Beth,
Well. Hey. It's me, Lily.
Bare with me, I actually never done anything like this before. Maybe I would have done something like this if it weren't for the war, write to someone famous like you did in year seven and hope they would respond. They probably would have gotten their poor assistant to read it and like with every letter, they would roll their eyes and respond with the same shit they put in the letter before. But it's not like that. I'm twenty-two, no sorry, twenty-three years old and that's not the kind of world I live in now. To be honest, no one really lives in that kind of world. Not anymore.
Am I even doing this right? Oh, you know, the whole writing letter thing to somebody that has died. Ten years. That's how long it has been since I last saw you but to be honest it feels like another lifetime entirely, one where we both were just scared kids trying to survive in an apocalyptic world. A world that neither of us belonged in. Sometimes it feels like I'm still there, hiding and trying to survive everyday. And in a way, I am.
Now you're dead and I'm stuck in America, trying to make a life for myself. And I've tried, you know. I've had jobs to keep myself busy and when those didn't work, didn't distract me from suffocating in my emotions, I travelled around a bit in Africa and tried the whole intimacy thing with a bunch of people. Not that I'm any good at intimacy. But most of the time it doesn't seem to do anything. And sometimes when I feel like I'm getting somewhere, I end up taking a dozen steps backwards anyway. It's not easy to pretend you're okay when you're not. Which is why I suppose I'm doing this, the whole letter thing, as bottling stuff up isn't healthy for anyone. According to Rosie's weird psychiatric nurse friend, that spends way too much time in front of the mirror, it's taking years off my life. That should be on a fridge magnet. Bottling stuff up takes years off your life. Give it some bright colours and turn the phrase all catchy and rhythmic, and it's good to go.
Not that I would tell him this, as his egotistical head is already bigger than his ass, but he's right. Well, kind of. I am bottling stuff up, emotions, and it's getting me into trouble. To be honest I'm not looking for it, it just happens. I'm not as bad as I used to be when I first came to America. Anyway, you used to do the same to, back when you were alive. Before the war, almost every night you would have come home with a few coppers. Vandalism. Disorderly conduct. Mum used to be so furious and screamed the place down for hours. That's why I picked you for this thing. I know you get it. You won't look at me with that look, the pity mixed with frustration, that I'm doing this. Well, you're dead so you aren't able to but despite that you get it. You get that I'm trying not to think or feel but to distract myself from that empty hole inside.
I remember how I hated those screaming matches Mum had with you. Back then, they used to scare me so much. Make me freeze on the spot because the people I love more than anything were fighting. Now they kinda pale in comparison with the other stuff that has happened. After those matches, you were so drained. You were always trying to hold back tears when you were around me. At the time I didn't realise it but now I know it was your way of being strong around me, so that I didn't see you break.
When I was seven, and you were fifteen, you used to tiptoe into my room and crawled into my Jurassic Park bed, wanting to cuddle up. You were drunk off your socks, humming eighties songs out of tune and oh boy you stunk. Sour grape, strong cigarettes that smelled like Dad's sweaty armpits when he used to go fishing out with his lads and cheap stale mints. Probably to attempt to hide the fact that you smoked weed and drank like a bloody pirate. Not that those mints worked because anyone a mile away could instantly tell what state you were in. Maybe then I should have realised how sad you were, but I wasn't exactly the brightest of kids seventeen years ago.
Sometimes it only feels like yesterday when you used to do this. Now when I wake up in the middle of the night, I hold my breath and wait. I'd be so still, heart pounding away in my chest. If I move in a certain position, I would hear it as if it's right next to my ear. And I would watch my bedroom door, and I would be hoping that the old creaking in the hallway is you coming up. Perhaps to hum another out of tune eighties song or to comfort me after I have another nightmare. Then I would wait a few moments more and that's when I would hear Rosie's voice talking to that annoying ugly fur-ball beast, that cat, and I remember.
You aren't here with me.
It isn't you and me against the world like it used to be. Close as anything. It's just me. And it sucks.
Whatever. I'll get to the point now. Today, I got arrested. Not for the first time to be honest. I'm in the cell right now, the same one that I've been visiting on and off for the past few years and waiting for Officer Sydney. Waiting for my consequence. With her it's probably another lecture about how I should move on and get my life back on track. Yawn. So original. Since I moved up here, Sydney has been one of my closest friends and we met when I got into trouble with the Sheriff's son. In my defence the guy's a prick and he had it coming. Broken nose – proudest moment of my life.
But she's always talking. Therapy. Education or get another boring, crappy job. I know she cares; I can see it in her lightly bruised eyes when she looks at me and how she constantly seems to be holding herself back. She's always tiptoeing around me like I'm broken glass on the floor. But I always shove her away. I'm not good at accepting help, letting people in, and because I don't how to accept it, I lash out. I know that's probably with my issues in trust and pride, not wanting to be seen as weak or anything to others. People take advantage, you know. When it was just Kara and me after everything, we only had each other and that was how we survived.
And I hurt her, Sydney I mean, as well as everyone else who cares for me. This time I tried, you see, promised her not to get into any more trouble with the law and in the end, I did get into more trouble.
And I tried, really, I did. But when I get drunk everything intensifies. At first there's this giddy warmth and everything's okay, that I feel like I could be okay. But then I would get these other annoying emotions that I don't want and that only causes me to drink more. In the end, the more I drink, the more I lose control of myself and that anger that I always keep under wraps starts to bubble up and say hello. But this time it was different, there was this guy who was being an ass and trying to assault this chick, so I stopped him and maybe took it a bit too far with it. At the time I thought...actually scratch that I wasn't thinking, and I reacted.
Originally, I was minding my business. I was down in the local club, having a few pints of whiskey on the rocks. The good stuff. The kind that tasted like piss, not that I would know, and burned down the throat and settle down at the pits of the stomach. I'm on good terms with the owner you see, so I'm able to get family discount on whiskey. The music was terrible as usual, loud, and fast paced which most people seem to like these days. Personally, I can't stand it but each to our own, I guess. They were dancing to it like their lives depended on it, grinding against each other so desperately that if they got any closer, they would end up sharing bodies or something. Every time I go to a club or a bar; it makes me think about how you used to say that being in places like that was like being in another world. A world where you can forget who you are and pretend to be someone else, someone that wasn't in pain. And people wouldn't care either way because why bother. They were trying just as hard to fit in that different world as well. You were right. I can forget here, and when I do, it doesn't hurt as much anymore.
Then she came over. Dark brown eyes, bright water-coloured tattoos decorated across her skin and wide bright red lips. I met her two years ago at the club and we've been meeting regularly since for a good time. She's beautiful. The kind of beauty that is fun and exciting that makes being around her so intoxicating. Being around her is like stepping onto fire, skin buzzing alive and stomach dancing with thousands of electrified bolts. I don't know much about her, just her name, which I know is silly because most people probably do know stuff about who they kiss but both of us prefer it this way. No attachments and no hurt.
This was before the fight. We were making out and I was really into it. Her lips were warm and soft against mine. Hands clinging tightly onto my jacket and pulling me closer. I was planning to go back to her place but then everything seemed too much at once. The music was screaming, the bodies surrounding us were thick blurs and tight knots were twisting around at the depths of my stomach. I couldn't breathe and I couldn't move. There was this sharp angry pang, furious grief, and I couldn't go any further. This wasn't the first time, you know; I would sober for a split second and that was enough to stop me from going away further. Pain would come crashing down on me like a storm in the desert and I would lose myself in my head.
"Sorry. Really not feeling for it tonight," I told her, pulling away.
She gave me the look. You know the one. That concerned one, where they try to see into your head and figure out what's wrong. I really hate it when they do that because I'm the one that ends up feeling like I've just committed a thousand wrongs. I pulled away quickly before I could change my mind, disappearing in the swarm of bodies. They seemed to drown me in this disgusting sweaty heat, making my head swam with dizziness and stomach clam up. To be honest I was almost tempted to turn around for her, to let her help me forget and survive another night. So that I won't see any of you when I close my eyes and spend half the night tossing and turning. But I just wanted to get out of there. I needed to get out of there. It was spinning and everything seemed to be closing in on me, and I couldn't breathe. I felt trapped and we both know how I handle tight spaces.
It was when I stepped out onto the chilling streets outside the club that trouble found me. At first everything was fine. Unlike how it can be during the day, the streets were bare and had a slight chill to them. Shadows seemed more prominent, more threatening. If I looked hard enough out there, my brain might have tricked me into seeing those monsters' eyes and I would have to remind myself that I was in America. That I was safe. That they're not here. Am I really safe if I still see the monsters? See them in my dreams, see them lingering in the shadows of the night and hear the growling as if they're right behind me when they're not.
Then I heard it. She was just a kid, probably around Kara's age. Sixteen years old. Kara never reached that age though. I think about that sometimes, that if I had done more then maybe she would have. It's my fault that our baby sister died. The girl's cries reached my ears, scared and piercing, begging him to stop.
At first, I froze, and I could feel my mind trying to take me back to the war, to survive. I think that's what happened because looking back now, it just seems so surreal. Almost like it wasn't me, kind of like I wasn't there, and I was just floating. I reacted like some feral animal when I saw the guy hurting her and I lunged at him, and both of us landed on the pavement. And I was gone, there was this blinding rage that took over and because I was drunk that got enhanced. Punches after punches, knuckles started to bruise and ache. My arms were heavy as led and it was kind of shocking that I managed to hurt the guy with such ferocity, especially in that kind of state. By the time I was done with him he looked like a right mess. His face was unrecognisable, bruised, covered in blood, and starting to swell. I don't really know how I did it to be honest, he was at least twice my size but once my fist slammed against his throat, it stunned him. What he did, what he was going to do is fucking disgusting but seeing what I did to a person's face made the muscles in my stomach tense up further. I've been thinking about this moment like crazy, emotions conflicted and at war with one and another. I don't regret hurting him like that, but I do regret what it has made me become in that moment. Angry, scared, someone who had a desperate need to hurt him.
When I got back to my senses it was too late. The coppers were already here and pulling me off the guy. Waves of confusion had hit me. The kind you get when you fell asleep but didn't mean to and wake up in a place you don't recognise. Everything seemed to have happened so fast from then.
Officer Sydney was there and pulled me aside. She handcuffed me against her car and looked at me with such hurt disappointment that I couldn't stand to look at her for to long. The sharp pang was back, and it made my eyes burn with tears.
"I'm...I don't know," I said.
Words just stumbled out of my mouth, slurred, and scared. I felt like a scolded child at that time, unsure of what was going to happen and scared of what it might be.
Sydney didn't say anything after that. She hugged me, tight as anything, and that was when I noticed I was shaking like a leaf. I don't know how long we stood like that for but by the time we were off in her car, racing towards the station, I calmed down and could feel myself starting to sober. Heaviness settled over my shoulders, the tired kind, and that pang in my gut sharpened more. The weight of the world, I guess.
Then she left me in my favourite cell, slamming the door so hard that it shook the place and made my ears ring. And that's how I got here. This old red journal notebook came from the guy who's high as a sailor in the cell next to mine, singing loudly about apples and pears.
Sometimes I wonder what the hell has this world come to.
Once you said you never wanted this for me. This lifestyle. It was before the Apocalypse war started and we were hiding out in the garden with cream and cinnamon hot chocolate. It was a cold night; our breaths came out like pale blue clouds, and we were cuddled together in a bright red and blue polka dot blanket. I never seen you look so broken before; eyes crystallised over and lips trembling. That night you spoke about how it changed everything for you, the way people treated you like some plague and how you changed entirely from the moment you first stepped foot into it. How the alcohol numbed the pain and guilt, making it go away for a period of time. And how you couldn't stop because you were scared to, that if you tried you wouldn't know how else to hold on. To be honest I wish I listened to you, to not follow down this path, to find another way to cope with it all but it's too late. I don't know how to move past this, and I'm scared that if I try things might fall apart even more, and I don't how to handle that.
Crap! I got to go, looks like Officer Sydney and I are going to have another talk about this.
From,
Lily