Dawn Chamberlin
Weeks past. The grass outside becomes frozen. The petals on flowers freeze in the frigid air. The end of november brings the cold and with that, it brings clads of teenage girls in expensive fur coats and boys in layers of sweaters and cardigans.
Thanksgiving break is too short, Dawn decides to stay at school for the holiday, explaining to her parents that they serve better pumpkin pie at Vale Amare than their chefs at home do. They don't disagree with her, blow her kisses through the phone and then hang up before she can say mumble an I love you.
The phone line crackles, feeling empty just the school does. There's very few people who stay for the holidays at school, some jet off to paris or amsterdam for the week, others fly back home to enjoy the remains of the warm weather in places like malibu with their parents and personal drivers.
Dawn moves through the hall like a ghost and thanksgiving evening feels like looking at a postcard from someone who never calls anymore.
It smells like turkey in the dining hall and most of the tables have been pushed to the side, creating more empty space for the 100 or so students that don't want to go home to a table that feels like a faint memory that isn't even theirs.
Dawn stands, legs snapped together, plate in hand full of mashed potatoes and green beans. Her eyes wander and land on Nick, Ashton and Eileen. There is a somber cloud over them and Dawn braces herself for the rain as she approaches the table and sits down.
It's silent, Eileen messes with her brown bob every two seconds, pushing it down and looking to Ashton maybe hoping he'll get the conversation ball rolling. Nick is slouched down, rumpled shirt and a light purple bruise on his pale jawline.
Ever since the party, the feeling of being around them was like standing in a thick air of despair. Anna had filled her in on everything, cried until she passed out on one of Dawn's knees while she wove strands of Anna's dark hair through her fingers. Miles hadn't talked to her about it and he hadn't left his room since Layla left for break.
The chaos she had caused was damage done well. Their group had split apart, Eileen stuck to Ashton like glue as if erasing the fact that she knew anyone else, Lance vanished along with Anna and Blake. Dawn felt like she was stuck to pick up the pieces but there was no one else willing to help.
Dawn shoves her hands in her lap, tapping her jeans. Nobody says anything and the chatter is so quiet in the room if someone sneezed it would be unbelievably loud.
"It could be worse," She tries and their heads perk up at her comment.
"Everything could always be worse," Nick stares at a stain on the table. "We just don't say it until things get bad."
Another silence follows and thanksgiving dinner for them is a forced joke here and there and the clinking of forks with a troubling aura set over the table. Eileen acts like nothing is wrong and Ashton goes along with it. The meal is them flirting and giggling.
Dawn knows Eileen knew everything that happened but the girl was so narcissistic unless it directly affected her she didn't care. Miles used to be like that but something in him had changed recently. It hadn't been Layla, it was something different.
After dinner and they clean their dishes up, Dawn follows Nick as they reach outside, falling into step with him. She needed to fix this.
"I need to talk to you," Dawn grabs the fabric of his blue sweater and he hesitates before facing her. As the moon sets over them the cold spreads and Dawn shivers in just jeans, sneakers and a thin shirt. Goosebumps arise on her arms.
"What about?" He rolls his eyes like he's already done with her before she's even had the chance to open her mouth. She crosses her arms, furrowing her eyebrows together. The freckles speckled across her nose become more prominent as her nose turns pink.
"Don't talk to me like that," Dawn snaps and Nick rolls his eyes, like a teacher is lecturing him. "Anna is my best friend so I'm going to fix this."
"I thought Miles was your best friend," Nick says in a mocking tone and when she glares at him he shakes his head, his voice dropping an octave. "Anna hates me."
"You lied to her, Nicholas."
"Oh, god, you sound like my mother," He says, looking up at the sky, exasperated.
"Stop acting like you don't care, I know you do," Dawn says.
"I don't care," He says, not convincingly.
"I thought you were a better liar than that," She bites out, venom passing through her words.
Nick pauses and acts as if he's going to walk away but he freezes, biting his lip. He looks lost, almost hopeless but he's trying to mask it with an air of carelessness but Dawn knows better. She can read people, always sees the best in the them.
"I didn't mean to lie," He sighs, closing his eyes like trying to block out his own memories. "I just, uh, didn't want anybody to know how I felt about Emma."
"How did you feel about her?"
"Don't make me say it."
"You loved her and because she's dead you think you're never allowed to love anybody else," Dawn says and Nick looks like he's fighting back tears, swallows and looks at the ground.
"I didn't think there would be anybody else."
Dawn considers her words carefully before speaking. Steels herself by breathing in deep and shaking her hands out, placing them by her sides.
"You're released from whatever promises you made Emma. You have someone that loves you and cares about you, don't throw it away. Fix it, Nick."
"What if I can't? What if she hates me forever?"
"Forever is a long time, Nick. You have time."
He's not crying but tears pin prick his eyes and he could have sniffled and said it was the cold air outside but he doesn't, he swallows and looks past Dawn, behind her at the school that's more like a castle of blue people and the undoubtful feeling that one day, nothing could be worse because it's already as bad as it can be.
Anna Kyle
If there was an award for avoiding someone I really think I would win.
Thanksgiving comes and goes so quickly, I barely remember the flight home, a week of being back in my room and then that big ol family dinner where we talk about all the things we're grateful for.
I would have said Nick if he hadn't lied to me.
I was still trying to wrap my mind around, Nick and Emma. I had known, from the moment I said her name and saw the look cross over his face, it was painted like a masterpiece. I knew Nick had been hiding things from me but the 'dated a girl who tragically died' secret was worse than things like getting expelled from prep school.
The sour taste in my mouth didn't go away and it got worse every time I realized what a horrible person I was for being angry at him for being in love. She had died and I was pissed at the both of them. If Emma was still here would he even care about me? If she was alive, would I even be in the picture? I felt like I had harshly replaced her and I hadn't even known it. Even though I had never met her, I didn't even know what she looked like for god sakes, but i feel as if I had shoved myself in and pushed her out of Nick's life. The thought disgusts me. I hate myself for it.
I need to feel better, I need to know more about her, I need to know that I didn't replace her. I have to talk to Blake again.
He should get an award for avoiding people too.
Savannah isn't in class, I skip the one I have with Nick and at meals I eat as fast as possible or not at all. i wonder if Blake is taking that route. I understand why he doesn't want to see Nick, he broke both our hearts.
I finally see Blake after almost a week of being back at school. He's in the dining hall throwing away the remains of his food as I walk in. I make my move right away jumping in front of him as he goes to leave.
"I need to talk to you," I say.
"Congratulations," He says, sarcastically and shoves past me to head outside. I follow him. We're outside now and the cold air hits my knees. I trail right behind Blake.
"I didn't even know Emma!" I blurt out. He freezes like I hit him. Turns around slowly and faces me, blank expression.
"I know you didn't," He responds, looking more at the ground than me.
"Then why are you angry with me?" I cross my arms, chilly air creeping up and over my skin.
"I'm not I just," He pauses and roughly runs a hand over his hair. "Fuck, I don't know!"
"Yeah, me neither," I say, a hint of annoyance slipping into my voice.
"I'm sorry, I just," He shakes his head. "I don't know what I'm doing anymore."
We both freeze and I hold out a hand to him. He curiously takes it and we walk across campus, the air getting colder and the sky getting darker as I take him to the place Nick had shown me. He's silent and stoic as we reach closer and eventually lets go of my hand but keeps following me anyway.
I'm shivering once we duck through the trees to stand at the body of water that ripples quietly as if whispering secrets. I mistakenly only wear a thin dress with a cardigan over it. Blake sees me shaking and tears his thick sweater off, revealing a tight fitted t-shirt. I gladly take it and slip it over the dress. It's still warm from him and the sleeves slip over my hands.
We stand at the base of the water, hidden by trees and the smell of mud and frozen grass is prominent. He doesn't say anything for awhile and I think maybe he thought I just brought him here to stare at something that looked alive but wasn't; a pond that knew everything.
I consider what I should tell Blake, what I should ask him but only one story pops into my head.
"When I went back home last week," I take a deep breath, Blake watches me closely as I stare at a small bed of flowers that have stopped growing. "My parents barely asked me anything. I think they got so used to not having me there that my existence was confusing to them." I take another pause.
"When I was 12 years old, they left me alone for a whole weekend to go to this spa retreat thing. I lived off spaghettios and kept the lights on the whole weekend because I was so scared about being alone," I look at Blake. "Sometimes I still feel like I'm stuck in that place, sleeping with all the lights on."
He looks confused. "Why are you telling me?"
"Because my parents got mad at me about the electric bill."
"Oh," He says. Pauses. "Is that a metaphor for letting go, like if I don't let go of the past i'm only going to end up with something bad?"
"Yeah, I guess so."
We break eye contact and go back to looking at the little details of nature. Darkness washes over us and the moon comes out to say hello. She remembers me from last time I was here with Nick and gives a small chuckle. The stars giggle.
"Can I tell you something?" Blake asks. I nod. He inhales deeply, shakes in his hands and then shoves them into the pockets of his jeans. "Okay, I can do this," He's mumbling mostly to himself and then he glances and me and blurts it out and I can see how scared he gets. "I'm gay." Blake looks down and then gives a faint chuckle that matches the moon's.
"I'm gay," He says it again like maybe this is the first time he's accepting it. Knowing that it's okay. He's smiling but it quickly fades. "I'm totally head over heels in love with Miles Calaway."
I don't react because I'm not sure how to, out of everyone of course it was Miles. The one person that's Layla's right hand man.
"Does he know?" I ask. Blake seems shocked that I would ask that and not anything else. Maybe he expected me to ask questions about liking boys but I liked boys too. I would never be scared like him of openly admitting it though. That part about it was sad.
"Yes," He laughs bitterly. "That's why he's with Layla. She knows. Has some pictures of us that aren't very, uh, very straight for lack of a better word."
"Jesus," I say, that anger I feel towards her kicking in. "She's horrible."
"Miles' dad would actually kill him if he knew," Blake shakes his head. "Emma told me once she didn't understand people who could hate their kids for being someone other than who they wanted them to be, someone different."
Her name hits me right in the bones and I feel like freeze my insides. I swallow what feels like a mouthful of metal.
"Did she know about you?"
"Yeah, her and Savannah were the only ones that knew for a long time," He says. "Emma and I were going to tell my parents together before she-" He stops talking abruptly.
"You don't have to say it."
"No, I need to admit it. I need to switch the lights off," He waves his fingers like flipping an invisible switch.
He doesn't say it though, not in that moment but I think it runs through his head. I feel like I did on my first day, which feels like a whole universe away, a completely different time and place in space, I'm afraid.
"Did you know I'm the only here on scholarship?" I knew he would like the change of subject but now that I've shifted the attention over to me I regret it.
He shakes his head lightly. "Wouldn't have guessed that one," He smiles, mostly to comfort me.
"I wouldn't have guessed the gay thing," I joke.
"Yeah, I'm pro at the straight, rich, white boy bit ," Blake chuckles, softly.
There's another long stretch of silence again before I speak.
"Are you still angry at Nick?" My throat cracks on his name.
"I think I'm angrier at the fact that he never told me. I always thought she had a crush on him," He trails off. "But she never told me either."
"What else was Emma like?" I ask and then I want to smack my own head for being so selfish. I only want to know things about her so I can compare myself to how she was and what Nick saw in her.
"Smart," Blake smiles as if recalling a fond memory. A nostalgic smile. "Really compassionate, but she hid it for some reason, had a lot of wild dreams. She wanted to go to the moon, wanted to travel and see the whole world."
I feel like I'm going to be sick. She got nothing she wanted, she died and all because of one too many drinks and a bad slip that had caused her to be nothing but a ghost and all those dreams she had floated off to nothingness, evaporated.
"I'm sorry," I say, fiddling with my fingers.
"It's not your fault that Emma died."
I know those words are a big deal for Blake so I give him a forced smile and then stare up at the moon that Emma wanted to go too. I wonder if ghosts can go anywhere and if Emma lived up in the space and had become best friends with all the burning stars and galaxies that made up the whole entire universe; the same thing that felt like it was lodged inside my throat and was expanding, breaking my body. Whole universes should not live inside of people because people break and that kind of beauty is too much for anyone.
Including Nick.
Nick had galaxies beyond galaxies inside of him, stars and planets and black holes and everytime we touched the atoms spread to me and I too was becoming a universe but it was choking me, not setting me free.
I wanted to forgive him for lying to me about knowing Emma, I don't know why it hurt me so much. Maybe because I had always felt alone, not even a single burning sun rested in me and when I met Nick he placed clusters of stars inside of me.
And now they were going out, one by one because I suddenly felt alone again, not a universe, not a galaxy, not the moon or even a black hole, I was just floating through space with no oxygen and sooner or later I would be lost forever.