Darkness settled in layers. Grief bloomed beneath the cold moonlight. Despite Caiden’s presence, I felt undeniably alone. Was it inevitable for us to end up like this? Drenched with remnants of our anger, forced to survive together and not break. Doomed to hate each other, and die with each other.
A shadowed presence pressed close to my side. Was it Lillian? Or some other fragment of loss? The black woods shivered around me, and the trees went on and on.
These days, my heart was quiet, like chalk ground down to dust. The shudder of unseen things dragged their hunger through the dark, preying on our exhausted minds.
Time dissolved into fog out here. Bleeding througha haze of our decay. The dark watched us, almost mockingly. I looked closely into the dark, seeking some sort of light. Some slither of hope. Aching and and waiting for a glimpse of something soft.
Nothing moved but the haunt. Nothing answered but the dark. Always. My head pulsed with black static. A scream rose up my throat, but never left the bone.
I was beginning to lose sight of myself, of my hatred, of Caiden, of civilization.
All warmth became memory. Scattered in the ghost-light of the dark. The starless sky was no comfort, cascading like a beastly creature.
The ache of what does not return is spun into the marrow of night. An absence so deep like black water in the bones of winter.
I looked towards the sky.
Is this how you felt, Lillian? When you slipped away? Empty and alone?
I thought of my mother. How she might be feeling right now. Would she be cold and lonely too? Would she be wrapped up in her drugs right now? Does she think of me? Or her dead daughter?
I wish you would come back, mommy. But you won’t. And neither will I. Neither will Lillian. Both of your daughters are lost to the darkness, just like you.
THE PAST
AMELIA’S BREAKING POINT
It was graduation day. I stood outside my mother’s room, my knuckles poised to knock on the door, but hesitation lingered in the air like a storm cloud.
Tension had thickened between us over the past few days, festering ever since I confronted her about the secret that had come to light.
I approached cautiously, my hand reaching out to touch her shoulder. She flinched at my touch, as if I had startled her from a trance, and the photo slipped from her fingers, clattering against the floor. I caught a glimpse of Lillian’s face, frozen in a moment of joy that felt impossibly distant.
“What?” she snapped.
I instinctively recoiled, retracting my sympathy like a wounded animal. For a fleeting moment, I had hoped for a tender word, a flicker of kindness to bridge the chasm that had grown between us. But my hopes sank, drowned in the weight of her indifference.
“Are you coming to my graduation?” I asked, my heart racing with a mix of anticipation and dread.
Her gaze remained fixed on the wall, avoiding mine as if it held some unbearable truth. A sense of dread coiled in my stomach. Was she under the influence of something? Her eyes had a glazed, distant look, as if she were peering into another realm.
She blinked slowly, as if my words took time to reach her. “No, I cannot make it.”
A stone dropped within me, sinking deep into the pit of my gut. I had hoped that despite the grief consuming her, she would want to witness her last daughter’s milestone.
I was alive, breathing, yet she seemed utterly indifferent to my existence.
Disappointment crawled into the air between us, erecting walls that felt insurmountable.
“Why do you have to be like this, Mom? I’m graduating; this is huge! You don’t even want to support me?” My voice trembled with pent-up frustration.
She clenched her jaw, the muscles taut, before turning away and walking toward the window, a familiar retreat. She had taken to staring out that window more often lately, lost in a world beyond the glass.
“I do not want to go anywhere, Amelia. I lost my daughter; I need time.” Her voice was hollow, echoing the void that had replaced her warmth.
Fury ignited within me. Yes, her daughter was dead, my sister was dead. But I was here, alive, and desperate for her acknowledgment.
“Cut the bullshit, Mom. I’m grieving too, but I’m still living my life. I’m alive, and I’m right here, but you don’t seem to care!”
