Until Tomorrow

“I don’t want to go home. Especially after everything that happened with Kelly. And Jake. I don’t think I’ve wrapped my mind around that yet,” Becca said, leaning on the counter in Logan’s, talking to Whak while he was working.

“You have to go back sometime,” her best friend said. She jutted out her bottom lip at him in a pout. He smiled at her and pulled a CD out from under the counter, pushing it across to her.

“What is this?” Becca asked him, eyeing the CD.

“Jack’s Mannequin, the perfect therapy. Take it home, listen to it and work things out with your sister,” he said.

“Is that an order?” Becca challenged him. Whakaio grinned at her.

“Yes,” he replied. “Now get out of the store before the boss comes back from his lunch break and kicks your skinny ass.” She rolled her eyes at him, thanking him for the free CD before leaving the store to catch the bus home.

When she got back, she expected her Mum to be furious about her being out all night. To her surprise, her mother didn’t say anything. She was focused on whatever she was baking in the kitchen, her head down. She didn’t hear Becca come in.

“Mum?” Becca called out.

“Becca! There you are. Are you alright?” she asked. Becca furrowed her eyebrows in confusion.

“I’m fine?”

“Oh, good. Whakaio called last night and said you’d had a nasty fall at the gig, and that you were staying at his apartment. He’s a lovely young man,” she said. Becca almost laughed out loud, but restrained herself. She shook her head a smiled at the lame cover story Whakaio had come up with.

“Is Kelly here?” Becca asked.

“She’s in her room. Barely left it since she got back.”

“Well isn’t that ironic?”

“Becca, please, just try with her, please. I know you had a hard time when she left -”

“I had a hard time, did I? Really?” Becca said sarcastically. “I was lost without her, Mum! She just up and left when I need her the most! She broke my fucking heart!” Her voice had risen quite a few levels and her clenched fists shook at her sides. She never swore at her Mum, and she felt guilty.

“I’m sorry,” Becca said, turning on her heel and dashing towards her own room, closing the door behind her and heading straight for her stereo. She listened to the Jack’s Mannequin CD Whakaio had given her from start to finish, five times in a row.

She cried. A lot. For the first time in months, actually.

A soft knock at her door startled her, and she got off her bed to turn the stereo off and answer it. It was Kelly. They just stared at each other for what felt like a long time, Becca’s eyes red and puffy from crying. She finally composed herself enough to ask, “what do you want?”

“I wrote this letter the night before I left. It was in our place. I thought you’d find it, but I guess you didn’t. It was my goodbye,” Kelly said, holding out a crumpled envelope. Becca just stared at it, and then looked back up at her sister.

“What? You think because you wrote a stupid letter it makes everything okay?” Becca spat, holding back fresh tears.

“No, I just -”

“You just what?”

“I hoped it would be a start,” Kelly muttered, her eyes downcast. A heavy silence settled over them, before Kelly tried to hand her sister the letter, again.

“I don’t want it. I don’t want to read your stupid letter, okay? It doesn’t change anything!” Becca said.

“I’m sorry, fuck! What else is there to say? It’s not like I left without a goodbye, okay. I wrote you a letter!” Kelly suddenly snapped, scrunching the letter up in her hand.

“That doesn’t make it all okay! I thought you were dead. Don’t you understand?”

“I guess I don’t,” Kelly admitted.

“Yeah, because I wasn’t the one that fucked off for an entire year.”

Kelly flinched, Becca’s words cutting right through her. The guilt that overcame her every time she looked into her sisters eyes was unbearable, and she wished more than anything that she could take it all back. Kelly turned to leave her sister’s doorway and retreat back to her own room.

“I haven’t been to our place since you left,” Becca said, so softly that Kelly almost didn’t hear it. She stopped in the middle of the hallway and turned around to face her sister once again.

“Why not?”

“Because it was our place, Kelly. Not just mine. It wouldn’t be the same without you. You know I cried myself to sleep for months? I was analyzed by all types of fucking councillors and psychologists. But you know what?”

“What?”

“Even a fancy college degree can’t fix a broken heart,” Becca said. Kelly gasped, her eyes filling with tears.

“Becca, I -”

“What? You’re sorry, right? You broke my fucking heart, Kelly. You were the one person who was supposed to always be there for me! Remember when we promised each other that? You were the one person I thought would always be there. But you bailed, and you can’t take it back. Any of it.”

“I wish more than anything that I could.”

"Well, that's a start," Becca said.

They'd both been so closed-up for the few weeks that Kelly had been home again, seemingly stuck at a stand-still, in a war of words left unsaid. A start was exactly what the both of them needed.