Green Eyes

The funeral came and went in a blur, much like how the Watson family had drifted in and out of the Peterson’s lives. Seemingly small and insignificant, yet leaving an impact on those around greater than they would ever know.

It pained her mother to see her this way, her eldest daughter’s life cut tragically short. Francesca never thought she’d have to outlive her own children. Cosima had been so cheerful, so responsible, so full of life…it was almost unfathomable for this to happen. Almost too cruel, after the death of her husband.

More and more people filed into the church, spilling out onto the roadside in a sea of black. Teachers, friends, classmates, neighbors. Even those she barely knew came to pay respects. Cosima was like that, she had loved everyone. And in turn everyone had loved her back. Marcy sobbed unreservedly on Amanda’s shoulder, her boyfriend looking at a complete loss of what to say or do, because nothing he could say or do would change anything.

If anyone wondered why there was a closed casket, nobody asked. Exact circumstances of the teenager’s death was kept a closely guarded secret. Many suspected suicide.

But Yolanda knew.

Half an hour had gone past and Cosima still hadn’t come down from her bedroom. Mrs. Peterson’s irritability had been concealed only by the fact that it was her daughter’s birthday and she should cut her some slack. Yolanda had scurried her way up to her older sister’s bedroom to see what was going on.

She had screamed. Screamed and screamed and screamed until her throat was hoarse. Nye had been first to reach the landing, grabbing the younger girl into a rough embrace, Yolanda’s face pressed against his chest so she wouldn’t have to see the broken body of her sister. The nine year old had trembled and clung to him, as though the whole world would fall apart if she let go.

His mother raced for the phone to call an ambulance, Cosima’s immediately at her side. Nye couldn’t turn his eyes away.

“Darling, just hang on. We’ll get you to the hospital and you’ll be just fine.” Mrs. Peterson sobbed, more to convince herself than her daughter. “You’ll be alright, Cosima, you’ll be alright…” she repeated like a mantra, clasping her daughter’s hands. Blood had quickly seeped into white sheets, staining them a deep scarlet. No one questioned how she had been hurt. The only important thing was to save her.

Nye froze, cold fear mixed with déjà vu washing over him. His breathing became irregular and knees buckled, the only thing keeping him standing was that Yolanda was relying on him to do so.

Cosima coughed, a wet, throaty sound. “I…am alright.” She met Nye’s eyes evenly with her own chocolate brown ones, lips turning upwards as a bubble of blood burst to one side. “Was…worth it.” She had died with a smile on her face.

Yolanda had been sent to see a child psychologist to deal with the trauma, whereas the emerald-eyed boy flatly refused. He didn’t need help, especially not from some good-for-nothing shrink who just sat there pretending to understand. Only after the funeral, behind a locked door, did he allow a single tear to escape.

He had cared greatly for her – Nye now realized. How deep his feelings ran the blonde did not even try to investigate. It just hurt too much.

Nye had dropped out of school three months later, taking up an apprenticeship at one of the local hardware stores. After about six months he had quit that too, not even caring about his future. He just couldn’t shake the foreboding feeling that all this was somehow his fault. The way Cosima had looked at him, smiled at him, couldn’t just be a coincidence.

Yes, he was clinically depressed, the phrase slamming him further into the downward spiral. Two days after the funeral he had discovered the use of alcohol. It made him forget, made him not care anymore. From then on there was hardly a sober day in his life, and never a morning he woke up without a hangover and patchy memories from the night before. A few times he’d even been semi-clothed with a stranger, not that he cared. Anything to make the pain, and the nightmares, stop.

Every month, Nye’s parents would fork over the rent for their son. He had ruthlessly shoved away all their attempts at helping him other than financially. They so desperately wanted to assist him, in any way possible, that Grace and Victor felt it was the least they could do. Like most parents, they always felt responsible for a child’s actions.

They would stare at the photo albums, into the memories of a little boy just barely picking up a basketball. He’d been a legend, recruited into the school team almost as soon as he graduated Middle School. Now…his parents doubted he’d even been in a court during the last month. In fact, he’d been fired from his part-time at the gym, and was banned from it altogether.

Nye had eventually moved in with his former classmate, Jeffery Leonards, J-Leo as he used to get called. The other boy never complained about his friend coming home at godforsaken hours, and unlike most roommates, begged the blonde to eat more.
“C’mon man, you look smashed,” he would say. “Can’t live off beer and girls for the rest of your life, you know.”

And with that, Jeffery would drag his intoxicated friend out of bed and downstairs for some cold pizza. He’d known Nye since the fifth grade, when he’d first come to the school. Soon after, Nye had been heisted into many sports teams and the two had drifted apart. But now Nye was back, and it went to show that sometimes the oldest friends were the ones that stuck by you in the end.

Nye glared moodily, his bloodshot gaze not quite being able to focus. “Eashy for you to shay,” he could only slur out in resistance. “You’ve never tried.”

“Yeah, yeah, I was a good little boy back then. You’d be surprised at what I get up to in college. The idiot duo you used to hang with is still blowing shit up, just so you know.”

“Not shurprished…”

“Hey Nye, me and Chloe are going to be out, so feel free to throw a party and smash the place.” By then, Nye had just given up on responding. He’d already gone back upstairs to search for his stash of marijuana, cloud of smoke trailing after him.

In Florida, counselling had helped Yolanda greatly, and even motivated her. She’d started Middle School, desperately studying to achieve the grades needed to become a doctor in the future. Maybe it was because she’d seen her sister so broken, that she wanted to learn how to heal. But there was one word she’d never spelt right, the word her elder sister had always teased her about. Water.

At first, she had been sad. Then angry about what happened. Then terrified for the nightmares. Then guilt. If she had gone up earlier, then maybe what happened wouldn’t have. Dr. Fletcher had taught her that she couldn’t go back, that she couldn’t erase or rewrite the past.

No one could. Right?

She had learned to smile again, and her laugh returned brighter than it had been before. Yolanda looked up to her mother, who had held strong for her all those times as a role model. She wasn’t going to let the past hold her down, because it was impossible to change. Or so she believed. Every morning she stared into the mirror, and someone who was beginning to look more and more like Cosima’s twin began to stare back. And of her appearance, Yolanda was proud.

As ever, she was a social butterfly, keeping in touch with every friend that left the state. Nye was on her list, and she’d send him an email just to say hi about once every couple months. She never received a reply. Maybe he just thought she was a random spammer, seeing as she’d stolen his email address from Cosima’s account. But at least she was sending him something. She worried about the blonde boy she had once known, the one she hadn’t even seen since she was nine.

Yolanda remembered asking her parents about him once, about the boy who had held her as she sobbed relentlessly over Cosima’s death. They had gone very tight-lipped, a sign she had recognized as indicating stress. Despite the years, Yolanda still retained her ability to read people. Not to mention eavesdropping. Hushed tones and whispered conversations gave a shady image of the boy.

Listen to your heart…
When he’s calling for you.
Listen to your heart…
There’s nothing else you can do.
I don’t know where you’re going,
And I don’t know why,
But listen to your heart
Before…you tell him goodbye…

“Hey Mom,” she had asked one afternoon, “we haven’t heard from those people lately…you know, the Watsons?”

The older woman had sighed, in the same way she did when remembering Cosima’s accident. Yolanda had learnt from then on not to ask any questions, nor mention her attempts to reach Nye.

“Why are you asking?”

“Oh, no reason,” Yolanda forced to keep her tone causal, not wanting to upset her mom.

“What’s for dinner?” she added vaguely.

Cosima’s room had been left just as hit had been. Swimsuit still lying on an unmade bed…old potato chip wrapper and a crumpled-up celebrity poster of Daniel Radcliffe the brunette had never got around to taking down after a Harry Potter phase.

Sometimes Yolanda would go up to her sister’s old room. Sometimes it was just to sit, others she would open draws and carefully go through Cosima’s possessions. Every time she did this as a child she always was caught. Nothing peeved Cosima more than to have her little sister going through her things. And, on some occasions, borrowing without permission.

Yolanda would pick up a tube of lipstick, spraying on some of Cosima’s favorite perfume. She half expected, half hoped, that she would hear a familiar angry shout of “Get the hell out, Landa!” Yolanda would have welcomed it every day, if only her sister would return. But of course, that would never, ever happen.

Nye and Yolanda had grown up.

They had grown apart. Although only one had got on with their lives. It’s amazing how much children can recover and bounce back. Nye hadn’t been a child, nor had he had help. The blonde boy had stuck it out, all on his own, and it hadn’t done him any favors.

Neither expected to see each other again since the incident.

Then Yolanda’s fifteenth birthday came around…