Dying Is Your Latest Fashion

Aralia

I was woken close to midnight by a deathly scream; neither Mum nor Dad yelled out to tell us to shut up, so I assume that they slept through it; which was unlikely, so, they must have still been at work; 5 hours after they had been due home.
Seeing as no one else was going to see if Lori was okay, I stood up and made my way to her room, knocking twice on the black door, to no response.
I heard muffled sobs from inside the room, wondering what the hell Lori was doing to herself to make her cry like this I had no idea. It was the same pained cry as when she had first found out Lucas was dead, the same dying sobs being emitted from a heaving chest-heaving with the sorrow and upset of a thousand people.

I shuffled, my head hanging, back into my room, closing the door softly on my way in. Walking to the furthest wall in my room, I slumped down and put my head in my knees.
Lori’s depression was casting a great cloud over my life, something I wasn’t sure whether or not it was going to leave. I hoped, for Lori’s sake, that it would gently subside into a small ache in her heart, which felt more like a lost heartbeat than a lost heart.
I hoped for her sake. I hoped that she would be with him again one day, one day she could be with her true love- soul mate- again. Only this time no one could pull them away from each other, no one could pull one of them from the world, for that had already happened.
In my heart I knew that that day would come sooner than nature had planned, I could only wish that it happened later than Lori wished. I may be horrible in thinking it, but Lori’s not ready to leave this world, she had – still does have – so much to live for.

She was smart and beautiful, with violet-blue eyes and raven feather hair. She used to be the life of the party, always at the heart of laughter, coming up with the most hilarious statements to enlighten whoever was listening.
Lucas loved that about her, I could see that it always made him proud when people fell about laughing, and that Lori would always look up to him with her strangely coloured doe-eyes searching his eyes for approval, searching to see if he had found it amusing as well. His opinion was all that had mattered to her.
My own eyes wet from the beginnings of tears, I turned to face the wall that my bed lay next to, snuggling up into a ball before shuffling further and further into the top left corner, where I eventually found sleep. Sleep which took me quickly - to my relief. Sighing into another dream, pretty much all thoughts of Lori were washed from my mind.
At least until I reawakened.

***

Life first became known to me at 07:08, according to the ghostly red glow of the alarm clock resting on my desk. During the night I had somehow managed to end up with my head at the foot of the bed and the quilt wrapped awkwardly around my torso.
Attempting to sit up, I soon figured it was impossible, given how intricately I had managed to get tangled up in my quilt.

After a few minutes of intensively trying to untangle myself, I realised I was only making matters worse, and that the only thing for it would be to roll out of my bed and onto the hard wooden flooring.

Well, I thought standing up nursing a throbbing knee, that went well. Smiling to myself, I sat on the end of my bed and looked over at my full length mirror, making adjustments to my messed up hair and straightening out my pyjama top which had been twisted around my body, constricting my lungs. Choking as it finally released itself, I stared down at the black material, it had never done that before, no matter how much I had outgrown my panda skull and cross bones pyjamas they had never felt so tight and constricting before.
Odd.

It wasn’t the only odd thing to have happened that morning, either. The milk seemed to explode over me when I had opened it ready to pour over my cereals. My shoes seemed to fall apart even though I had only gotten them 3 days before hand.
Odder and odder. I thought as I rummaged around in the back of my wardrobe, my knee throbbing like hell due to the extended amount of pressure on it.
Standing up - clutching two tattered pumps to my chest - I hobbled to the stair case, descending them one by one, the murderous pain in my knee increasing sharply with each step.
“What’s up with you?” Lori questioned, approaching the bottom step to support me as I directed us towards the kitchen drawer which held plasters, medicines, tablets and creams of all shapes and varieties.
“....Well, remember that crash earlier?” I waited for her to nod “Yeah, well, that was kinda me falling out of the bed”
Lori gave me a questioning look, raising one thin black brow, which looked as if it had been painted by a very decisive brush stroke.

“Has any more odd things been happening to you today?” she asked, her hungry looking as staring at me. Trying to look through the lock on her eyes, I thought I saw a flash of pain, then anger in quick succession, but they were gone in a flash. Just like lightening.
“Why?” I asked, trying to evoke some sort of answer out of Lori, but she seemed to forgotten all about it, as she turned away from me and walked down the corridor, firmly ending the conversation, or my chances of asking what was wrong – what had happened to her. Walking after her down the corridor I hobbled to the stair case, clutching onto the banister as I pulled on the faded black pumps and quickly tied up the laces and tucked the bows to the side – something I had always done, even when I was 6 years old.

Forgetting completely about the pain in my knee – which was now subsiding into a minor ache rather than a full on stabbing pain – I hurried out of the door after Lori who was repeatedly pulling her hair into a ponytail and releasing it, where it formed an ebony waterfall, the natural waves falling – for once, un-straightened – down her back to just above the area where her bra strap would be.

“Come on, Raily” she turned round, grinning like an idiot. Her idiotic nickname for me was showing some signs of Lori returning to her shell, and not leaving it to be abandoned anymore.

“Coming ...” I paused, thinking of an idiotic nickname to call her in return “Ella-or-Ear” I suddenly thought, wondering how the hell I couldn’t have thought of it before, it seemed so simple.

Lori’s face froze for a split second, staring long and hard at me and then something un-recognisable flashed into her face. Pure and utter hatred.

“What did you just call me?” she snarled, her eyes flashing dark violet. Witches eyes I thought.

“What? I thought it was pretty ingenious myself...Ella-or-E---” Suddenly Lori’s palm was pressed against my mouth, compressing the words back – trapping them inside my mouth, preventing them from leaving.

“Never. Call. Me. That. Again” she hissed into my ear, before realising her grip from around my head. As she walked hurriedly past me, I saw inky tears - stained by her eyeliner – cascading down her cheeks.

What had I said? I wondered; trying to catch up with her - which was pointless due to the fact that she was already half was down the street by the time I reached the end of the driveway.

What meaning did ‘Ella-or-Ear’ have? And why did it appear to shatter Lori when I had called her it? I finally thought that I was building Lori up again, when in fact all I had done was tear her back down.