I fold my arms around my torso and hold deathly still while I listen to the elevator take off with a quiet explosion. I stand shaking in the cold winter air, facing the house, watching as snowflakes seem to hover in midair for a few seconds before falling softly to the ground. It's only been four hours since I left, the sun is still high in the sky, but it does nothing to combat the ice that seeps into my very bones.
A while later, Charlie comes out of the house and trudges toward me, his step noticeably heavier than I've ever seen it. I shiver and realize I'm a great deal colder than before. How long have I been out here?
"Dawn, it's time to come in," he says, taking my trembling hand in his smaller, warmer hand. Charlie tugs on my arm and I allow him to lead me into the house without responding.
"Aw, Dawn." Grandpa Joe opens his arms. Charlie takes my coat and hangs it up to dry off the melted snowflakes.
"Come here, darling," Grandma Georgina says, for once, knowing exactly what's going on. She pats the bed, but I make no move to sit with them or allow them to comfort me. Mum is sitting in the corner, fingers on her temples, rubbing in circular motions.
"Mum..." I finally start.
"What? What is it?" she snaps sharply. She rises and storms over to me, I flinch, then recoil at my cowardice. Since when did I become so afraid of everything? "You want to know why I lied to you? Because you were a child! Because you wouldn't understand that I just wanted to give you the best life I could and it would never be as good as the life he had. No, I didn't want you and Willy to be friends because I didn't want him to look at you differently when you got older and had to work while he didn't. The problem wasn't with him, it was with your friendship. I liked his father too, but I knew before long he would realize us for what we are. Dirty, poor, miserable servants. And I wanted to leave before that happened. Luckily, he took care of that for me."
Luckily? Is she insane? I lost my best, and only, friend ever because she didn't want me to be jealous of his easy life. From what I could tell, Will's life wasn't all hearts and roses. He has at least a few moments that still haunt him.
"Is that what you wanted to know, Dawn? Is that what you wanted to hear me say? Is that what you were going to ask?"
I stare at the ground with dull eyes. In a more monotonous tone that I though I could manage, I respond. "I...I um...just wanted to ask if we had wood out back. W...Wi..." I take a deep breath. "Will...he um...damaged the side of the house."
I point at the corner where the ceiling meets the wall and the recently ripped hole is letting cold air get in. I have no more tears left to cry. My heart has squeezed itself to a small black orb. I don't care anymore. My mind has sunken to that dark place bad memories take me, but now there's no coming back, now my mind has made itself comfortable, now my mind has settled itself into the dark nooks, now my mind is used to the cold misery.
Mum looks at me, mouth gaping slightly. Charlie wraps arms around me, but I don't respond. The grandparents look at me with sympathetic eyes and put wrinkled, experienced hands over their hearts.
"Well, I'm glad you're putting all this behind you." Oh, it's not behind me. It's going to be here forever, sitting just behind my eyes, stealing smiles one by one, swallowing me and choking my life away bit by bit as I trudge on in this life of darkness. I once thought I had to navigate the darkness for seven people, now I realize it's only for six. You may think it's my mother that I'm leaving behind because of all she's done, but it's not her. I couldn't do that. It's me. I don't even have to leave myself behind because I'm already lost to the darkness. I was never navigating for myself because I got lost when I took on the responsibility of navigating for the others. Mum offers a sad smile. "I think there're a few planks."
I nod and turn. My hand is on the doorknob when Charlie catches my other hand. "Wait, Dawn, you need your coat."
I pull my hand away gently. "No. No, I don't." That monotonous voice isn't mine. It is dry and unfeeling, that of desert sand sifting in the arid hot air of those malicious voices around me.
Closing the door behind me softly, I don't even feel the cold. I've pushed all feelings down, cold, sadness, warmth, anger, they're deeper than I've ever pushed anything. I retrieve the wood and my toolbelt as well as a stepstool and get to work.
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That night, I sit down with a runny nose and dry eyes. My fingers are still cold from working outside, but I hardly notice besides their stiff movement. Mum hands me a bowl of steaming water with a few strands of cabbage. "Charlie won a lifetime supply of chocolate, so we'll have chocolate after this. I'm sorry it's so meager, but maybe we can get some money by selling some chocolate?"
Mum looks to Charlie, who lights up at the idea that he could help us out. "Of course!"
I look down at the "meager" soup and listen to everyone else dig in, bearing in mind the idea of chocolate after. Grandpa George gestures to my bowl with his spoon and says, "Go on, eat up. You're thin as a twig, put a little meat on those bones, girl."
I lift a spoonful and let it splash back into the bowl. "I'm not hungry."
"You haven't eaten today, you have to be hungry," Mum tells me. That's not true, I ate chocolate today. I ate chocolate for the first time today. It was so rich in flavor and different than anything I've ever had that I don't think I could stomach something this bland again. Regardless, I don't complain, I just carefully sip a little bit of pulpy liquid. The instant it hits my stomach, nausia rises in my throat, then bile.
I drop my bowl, causing the liquid to splatter on the floor and wall, and stumble to the door, barely making it before vomiting on the already dirty snow. I sit back, quivering all over, muscles spasming and mouth gasping for the clean air of the night. I stand on wobbling legs and gaze out into the literal darkness with no light to guide me. It's not that late, but it is winter. Even for it being winter, it's especially dark tonight and I can't help but think the sun ran away early on purpose. Ran away from me, ran away from Charlie, ran away from Will, ran away from the people who need it most. It must be nice to run, easy. The simple way to deal with your problems. I would run. I would if there were somewhere to go. But there isn't. So I gulp down a few more lungfuls of air, then turn and go back inside on unsteady feet. I clean up my mess and ignore the people trying to talk to me, trying to embrace me.
"I'm going to bed," I declare. I make my rounds, kissing heads and giving hugs, but there is no warmth in my lips, and there is no warmth in my heart. I climb the stairs, avoiding the bed that Mum claims just fell through the floor on its own. I'll fix that tomorrow, but tonight, I just need to sleep. Which is easier said than done. I lay, listening to Charlie's breathing as he sleeps with Mum in her small bed.
I sit up on the cold, hard wood and look out the hole in the roof at the stars and the moon. I'll fix that the day after tomorrow, if there's time.
I remember long nights spent looking up at the night sky. I remembered that before remembering Will, but now I know why. We used to look at the stars together, it became our 'thing'. I kept doing it even after we were separated, it comforted me to know he was looking at the same stars even though we weren't together. I used to ask Will if my smile was prettier than this star or that, and he always said I was more radiant than them all.
After he left, I still wondered if he would think me more beautiful than the stars I saw, but there was no way of getting a response, so I assumed the answer was no. My first night in our new house was rough. I had no way of getting on the roof to look at the stars, and there was no hole in the roof yet, so I sat in the old window seat all night.
That seat was taken out to conserve space for more important things later, but I still wanted to look at the stars, so seven-year-old-me piled blankets on the table and pushed it against the window to see the moon and stars most nights.
The stars soon became more important than the boy I once associated them with. I eventually forgot that I used to share them with anyone and began enjoying this time alone. I didn't look at the stars because they reminded me of Will, I looked at them simply because they came with the quiet solitude of night. The same year I began sitting on the blanketed table though, I started to work and was increasingly too exhausted every night to do this pleasurable activity. So I stopped. Star gazing became a treat. It was twice a week, then once a week, then once a month, then once every other month, until it was only once or twice a year.
When I was twelve, the year before Charlie was born, my family went to this one party. I don't even remember what it was for, but I wore a white dress. Mum bought it special for that party, and it was the only dress I owned for years. I made myself a flower crown to go with it and felt so beautiful. I thought I looked like a forest sprite and I was happy for the first and last time in a long time. That night, after the party, I saw a ladder leaning up against the house and had a strange compulsion to climb it. So I did. Mum and the grandparents who went to the party traipsed inside, tired from the day and I promised to be in shortly.
I climbed the ladder carefully and crawled my way to the peak of the roof where I sat and looked at the stars.
I didn't know why, but I had the strangest urge to ask someone if I was pretty. The only one around was a crow, but when I asked, it cawed nastily and took flight. I interpreted that as a no, but I had thought I was pretty, so I got mad. Mad was the only alternative to sad, so I was often mad.
I realize now that I had wanted to ask Will if I was pretty, but I didn't know that then. I thought I just wanted self-verification, and I got mad at myself. I stood and shuffled down the roof, back to the ladder. I passed over a weak spot in the roof and my foot broke through, the origin of the hole in the roof today.
You might ask why it wasn't ever fixed, that was because I liked looking out of it. I liked seeing the stars because they made me happy. I realize now that the vague, disconnected memory of Will was what made me happy, but I didn't know that then.
There's a lot I didn't know before, memories that make sense now after Will's unlocked a part of my memory that was sealed to protect me. I guess I'll just have to seal those memories away again. I'll just aclimate to this life again. I'll forget that I ever knew happiness. I'll forget I ever knew Will. I'll forget I ever remembered how to smile.
I lay down again, finally exhausted enough to fall into a dreamless sleep. Dreams are for those naive enough to believe they will ever come true, even my subconscious knows that.
The next morning I wake up, achy and stiff from sleeping on the hardwood floor all night. I climb downstairs and refuse to eat breakfast, afraid of a repeat of last night, and begin to get my tools to fix the bed situation when Mum stops me.
She turns us to the corner and lowers her voice so only I hear. "I talked to a representative of Mr. Wonka's who delivered the chocolate yesterday. He said that the chocolate isn't for resale. They promised Charlie a lifetime supply of all the chocolate he could eat. That includes his family, but they won't continue to give us chocolate and allow us to sell it."
She looks up with an apologetic expression. I sigh and guess, "You want me to work today." Mum nods and wrings her hands. I gesture with a hammer at the disaster falling through the ceiling. "What about the bed?"
"Don't worry about that! Charlie can sleep with me, it'll be alright for another few weeks." I want to protest that I usually sleep in that bed with him, to ask if I'm meant to sleep on the unsturdy floor every night, but I don't. I don't have the energy to protest. Mum must not sense it because she turns her attention to work once again. "You'll have to go out today, but it's just for a little bit longer. I'll find a stable job and you won't have to work so much."
I'm already bundled up to scrounge for some wood on the streets for the ceiling, so I have everything I need to go out and work. Everything except my goggles. Those are gone forever, but I don't even want them anymore. My eyes are just going to get dried out by the wind, and I'm just going to stick it out. I reach for the doorknob and twist as I meet Mum's eyes with a steely, spiteful gaze and shake my head slowly. "There you go again with the lies."
I already miss Will! Dawn does too, though she has a funny way of showing it. What do you think will happen? Will they even reunite in my version? How will they reunite? Charlie doesn't meet him first, I'll tell you that. Can Dawn even come back from this new level of forsaken? Comment all thoughts and theories! I love reading comments, they help motivate me to write more. As always, thank you for reading, you're awsome!
xoxo, Tilly