Rise From These Ashes

“Allison! Are you up yet?” my best friend and housemate, Meisha, called to me from downstairs.

“Yeah! Just cleaning up a bit!” I hollered back numbly, hoping she wouldn’t come upstairs and find me.

Too bad for me she did. Seconds later, footsteps bounded up the stairs and Meisha poked her head into my room. I gave a terribly weak smile and continued to make my bed.

“Hey, how ya feelin’?” she asked lightly.

“Fine.” No matter how hard I tried, I could not look at her.

“Liar. What’s bugging you?”

“Nothing,” I replied, carefully tucking the sheets on my bed under the mattress.

“Is it Thomas?”

“Don’t do this, Meisha. Not today.”

“Hon, you need to let go. You need-“

“What I need is Thomas, but he’s not here, is he?” I spat. Meisha was careful to choose her words wisely.

“I watched you survive 19 years without him in your life. What’s the difference now?”

“The difference is that the three years I did spend with him were the best years of my life! I’m not going to just forget him!”

“You don’t have to forget, but just move on! Enjoy the life he died to let you live!” Meisha’s comeback was good enough to make me silent and speechless for a few moments until I spoke once more.

“Just…Just go, Meisha,” I sighed. She shook her head and mumbled something before leaving and closing the door violently.

My head felt warm and I shook slightly all over. With nothing else to do, I turned on my stereo and plopped down on my bed as I mentally prepared myself for the next and newest worst day of my life.

*****************

I tried to be as sneaky as I could climbing down the stairs so no one would hear me. Like every other morning, I sat at the top of my stairs and looked into the kitchen, silently watching a typical morning in the house.

Meisha would be picking up the remains of her’s and Kegan’s breakfast while Kegan was looking for his keys again. Freddie sat in his usual spot at the end of the island counter finishing school work before he silently left for his classes at the college. Kegan would soon find his keys and leave shortly after Freddie with a sad goodbye kiss to Meisha as if he was leaving forever. By then, Sadie and Meisha were the only ones left in the kitchen, so they would chat about such things as how unhealthy it was for me to be as isolated as they cleaned up more little messes. Eventually, Sadie leaves for a fitting or something (it’s such a hard life being a model); and Meisha wouldn’t be able to stand the silence of the eerie old house so she would leave early for classes.

Yes, that is exactly how most typical mornings were. Today was no exception.

I did not go downstairs until everyone had left the house. I liked the silence and the peace. The stress of mornings is what made me watch instead of join in in the first place. Not that it was the only reason.

Deciding breakfast could wait; I turned on the communal computer and hopped online to check my email.

NO NEW MESSAGES

I stared at the screen in disbelief. Normally, my mom would send me a daily email trying to dissect me or “comfort” me or even try to get me to go to a hospital and seek help. It had become a daily ritual for me to get one, read it, and then delete it without a reply.

“She must have given up,” I told myself, although I knew it was not that simple. Nothing was anymore.

The computer got boring after about five more minutes, so I headed back into the kitchen and poured myself a bowl of cereal. Most things these days just tasted bland. No flavor or variety. Just like me.

Around this time in the morning was the only time that I would let my mind wander and think about Thomas. I mean, I thought about him all the time but that was the time I really thought about him; who he was, what he did, who he would have been today, all the memories we shared. I remembered us.

That day, for some reason though, I replayed his death over and over. I had never done that while I was awake before.

I saw the ambulance, a bloody mess with me crying my eyes out desperately. The hospital waiting room, where I sat and waited for what seemed like hours for them to tell me what I already knew- my love was dead. I also felt as I did when the numbness started to take a hold of me. In the beginning, I felt like I was dying. Soon the feeling faded and since then I have felt nothing. The last memory of that day I had was when the doctor came out with a little black box.

The box was older and looked as if it had weathered much in its time. It creaked as I opened it. Inside was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen. A shiny diamond ring sat smack dab in the center of the velvety box. It glimmered even under the dull fluorescent lights in such a terrible place. My heart fluttered as I pulled the ring from the box and held it up to examine it with shaking hands. On the band, written in almost microscopic letters, it read;

I WANT YOU ALL TO MYSELF- FOREVER.

“He would have wanted you to have it,” the doctor whispered, and left me like a ghost.