Four months later
-Boas perspective-
I nervously tapped at the steering wheel of my car and occasionally glanced over at Casey, who was happily humming along to my death metal. Man, I understand this girl less and less. I mean seriously, what does a highschool girl want with a rehab center?
“So! Sparkles, tell me exactly why we’re visiting a rehab center again?” I asked and glanced over to her.
She gave me a huge smile and took out her phone. “It’s to visit a friend! She’s been working real hard! And she’s been one month sober! I think she needs some glitties!”
I just started to laugh, yeah, leave it to Casey to want to give glitter to an addict. “Well! I’m sure she’ll love it.”
It wasn’t long before we arrived at the building. Casey excitedly ran out of the car and got us both signed up for visitation time. I didn’t notice till now, but she had a tupperware box with her.
“Come on Boa! We gotta surprise her!” Casey cheered and ran off into the building.
“H-hey! Wait up!” I yelled and chased after her, only to find her slapping stickers and glitter on the chairs and walls.
“Hey, sparkles, you realize this could count as vandalism, right?”
“But this place is super gloomy oomy!” She whined and slapped more stickers on the wall.
“Yeah! That's kinda the point, this is definitely not a rocken place.”
“Well, green and blue colors release the most Dopamine and Serotonin. Plus the sparkles are an immediate attention grabber! So my stickers are sweet little happiness traps!" She said and turned back to me, holding out a peace sign with stickers on her fingers. “It’s an ultimate strategy!”
“Whose Dopa? And why are colors busting her out of here?” I asked.
Casey just giggled. “Oh you’re silly Auntie Boa.”
With that she just skipped off into the visitor room. I followed behind her and glanced at the blue smiley face sticker. Which put a small smile on my face too. Casey ran over to a table near the corner of the room. There was a very pretty girl nervously playing with her fingers at it. Her obsidian hair was shining and her amber eyes sparkled. Yeah, this is gotta be the one we're breaking out of here. I sat down next to Casey across from the girl and she opened up her little box, showing off a wrapped up burger king burger and fries. The woman opened her mouth, but not a word came out.
“Congratulations on one month of sobriety!” Casey cheered.
“I-is this really for me? I haven’t even done anything..” The woman mumbled.
“That’s a lie! You’ve spent an entire month away from drugs! You’ve totally earned it! You’ve gotta celebrate the small victories. Molly wanted me to tell you, that you’ve got this Dianna.”
Tears began to leak from the womens eyes and she nodded. “I see, she’s still as spunky as ever.”
“Mmhhmm! She even left a note to give to you.” Casey said and went into her pocket, and her smile suddenly faded. “Oh gosh the notes not here! It probably fell out of my pocket!” She shot up and ran out of the room. “I'll be back!”
Leaving me alone with the crying girl…
We sat in silence for a bit before the girl did the best she could to clean the brimming tears from her eyes. After a bit of awkward silence, I spoke up.
“So, you know Molly. I take it you must know my nephew Nyx then, right? The wannabe Ghostbuster?”
She chuckled a bit and nervously looked away.
“Sorta, I only met him once. But the one time I met him he was…intense.”
I laughed a little. “Yeah, he can be like that. Always acting like he's constipated.”
A small smile adorned her face and she decided to look back toward me. “So, are you a psychic too?”
“Oh me? Absolutely not.” I said and leaned back in my chair. “My sis is the one who slept with the bone daddy.”
“This whole thing still confuses me..”
“It’s a bit hard to wrap your head around, but eventually it’ll all make sense. But, I wanted to say I am really proud of your progress. I went to rehab once myself for drinking, so I know from personal experience it’s a constant struggle. So don’t be afraid to celebrate your one month.”
She looked back at me and gave me a half hearted smile. “It’s just hard to really be excited about it all. It’s like everyday just gets harder then the last, and I don’t even know how I survived yesterday. And I don’t even…feel like I deserve to get better.” She looked toward me and her eyes grew wide. “O-oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to dump all that on you like that.”
I gave her a small smile.
“Hey, don’t worry about it. I kinda know what you mean, that feeling of guilt whenever you’re happy. Because you know deep down on the inside that you don’t deserve to be."
“Yeah, actually, exactly like that. I just…” She stopped talking and stared at the wrapped burger.
“Wanna die, right?” I asked.
She jumped a bit and bit her lip. “Yeah…”
“It’s okay, I get that. I was like that too for a while, just partying away till it was all over.”
“And, what did you do about it?” She asked.
I leaned forward on the desk and looked her in the eyes. “Someone once told me, that we become real monsters when we can’t see past ourselves.”
“Huh?” she asked and tilted her head.
“Yeah, it’s from our resident psychic. You have to remember your past isn’t you, whatever your past is. Whether it means you did something, or it's what people tried to label you as. It isn't you anymore.”
“But it is!” She yelled. “I was the one who was too scared to be alone! I was the one who didn’t speak up and tell the truth! I’m a horrible person! “ She dropped back into her seat and started to scratch her arm and shake. “I really should just die…the cops won’t even take me seriously when I tried to confess. Because I’m a druggy.”
I took a breath, this girl. Casey must’ve planned this. Meeting someone just like me. I reached out and rested my hand over her own. Tears were running down her face and I gave her a soft smile.
“Hey, I don’t know if you need to hear this, but you should know. You’re not a monster.”
“And what gives you the right to say that?” She asked and looked back into my eyes.
“Because my hands aren’t clean either, I understand the guilt, the regret, the anxiety. When I was younger, a friend of mine died because of me. And when she asked me for help, I just turned and ran away. And I used everything in my power to try and drown out all the screams I hear. I even play loud music because I hate being left alone with my thoughts."
“But how did you…?”
“We can’t change what we did, the past is already written. And Dying for your mistakes is just running away from the problem.”
“Then what am I supposed to do!?”
“The hardest part, you have to live. But staring into the past isn’t living. Nyx once told me, we truly become monsters once we can’t see past ourselves. That means if we can’t start pulling away from the chains of our past, we will become the monsters we think we are.”
The woman squeezed my hand tighter and tighter as she started to take heavy breaths. “It's just so hard, and I’m not strong. And I don’t even know what living means anymore…”
“That’s something for you to decide.” Casey suddenly spoke up from behind. I turned and saw her walking over with a note in hand. “But, you can’t really see what you want your future to be, until you’ve faced your past.” She walked over and rested the note on the table, and it simply read, ‘I’m rooting for you, Dianna.’ “Molly wrote this for you. Nyx, is training really hard to face his past right now too, and from what Molly said, he’s having a really hard time, but he’s fighting. This, rehab, is your fight. Please, don’t give up on your fight.”
Dianna sat up and bit her lip. Her eyes were red and puffy from the tears that were still running down her cheek.
“T-thank you.” She said and grabbed the note. “I’ll cherish it.”
…
Casey and I walked through the forest in silence. That girl Dianna had been in my head ever since we left. She was familiar, in all the wrong ways. Back when I used to drink myself to sleep and go home with any guy who’d take me. Orion's face came into mind. He was always so warm, so safe. Even if I could just sleep on the floor of his library, I think that would be more like home than the place I'm sleeping…
“Hey, sparkles, was that talk with Dianna your plan all along?” I asked.
Casey scratched the back of her head. “Sort of? I didn’t know you went through so much though. I just knew about the drinking, I was hoping you could give her some advice.”
I chuckled. “I see, so it was just a happy little coincidence...”
“I’m sorry if it brought up bad memories Boa.”
I turned back to her and forced out a laugh. “No! No! No! It’s fine, really, honestly it helps me think about how much things have changed. I wanna really surprise Nyx when he comes back.”
Casey smiled excitedly. “Yeah! I can’t wait to get the hang of coalescence and show him how strong I've become! Then I can stand right by his and Nova's side!”
“Oh? Is that why you haven’t gone to see Nova yet?” I asked.
“Aeseria told me he’s been actively fighting the werewolves, and she’s been hunting down dealers with Nick and Lumime again. I wanna help them really bad, but I’m nowhere close to where I need to be.”
We both stopped in the middle of an open field surrounded by trees and we faced off.
“Well, I wouldn’t say you’re nowhere near close. After all, you’ve pretty much mastered coalescence with Fred. Even got the little fire techniques down.”
As I spoke the fiery feline leaped down from the trees and landed on her back.
“Well! I’ll determine how well I do after our little sparring match.”
“Yeah, yeah, okay.” I said and stretched.
“Oh! And I got that gift for Orion you wanted! So maybe you’ll get a date after all!”
The heat rushed to my cheeks and I quickly turned from her.
“I-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i never said this was for a date!” I reached up and started to twirl my hair around my finger. “But If he would go on a date with me. I wouldn’t be mad…”
His face came into mind and my heart started to race. Look at me lying again, I know deep down. Orion is really the only thing my heart wants…