Arizona asked, worried that she had hurt my knee in the process of folding the edges of the covers in.

   I attempted to smush my head even further into the pillow and squeezed my eyes shut. I then took a deep breath in, paying close attention to the way that the air went through my nose. How my chest rose and then fell as the air exited.

How I was alive.

It felt like it was taunting me.

"Everything," I whispered, replying to Arizona's question, "Every time I breathe and Stella doesn't, it hurts my entire body."

"Summer..." I heard Callie's voice say but I ignored it.

"It hurts to be alive and know that Stella isn't."