She said it would get easier.
She actually said those exact words within two minutes of telling me, after my entire world fell apart at the seams.
It wasn't something I was expecting, not in the least. No one expects it.
Of course, it's in the back of your head, a faint knowledge that it'll happen but you put it off because it's not supposed to happen for a long time.
For me, it wasn't supposed to happen for decades.
I'm still sitting here, staring back at her with tears in my eyes because what else was I supposed to do?
Maybe a 'oh well, when life gives you lemons' would suffice to her?
What was she expecting me to do, how was she expecting me to respond to this news? I want her to tell me how because I don't honestly know how to cope with it.
There's this gaping hole that's opened up in my stomach, hungry and vicious, satiating itself on my internal organs. Ripping into each structure as if it were its last meal, sharp canines tearing the vessels and forcing blood to spill into my chest and stomach.
That's what it feels like.
I suppose that's what everyone meant when they said they were being 'ripped apart from within'.
"Elbina? Did you hear me?"
Of course, I heard you!
I want to shout at her.
I want to punch her in her stupid face in all honesty, but that wouldn't get me anywhere, would it?
It was obvious from the moment I woke up this morning, that something was wrong. I may be young, only five, but I was at least intuitive. Intuitive enough to know that the strange man waking me up, when it should have been my brother, wasn't right.
His expression calm and professional, gently waking me and getting me out of bed in the early morning, but he didn't belong.
And I didn't belong here, in this room, looking at this woman who I'd been driven four hours to meet. Who had taken all my belongings and shoved them into a blank looking room with a nervous smile on her face.
I never asked the question, what was happening?
It's probably because secretly I already knew, I just didn't want a confirmation.
Suddenly, breaking through everything is the touch of her hand on my arm. Without thought I retract away from her, pasting myself to the other side of the sofa away from her.
I probably look like a rabid animal, breathing heavy and tear-soaked cheeks from eyes that sting like anything.
"Where's my brother?" I manage to stutter out, cracking from my throat horrendously. A sob desperate to escape but I can't let it, I needed to know.
I needed to know how and why, and who I even had left.
She only shrugs her shoulders silently, except that isn't good enough for me.
So I shout at her, clenching my fists into the cushion beside me.
"WHERE IS HE?!"
A tiny part of me is terrified how she might react because I don't shout, not that she'd know that.
I wasn't allowed to; it was one of the rules of the house. Not that Fallen ever seemed to have followed that particular rule by any means, but I did.
So this, this loud shout that hurt my throat and ricocheted around the room seemed unnatural, making the feeling in my gut even worse.
"They don't know."
"No." I refuse.
I shake my head profusely, she's lying. "No, You know, you just don't want me to see him, that's it?"
"I'm afraid not Elbina."
"NO!" Well now I was becoming hysterical, tripping over myself to get off the sofa and stepping away from her.
"He might come back; we just don't know." She was leaning forwards, hand resting on the sofa between us but I only stare back at her.
"But not my parent's." I state, my throat burning away every time I have to swallow down another swell of tears.
She shakes her head slowly, so I hate her even more. "I'm sorry."
I step back again, she sits further forward, eyeing me warily.
"I need to talk to him, he'll talk to me." I ramble away and she cuts me off.
"I think it's best if you just have a rest and –" But I cut her off this time,
"YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT'S BEST FOR ME!"
This June women was starting to irritate me, trying to make this okay when it wasn't.
I needed her to accept that, that she couldn't make this better for me. She couldn't give me false promises to alleviate my pain, she couldn't do anything.
She wasn't getting it, edging slightly back away from the spit that may have incidentally fallen from my lips.
"I need to call him; he'll talk to me."
"Elbina."
"I NEED A PHONE JUNE!" I stand there, fists clenched staring right back at her. Not knowing where to go from here, it's not like I've ever had a screaming match with someone before.
It doesn't look like she knows what to do either.
In the back of my head, I think speaking to Fallen will mean that they aren't dead. That she's just lying and my whole world hasn't been flipped on his head.
She's lying for some stupid reason, and I need to confirm it.
Fallen will tell me the truth.
I'm about to go running, searching the house to find one until she nods her head. Standing up and walking out of the room without a word.
I follow her, leading me past the stairs and towards the kitchen but she quickly detours to a small room just before that.
There's a simple desk but a thousand different files stacked one on top of the other in disarray around the room, it was cluttered.
Nothing had a place, things were everywhere and I stand with a shaky leg waiting as she shuffles papers off the desk and collects it into the corner.
Until eventually she hands me the phone.
"They've tried calling him. They couldn't get through." I forget her words, grasping the phone tightly and ignoring her as I punch in the number as quickly as I can.
I have to do it twice because my hands are shaking so much.
It rings out though, endless until it cuts off without a reply.
I notice June reaching for the phone, but I twist away, immediately redialling.
She steps back in the corner of my eye and I listen again to the continuous ringing.
It gets cut off again.
No reply.
I try again though because I wasn't giving up.
Not till he answered, not till I heard it from his own words what was really happening.
"Pick up please." I pleaded, my voice wavering now. Whispering to myself, and curling myself in the corner away from June who keeps trying to take it from me.
She probably thought I was only making it worse for myself but I wasn't.
I wasn't.
It isn't until the 5th time that it cuts off early.
I'm too scared to do anything, the silence on the other end unnerving and it rattles something chronic in my gut.
What if it wasn't him?
I didn't know.
It's still quiet.
"Elbina?" It's almost a whisper.
But it's him and I know it.
The minute I hear it, I gasp in relief and so suddenly the painful bubble in my throat ruptures and the tears break and fall down my face uncontrolled.
"Fallen! Where are you?" I blubbered over the phone; he didn't answer. I choke on another sob, coming too quick for me to breathe through it.
Why isn't he responding?
"June said... They're not dead Fallen; You have to tell me she's lying." I hear a sniff from the other side of the phone, and I say his name again hoping for a response.
I cry even more when I hear quiet sobs from his end, my stomach clenching painfully at the sound. For a few moments, I hear nothing else but then there's a sudden and loud sniff, his shaky voice much calmer than mine.
"Elbina... You need to listen to her. She's right, okay? Mum and dad are dead, and they aren't coming back. The sooner you accept that the better, do you understand me?" I shook my head, closing my eyes tightly and willing the tears to stop. I don't need to cry, nothing is wrong. I press my head against the wall in front of me, my back to June and I'm so desperate to smash this phone into a gazillion pieces until he changes his words for the better.
"NO! Why are you saying that?" I scream at him over the phone, knuckles taut as I clutched the handset painfully tight.
"Because it's the truth Elbina. They're dead." He shouted at me, his voice faltering at the end. I could hear a sigh, just imagining him running his hand through his floppy dark hair like usual.
"Please come back Fallen." It's almost a whisper, I desperately needed him to be here and tell me it was all going to be okay. But he wasn't here, and he wasn't telling me what I wanted. He wasn't acting himself.
"No... I can't - ... This woman, June, she's what you need. She can give you something that I just can't Elbina." I kicked the wall, a turbulent anger sparking through the sadness.
This is all a horrible dream, it had to be.
"You can't leave me alone!" There was a long silence from him.
"I'm not good for you, I'm not what you need Elbina. Don't make this any harder." His frustration was evident, and I could do nothing but hang my head.
"But I need you Fallen." I whispered, begging him to rethink.
"No, not you. You don't need me; you can get through this alone." He wasn't hiding his emotions well now, breaking every so often to allow some form of muffled cry.
"But I don't want to be alone. I want my family back." It comes out even quieter, I'm begging him now. Begging for him to come back and be here because I don't think he's right. I don't think I can cope with this on my own. And why should I?
"This isn't goodbye, not forever. I just, I need you to be safe, okay?" I roughly wipe away the tears from my cheeks, slumping my shoulders from the weight of this phone call.
"Where are you going?"
He pauses for a moment, and I wonder if he hung up, so I say his name again.
"It's best I don't tell you mate... It's safer that way." It sounds so weird, this isn't Fallen. This isn't supposed to happen.
"Please don't leave me Fallen." It's my last-ditch attempt to prevent him from leaving me on my own, I could hear a quiet sob mixed in with my own.
"I'm sorry Elbina... This is the way it has to be." With that, there was a click as he hung up the phone.
My knees crumbled beneath me, leaving me falling to the floor.
The handset slipped from my fingers, clattering to the floor as I wrapped my arms around my knees.
Which is when it really hit me.
I had no one left.
Just last weekend I was playing in the garden with Fallen and Dad, practising with punch bags and watching in awe as Fallen expertly fought with him.
Now I lay on the cold ground letting the shuddering breaths wreak havoc with my body, I could barely breathe. I rocked myself back and forth, my crying becoming louder, absorbing the sounds of the world around me.
"Don't touch me." I shout, pushing myself away from her and into a ball against the wall.
I see in the corner of my eye that she steps back, before gradually she sits down on the floor. She leant back now watching me carefully, crossing her legs slowly and just sitting there.
Edging the phone away from me and placing it back on the table to her right.
All there is, is me sobbing in the corner and she's sitting there without saying another word.
And it stays like that for who knows how long, I wouldn't be able to tell you.
By the time I stop crying though, my head is throbbing and my eyes are dry. More importantly, I was exhausted.
"Do you want to go to bed, Elbina?"
Instead of saying anything else because in all honesty, I didn't want to speak to her, I just nodded.
Initially I pull back when she tried to lean down to me, it takes a few seconds but she gets up and stands up away from me patiently waiting.
This wasn't supposed to happen to me.
None of this, not this feeling, this brokenness.
And now, it was just me. Me alone to deal with that feeling for who knows how long, what if it's forever?
What if this feeling will never go away?
She guides me up the stairs, briefly turning her head back every so often to make sure I'm still following until she pushes open the door of the bedroom.
In the corner of my eye, I can see a scrawny boy on the other side of the landing. His eyes staying on us.
"Jake, why don't you put the kettle on? Elbina's just going to have a sleep, okay?" His eyes nod with a small smile, only briefly making eye contact with me but even then, I can see the sympathy. It only makes the pain in my chest worsen but again, I haven't got any more tears left to shed.
I watch him travel down the stairs, taking two at a time and making an awful racket as he jumped down them. It isn't until he's out of sight that I turn around and walk into the room.
My bags still stacked at the end of the single bed, sat in the middle of the bare white walled room.
Opposite the bed is the large window that even now has the sunlight dying on this long day, a day that will be stuck with me forever no matter how much I wish it won't.
"Let's get you changed." She mumbled to herself more than anything, I sat myself down on the bed and zoned out.
I could hear her unzipping the bags and rifling through them, saying something about packing away things tomorrow but I'm not exactly sure.
It isn't until she's dropped the clothes on the bed beside me that I actually wake up a little, dropping a hand on the pyjamas that are the only familiar things in this room. June looks unsure about what to do from here.
"Do you need any help?"
"Getting changed?" I huff, pulling my shoes off and throwing them onto the ground loudly. "I think I can manage that."
Where was I supposed to go from here?
She's just leaving, I stand up though and gulp down that lump in my throat again.
"What happens now?"
"Now?" She says.
I nod, "What am I supposed to do now?"
She lets out a sigh, a grimace on her face as before. "Go to school."
"My parents just died; my brother's left me. Is that it?" I scoff. Was she serious? This was how she wanted to go about this?
"That's what everyone has to do." She says bluntly and I rock a little further back when everything feels too liquid around me. Intangible and lost to me, the only thing I can concentrate on are her words as she continues. "They have to keep living, and for you that means school, friends and whatever else you can conjure up to do for the rest of it."
"I don't have a life anymore; they were my life."
June shakes her head at me, "They were a big part of it but they're not all of it. You get a chance, Elbina. And that's something you have to be grateful for if nothing else."
"You don't understand how bad it hurts, do you?" I hiss.
"I have an inkling."
I shake my head at her, raising my voice in anger. "I'm always going to feel like this."
"No, you won't. It'll get easier."
I didn't believe her for a second, she didn't know. She didn't even have an inkling of this pain.
Everything hurts, all my bones and intestines and head and brain and mouth and eyes... everything.
Everything hurts so how could this get better and how could she say those words again!
'It'll get easier'
And so I turn away from her, waiting a few moments till the door shuts and I can get changed.
By the time I've tucked myself into the bed, the exhaustion has tripled, and it doesn't take much till I fall asleep.
********
I'll see you soon.
My eyes fly open, heart racing and staring into the darkness of the room. The entire of the house silent around me, no sound no matter how hard I listen.
Sweat clings to every part of my body, there's tears accumulated in my eyes too.
I already have a headache, whirring away and creating this fogginess of thought. So, I can't remember where I'd heard that voice, who it was and when it happened.
I can't remember, and whatever else happened in that dream drifted away immediately so all I was left with were those words.
The clamminess only gets worse, the entire room humid and hot from the summer heat so I have to flip the covers off of me and stand up.
My feet moving along the cold wooden floor, easing silently to the window. The same window that brought in a mild yellow light into the room. Casting ominous shadows in the room that lurk in all the four corners, watching me.
I crawled my way onto the windowsill to be able to push open the glass pane, it isn't until my fingers gripped at the window, twisting at the latches to open it, that I looked out of it, staring out at the darkness before noticing the street lamp flickering across the road. It was then, looking out into the dead of the night that I freeze.
There, across the road, the shape of a person standing there.
It was too late for buses, and it was too late for anyone to be standing around in the middle of the street.
Above all, the more I look and the more my breathing hitches in fear, I am sure, as much as anyone can be when you can't see their face. That they were staring up at the house.
Staring right at me.
It's with such an intensity that I can't move, I can't breathe except focus my sole attention on the figure.
Whose still there, waiting.
In my head I start counting.
Five seconds, still there.
Ten more seconds, still there.
Thirty more seconds and they're still there.
Not a flinch, not a sound.
And it's the waiting that's the eerie part, the eeriest of all, because when it's done, that's it. You deal with it, you can understand it, but waiting?
Now, that's where the real fears stem from.
Because you don't know what's going to happen next, the unknown.
Finally, through the warm orange glow of the streetlamp, they move. I sucked in a breath as they do and then they slowly walk away, briefly glancing backwards to stare up again at the house.
I didn't know what to think, maybe he liked the house? because now I realise it was a man, it had to be, I knew what a man looked like, the way they walked, the way they were built.
It was obvious now as they walked away. Leisurely, satisfied, accomplished in his stride.
And I keep an eye on him, pushing down the window so I can see better, and the cool night draft sends goosebumps along my hot skin. Until gradually, he travels far enough down the road, and out of sight.
So, I slink away from the window and slide down from the windowsill, irked and edged by the man.
I slowly step back, the streetlamp falling away from my vision before making my way to the bed. With the man floating around in my mind, my eyes were wide.
I did try to sleep, I begged myself to sleep so conversations couldn't happen in the morning. That I'd sleep for so long that I could ignore everything for much longer. But hours seemed to pass and eventually, I could hear the birds chirping outside my window. It was only when the slow rumble of cars from early morning commuters came through my window, that I felt tired.
When it came.
I didn't fight it.
I accept it, like everything else I have to come to accept apparently.
75Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ91u6bfujwg
