It was a still day, a kind of day that even though I hated it, I embraced the break. I had a lot to think about. I was becoming too attached to my life in Outer Banks. I was starting to love the connections I was making and that wasn't something I was comfortable with. I never really talked about why, the subject was just too hard to think of.
I was laying on the bed, it was a bit after John B left. I couldn't tell how many hours had passed, if any at all. Nothing was making sense to me and all I wanted to do was run for the hills. Running away seemed to be what I was good at.
I wondered if my life would be different if a week ago I ran somewhere other than the island. If in some way my life would have changed in a different way. Would I have been happier?
I loved my brother, and that was a love I could count on. An attachment that didn't scare me but my brother's neighbor was the problem. The neighbor and his friends.
My world came crashing down the months before coming to the island, and I always told myself that was a story for another day. The one that seemed to be more interesting, the one that was playing over and over in my head was the one I was stuck on. The one that caused me to experience my first true heartbreak.
It wasn't the day Sam left, and all of my parent's anger landed solely on me, no, it was a very different day. That day had started out quite normal. Maybe that was the problem.
I had a best friend growing up, before Sam left, before my parent's anger was directed solely at me, before then. I had grown up with her, and made blanket forts with her, against my mother's objections. She was the closest thing to me in the whole world. Nothing could have prepared me for what eventually happened.
She had gotten me through everything, when Sam left she was there, when my parent's anger became directed solely at me she gave me a place to sleep. She was my safe place, the most important person in my life.
When I got my first boyfriend, she was there. She got her ready for my first date. Even the second and third. She started going on double dates with Mason, my boyfriend and his best friend Connor. We did everything together, so when I found out Mason was cheating on me the first thing I did was run to her.
I know most people assumed his cheating was my first heartbreak but they were wrong. He wasn't. She was.
Connor and her didn't last long, most of their relationship revolved around the double dates they would go on with Mason and me. She was sad, sure, but she had me and I had her. We were the closest friends most of our classmates had probably ever met. Neither of us really hung out with anyone else. We had a group of friends but none of them were as close as me and her.
We took the same classes, and when one of us wasn't in the other, we'd switch. We made sure we were always together. We saw each other at least once a day, and when we began to work at a coffee shop by my house, we applied together.
We were inseparable. She was my best friend, and I was hers. Our lives were completely intertwined and planned out. We would get married and move in next door to each other, and have kids around the same time so we could raise them together. But don't all friends do that?
I'm not sure if a single person was surprised when we began dating.
Everyone said they had seen it coming. And that we loved each other much more than friends do.
We were happy together. And even when things got hard at home for me, she was there for me. She was a lot of firsts for me. Technically she wasn't my first kiss, or my first time but it was the first with a person I loved.
Her name was Bianca.
It was a normal day. A normal spring day. Everything was good, it was normal. Bianca and I were happy, laying in bed together. Nothing was wrong, nothing seemed out of place.
Bianca had to head to a shift at the coffee shop, nothing was off or weird. I got up an hour later, again, it was a normal day. I got up and sat in the living room, quickly typing up a paper that was due at the end of the week. I glanced at the time periodically while writing, waiting for Bianca to get off from work.
Everything was normal.
I was the one to answer the phone, almost thinking it was a prank at first. There could be no way it had happened. The glass I held in my one hand slipped from my grip. Water splashed out of the cup as it smashed. Glass flying everywhere.
Bianca's mom was the next to know. She had run out of the kitchen watching my shocked face with confusion. She looked down at the floor and subsequently at my foot which was bleeding. A shard of glass next to me with blood on it.
Bianca's sister was the last to find out. She screamed when her mom told her. Yelling that it couldn't be true. There was no way it had happened.
Bianca's sister, Makayla walked from her room, tears falling from her face as she walked towards my cold numb body still standing in the hall, right next to the phone. Her arms wrapped around me, the warmth making a tear slip down my face. Nothing felt real.
I changed after that day, I vowed to keep people out. Swore to myself I'd never let someone get that close to me again. I couldn't go through that again, not ever. Nothing could have ever fixed what happened to me. Nothing.
I thought about her every day. I carried the girl everywhere, heard her voice in the back of my head, and sometimes I even felt the girl's touch. I would never let go of her. She was the one who encouraged me to get out of Arizona. She was even going to go with me. The job we worked was to save up the money that I wasn't going to be able to steal slowly, money that Bianca's mom gave to me after she died.
I almost didn't take it, Bianca had earned it and her mother was a good mom. The least I could do for Bianca's mom was to let her have the money she saved but her mom wouldn't let me. She told me to take it and go and I heard Bianca in every word. "don't look back, get out while you can" Bianca would've added.
I listened, listened to the voice that told me to save myself. And it was because of Bianca that I could leave. Bianca made sure I knew just how loved I was, and made sure to always remind me of how good our future would be. And the two houses next to each other turned into one house and the kids turned into both of ours.
Bianca was the reason I survived Arizona, and her memory made me fight like hell to survive the time after. I left two months after her death. And for every day of those two months, I told myself I'd make it, because of her.
The couple that lived in Arizona became worse. They were monsters and now I had no escape. No one to save me, no one to be around so it wasn't so bad. They were so cruel. But I won't talk about them.
The day I left there was nothing more I wanted to do than to see Bianca. I stared at a photo on my phone, a photo of Bianca and me. I uploaded the photo to my social media so that even after I smashed the phone I'd have access to it.
Right now, I really wished I had power so my new phone could charge. I just wanted to see Bianca.
The only other thing I took with me when I left the apartment in Arizona was a box that Bianca had. It contained her favorite t-shirt. It was a 'The 1975' shirt. She got it when me and her went to see them in concert. It was a night I had never forgotten. The smile on Bianca's face was enough to make me fall in love all over again.
The shirt lay next to me, in the spot John B was that morning. I picked it up, brought it to my chest and hugged it. I yearned for the girl, missing every part of her.
Tears threatened to slip down my face as I left the apartment in Arizona. A bag on my shoulder and a skateboard tucked under my arm, ready to go. My steps needed to be quiet. I couldn't risk getting caught. I needed to do it, and I needed to do it right. There was no room for error.
It was truly then or never. As I walked down the street I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone. I kissed the screen before throwing it down and completely shattering it. The last thing that held any tie to the couple who lived in the apartment just a couple of steps away. I was free.
I couldn't leave town without stopping by the cemetery. Even though I always joked that they gave me the heebie-jeebies, I walked down the path that led to Bianca's gravestone. Fresh flowers were placed on the ground next to the stone which I pushed over so I could sit. I didn't know when I'd be back to see her, if ever so I wanted to pour my heart out.
"I love you" I whispered, kissing my hand and then placing it on the stone. I was there for over an hour. Talking. Just being there with her one last time. It wasn't long after that I got on the first bus. It left at 4:30 and I was finally on my way. Starting my new life.
I just wished it wasn't without her.
Voices snapped me out of my thoughts. I could hear Kiara's voice in the kitchen and I wiped my eyes. A few stray tears left my face as I did. I opened the closet, moving to grab the loose floorboard and the box inside. I tucked the shirt away.
"hey" Kiara greeted, standing in the doorway.
"hi" I breathed out. I had tucked Bianca away like a secret, it was the last thing I had that kept me together. I felt guilty as I looked at Kiara but I didn't want to break my walls down yet. But then again, I knew Bianca almost all my life and she still left me.
"What's wrong?" Kiara asked, concern washing over her face. I knew she was good. I could tell Kiara wouldn't hurt me but Bianca wouldn't have hurt me either and then the next day she was dead.
"Nothing, 'm fine" I lied, plastering a fake smile on my face. A smile I was sure Kiara could tell was fake, but she didn't pressure me. That was something I was grateful for.
Today didn't have to be a normal day, I didn't want any more normal days.