Aurelia
I open my door slightly. It's been a week since Jess and Lindsay's deaths and five days since their funeral. Our family and the entire school attended it. Willow was quiet for the entire time apart from that one time when she snapped at someone who said that Lindsay was a wonderful person who didn't have a temper at all. Willow almost hit that girl saying how she hardly knew Lindsay who got angry very easily. She didn't even say anything at the funeral. What's more frightening is that she hasn't even cried. She just sits in her room all day long, listening to their voicemails, reading their text messages, rummaging through their gifts. Sometimes you can hear her laughing as she watches some of their videos. But that's all. My heart wrenches at her sight.
I come inside the room and she's sitting on the bed, staring out of the window aimlessly. There's no make up on her face and she looks haggard, not something Willow looks like even after she wakes up in the morning.
"Low I brought you food. And your medicines as well." I say as I place the tray on her bed. She doesn't look at me.
"Low?" I say again.
Still no response.
I shake her hand gently. "Low?"
She looks at me. "Hmm?"
"Have your food and medicines." I say softly and she doesn't say anything but just sits up straighter.
I pour out some water for her and take out her pills. I stir her soup and hand her the medicines first. After she had fainted in the hospital that day, we had taken her home instead along with the doctor. It wouldn't have been fine for her to stay there after the place being associated with traumatic memories. She was being given medicines for shock along with advice to stay at home.
She takes the pills and gulps them down with a sip of water before opening her mouth for the food. I feed her spoonfuls of soup and she takes them in without a word. The weather out here is dreary and cold.
As I finish with her, I wipe out a tear from the corner of my eye and go outside. Blake stands up straight from where he was leaning and looks at me.
"How did it go?" He asks me.
I sigh. "Today, she atleast finished the whole soup. And she wasn't even going over some memories. Physical memories. All she was doing was staring in the space."
"You should take her out." He says and I ponder over the idea which we'd been meaning to go over since the past few days.
"Know what, I'd do that right now." I say.
Before giving him a chance to speak, I go inside the room and say with a smile on my face, never mind how fake it is.
"Hey Low, I think we should go out somewhere, just the two of us!" I say excitedly and she just stares at me with no emotion.
"Let's go to the park! Where we used to go in our childhood?" I say.
"Nah." She says nonchalantly.
"The mall maybe? You needed some new nail polish bottles, didn't you?"
"No."
"Your favourite eatery?"
"Not in the mood."
"The church?" I ask now, losing all hope.
She jerks her head towards me and bites her lip as she thinks about it.
"Yes. I want to go to the church." She says and gets up to change.
I mentally thank God and smile as I move away.
"She's ready to come to the church. I'm so happy, Blake." I say and he smiles a bit. We move down the stairs and wait for Willow to come. Of course, Blake won't accompany us. He'll go to his own place. It's then that I recieve a call from Elise.
"Aurelia?" She says.
"Yes Elise?"
"I don't mean to trouble you but we have to submit our project tomorrow since it's the deadline and we haven't even started." She says.
"Oh fuck!" I say when I'm reminded of the project. It is lenghthy and it'll take me hours to complete it. In midst of this tragedy, I had completely forgotten to start the project.
"I'll be at your place in fifteen minutes." I say and look at Blake who has overheard the entire conversation and was now looking at me with one brow raised. "What are you gonna do now?"
"I can't cancel on Willow." I say,"It's too important. She hasn't gone out for a long time and we can't bail out on her when she's so sensitive." I ramble and then Willow appears on the stairs. She's wearing a full sleeved white shirt and white jeans with no make up at all.
Suddenly, without thinking, I blurt out.
"Willow, Blake will be taking you to the church!"
Blake jerks his head at me and he doesn't seem pleased at all. He gives me a 'what-the-fuck' look and I plead to him with my eyes.
He says 'okay, but you'll have to make it up to me later' through his eyes again and I smile at how we can communicate simply through our eyes.
Willow is looking at us and she looks away and shrugs when we catch her. She simply walks off towards his car. I and Blake also follow her and I catch him before he moves inside.
"Remember, you won't be mean, you don't even need to talk a lot to her, just be polite and nice. Please do this, for me. Don't make me regret leaving you with her. The anguish she is going through is greater than her feelings for you. So don't even worry about her making a pass at you." I say and he holds my hand.
"Of course honey, I promise. Now let a man get some pleasure." He says and runs his lips across my jaw and kissing me tenderly over there, leaving fire with his warm lips.
"The man got enough pleasure I think. Now go before someone comes over here." I laugh and push him away and he feigns hurt by placing his hand over her heart. He winks at me and throws a flying kiss as he drives off leaving smoke in it's trail.