“Chapter 2”

Myo is my best friend. I really miss her. If only this wretched book would end. 

I hate waking up.

“Clo!” I hear my mother distantly call me, probably from the kitchen. I sit up quickly, sluggishly standing and limping over to my doorway. My backpack is left abandoned by my sheet music and school textbooks.

My mother looks down sympathetically at me. 

“Oh, hon, Clo. You don’t need to go to school today, don’t worry.” 

Wait what? What changed? Why would she say that? What happened?

“Why?” I snap at her.

“Clo…” she turns away, as if the words were too burdensome to tell me. 

“I want to see Myo.” I tell her. 

“I know, Clo. I know you do.” 

“I’m going to her house.” I announce. 

She looks alarmed.

“Again?” 

“Yes.” I turn and leap down the entire staircase. I miraculously land on my feet without breaking anything.

“Clo!” 

“What?”

“…Be careful. It’s my job to worry, you know-“

“-as my mother, I know.” She looks away with an unreadable expression. I can’t help but soften up. “I love you too.” 

She seems to perk up at this, despite her worry and confusion. I turn away and sprint into the winter air. 

Every branch is bare. Frost consumes every metal bench and every thin window. The trees are pale with the sickness of the cold. Dead, cold leaves crunch between my feet. The overcast sky is drooping, sagging under the weight of all its tears. 

Myo’s house is where it always was. Every curtain drawn, rooms dark. Early sunlight makes azure blooms glow gold. My shadow is long and mournful. Cold with grief, it steps over the briefly warmed petals. The door is unlocked still. 

I push open the door gently. Gold light drifts in through the cracks of curtains. Darkness contrasts it. Up the flight of stairs, left, down the hall, left again. Her door looms in front of me. I can’t explain the feeling of dread that overtakes me. I can’t move forward and grasp the doorknob. What if it’s locked again? My hands are shaking. 

I can’t move. Why can’t I move? It seems silly. I can’t even explain the overwhelming fear that grips me. I can’t run, I can’t face the door. I can’t even close my eyes to relieve myself of the terror.

I don’t know how long I stand there until I can move again. I rush forward, jerkily, like a robot learning how to move, and I try the doorknob. It turns and opens easily. So innocently, I almost forget last night. Myo’s room is dark. 

Her walls are pink. Her bed is pink. Her desk is pink. Her curtains are drawn wide open. It seems very in-character for her to leave them open when everybody else shut them in respect. I step into her room. She has a soft carpet in the center. It too, is pink. Gray, in the darkness despite the windows. Her room is empty and deserted. Myo isn’t in her room. I really, really miss her. 

Are you happy now? You wanted to know what happened to her, didn’t you? So you kept reading, and now you’ve seen far too much. Now I’ve seen far too much. I wanted so badly to forget, and now look at what you’ve done! You should’ve shut the book while you were still ignorant. It’s not too late to turn back. Just close the book. Go. Leave. Please, just let me rest.

Wow, you sure are a persistent little psychopath.

I wander into the untouched room. It looks as if just yesterday she was in it. Dust has not yet gathered in the corners. Her plushies sit neatly organized by name and relation. Every colored marker is sorted, each book in its place. Her laptop is placed demurely on the edge of her desk. Her closet is filled with her clothes, cloaked in pink aside from the occasional white or yellow or blue or green. Our science homework, the one both she and I neglected, stacked and filled with beautiful, round letters.

The science homework. I can feel the soft fur of her carpet through my socks as I shuffle over to her desk. The science homework has her name on it, Myosotis Boragina. Beside it, the date. January 4th, 2030. It feels like a lifetime ago when the school speakers shouted the date. So distant, so faded, so meaningless.

I sit down at her desk, on her chair, where she used to sit when we would talk. I would sit on her bed, and she would lean against her desk, or sit against the wall. Sometimes, we’d both sit against the wall, sometimes, even against each other, back to back. Then I could feel her throat tremble at every word, through the back of my neck. And I could feel her shake as she cried, leaning forward desperately, fearing her burdens would crush me into dust.

We were so close. She lived for me, and I lived for her. We were two halves of a whole, inseparable, and incomplete alone. I wonder what changed. Maybe it was when she would stay quiet during vent sessions, when she would purse her lips shut and smile brightly. When she was changing the subjects during conversations, when she stopped leaning against my shoulder when she was sleepy. Maybe we weren’t close. Maybe I did something wrong. Maybe I didn’t hold her enough, hug her and let her cry into my shoulder. Maybe it’s my fault. 

What could I have done to save her? I should’ve done something, anything. I wish I had done more. I wish I had done something to save her. I wish I wasn’t so pathetic.

We both knew that she was reaching the end of her line. Her fraying, beaten, worn string. And mine was right beside hers, weathering the same harsh blows of the wind and sea. If only we had been woven with a tougher thread. If only we hadn’t been tied to the cliffside. If only we—

I’m crying. Again. I know you know only so little about me, but I don’t cry. The last time I cried was when I was eleven, when Dahlia, Laure, and Chrys teased me about my new backpack, its color was an ugly dark green. I had chosen it myself, being fond of the shade. That weekend, Myo and I had laid out a tarp over her bedroom floor and rolled up our sleeves. My backpack returned to school on Monday with patterns and shapes all over it, cats and squiggles and stars. Enviously, the trio had done the same the next week, with neater shapes, more colors, cleaner lines. Their parents had evidently assisted them in the making of their patterned fabrics.

More and more tears gather. I look down. They gather in my eyes and fall onto my lap. My bare legs gather a tiny pool of tears. Those tears don’t seem to represent enough of what I feel. I wish the world would just stop. It’s not fair. It’s not fair. It’s not fair. How could the world keep revolving without Myo? How does the sun rise when Myo isn’t beneath it? How does the sky shift shades despite Myo not being there to admire it? 

It hurts. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts. Please, close the book. I can’t keep going. It would be a mercy to sleep again. Put down the book. Put it down.

My head hurts. I hit it against the edge of Myo’s desk. Harder, and harder. My head begins to spin, my vision blurs, not just with tears. I can’t stop. The rhythmic movement, the sound of my skull hitting the wood, the animalistic desire to stop thinking. I wail; it’s a weird, inhuman sound that wells up from my throat. My shoulders shudder harshly, I can feel myself curl up smaller, trying instinctively to protect my aching chest. Waves of pain rack through me—I can’t stop them from gripping my shivering heart. I scream. I don’t know if it’s from the physical pain or the emotional loss. 

My throat is raw and sore from screaming when I’m done. I’m a mess, my arms, hands, lap are wet where I’ve tried and failed to wipe my tears away. My nose is running and I just know that if I looked in the mirror, my eyes would be raw from crying. I’m empty, a hollow vessel suited only for tears. 

I’m tired. So, so tired. I just want to disappear. I just want to stop living. I just want to rest. I black out.