You've Become the Rain

Sometimes I forgot how to breathe. I forgot what it was like to feel alive; to feel the suction of air in your lungs and the burst of energy spiraling through your body. I would just open my mouth and wait, but nothing would happen. It was like the ability that had been invested in me at birth had been stolen from my very mind, and I was left desperately trying to figure out those things that should have been natural to me.

Deep down I knew that I could do it… deep down I knew that it was a simple action, but my mind just wouldn’t let me. So I would stand there, my mouth opening and closing, waiting for the feeling of suffocation and the action that would keep me alive. In those moments, it was as though I was feeling what it was like to have my life taken away from me. I was feeling what he had felt; the terror, the emptiness, the panic – the moment the blood had dribbled from his body.

And as soon as that thought entered my brain, the air would join it and I’d be alive again. I’d be normal again. Sometimes it made me wonder whether I wished to join him after all.

He was the only one that knew me. He knew who I was; who I had been, inside and out. He saw the warmth inside me and the fire waiting to be lit, and he saw the dark, desolate corners in my mind that I tried so desperately to hide. He ignited happiness like a steady, flickering flame that erupted deep inside my body; he had been my everything, my life, and I looked up to him with all that I had.

I still looked up to him, even though he was long gone. And although he wasn’t beside me as he had been, braiding my hair or whispering secrets to me about the world, I still kept my faith in him. Because I knew that he was there and that he was watching, and that he was seeing me tragically trying to piece together my life as it fell apart. And his presence was enough. It was enough to keep me going. It was enough to keep me trying.

Running a brush through my hair, I stared wearily into the mirror, pulling down the bottom of my school skirt that went along with the uniform. A heavy sigh left my lips as I turned away, brushing my hair away from my face and walking out of my bedroom.

I could hear the television blasting as soon as I stepped foot outside my door, and I allowed my eyes to flutter shut as another sigh left my lips. “Olivia, I’m going to school,” I called out to my sister, my eyes flickering towards her room where the door was slammed shut and the lights were switched on.

No answer. It wasn’t a surprise at all – my sister made herself scarce. Sometimes it was as though I didn’t know her at all. Turning away, I let a small, breathy sigh leave my lips. “I love you too,” I whispered, my eyes fluttering slightly as I walked into the kitchen. I was doing a terrible job at keeping my family together and alive. It made me wonder at times whether he was even watching us at all.

My eyes moved over to the couch and I frowned slightly when I saw the thin body of my mother lying across it, her arms flailed above her head and loud, moaning gasps of air leaving her thin lips. Walking over slowly with my bare feet padding across the dark brown carpet, I walked around so that I was in front of her, staring down at her shaking body. “Mum?” I whispered gently, shaking her shoulder ever-so slightly.

A groan left her lips and her eyes fluttered open for a second before they snapped shut and she rolled over again, a deep cry leaving her lips. Feeling tears pricking at the corners of my eyes, I allowed my heavy lids to darken my vision as a deep breath left my mouth. Allowing them to snap open, I knelt down beside her, rubbing my long, pale fingers along her bare arm and giving her a small, wistful smile.

“I love you, Mum,” I said gently, watching her for any sign of her hearing me.
I always told my family that I loved them before I left. In a way it was in fear that I’d return home to see them in the same fate as my brother; lying dead on the floor, but in another way it was my desperate attempt to hear the words back. My body craved love that I could never be given, and although it was selfish I needed the gesture more than anything I’d ever needed. I yearned to belong.

Her mouth opened slightly, a sigh leaving her lips as she rolled over. “I love you too, Charles.”

It was never Alice. Never ‘I love you, Alice.’ Not once.

With that knowledge fresh in my mind and loneliness in my heart, I turned and walked out of the door.



“Alice?”

Pushing my hair behind my ear, I slowly turned around, grinning when I met the eyes of my best friend, Jeremy.

Jeremy was the one person I could smile around without having to fake it. He was the one person that could tell everything by just looking at me, and the one person that knew how to decipher my guarded eyes. Ever since my brother died I’d become good at pretending. I had learned to put on a mask and smile at the world, even though I was dying inside. And everyone believed it. They believed every fake smile and every hug and every word. I told them that I was fine, and they believed it.

But Jeremy didn’t. He could see through it all, and for some reason he wanted to be the person to hold me together. And I loved him for it, I loved him in the way I had loved my brother. I put all of my faith in his hands and trusted him to keep my heart, because I was too weak to hold on to it. And though he was in no way Liam, and though he would never reach out to me that way Liam had, he was the brother I had lost. He was the one person who I knew would return the love I craved for.

Wrapping his arms around me, Jeremy pulled me into his side, burying his face into the crook of my neck. Laughing softly, I squeezed him into my side, faking being overwhelmed when in actual fact I was loving the attention and adoration. At times I wondered if Jeremy knew me better than I knew myself, because although I told both myself and him that I didn’t need the affection he seemed to know that I loved every second of it.

Pulling away, I bit my lip as I smiled at him, causing him to grin at me in return. His smile slowly dropped and he frowned at me, his green eyes probing into my own. “What’s wrong, Alice?” he asked softly, his hold on my arms softening slightly as he watched me.

Pulling myself out of his arms, I sent him a small smile before turning around and continuing to walk along the stone footpath into school. “Nothing,” I said cheerily, looking over my shoulder to look at him. “Why?”

Narrowing his eyes at me, he stumbled forward and into step beside me, immediately leaning over and entangling his fingers in mine.

Because of how close we were, people always assumed that Jeremy and I were in a relationship of some sort, and though I’d grown weary of the rumors there was nothing we could say to stop them. Although Jeremy didn’t care for them and let them pass by him without a second thought, they hurt me slightly whenever I heard a word questioning the way we were. In many ways Jeremy was the only real person I had in the world, and although I loved him with every grain of my heart I could never see him in that light. He had saved me from a breakdown all of those years ago, and I owed him everything I had left in me.

The first time that I saw Jeremy I knew that there was something different about him. And although the words had never come up between us, I had always felt as though we had a mutual understanding that Jeremy was… well, that he preferred people of the same gender. Although I’d never admit it, it hurt me that he’d never confessed to me the way he was. I wanted the chance to repay him for all he had done, a chance to hold his heart and caress it the way he had lovingly held mine. I wanted him to know that I loved every part of him, but the nagging, blackened voice in the back of my head said that he didn’t trust me enough.

Everything he did was in love. Every word he spoke was drenched in care and concern. My words were dull, because although I loved— loved like a desperate, lonely girl, I was empty. I wanted Jeremy to fill me. I wanted to give him my shriveled, unwanted love.

Everyone else had disappeared. It made me feel as though I was walking through an empty world, seeing and feeling and hearing pain and anguish that no one else could decipher. It made me feel like I was a ghost, almost dead, just waiting for something to tie me to the world I had been born into. Because blood didn’t anymore. All it tied me to a lifeless boy planted six feet underneath a gravestone.

“You can’t lie to me, Al,” he said gently, his rough voice laced with concern and worry. Squeezing my hand, he tugged me to his side and wrapped his arm around me, squeezing me into his body. Looking down at me, he sent me a soft smile, filling my body with warmth and affection.

My eyes saddening slightly, I looked away from him and down at our feet, which continued to step gently against the stone path below. “It’s just Mum again,” I lied quietly, feeling his grip tightening in response.

Leaning down, he placed a tender kiss against the top of my head. “You know that she loves you, Alice. Even if she doesn’t show it.”

He didn’t sense the lie. Sometimes I was so used to showing numbness that I almost convinced myself of the fact that I felt nothing, the fact that the world was a mirage and every word that came from my mouth was simply a fable. But I nodded gently, deep down realizing that his words had not been true. I didn’t know it. In fact, with every passing day the hope that someone else loved me was drifting further and further away.