Status: Cautiously Active
Forever
The Rain
My sister, Charlotte, died on the 3rd of September 2017. She looked nothing like the girl I loved so fiercely, granted I didn’t see much of her after they found her, bloated and blue on the river bank a garrote tied around her thin neck. I have never felt so much pain as the day they, a lonely old man walking his Labrador puppy, found her.
That was until today when I buried my sister.
I never even got the chance to say goodbye, it all stings. The pain of not saying goodbye and our last interaction being a fight because she was slowly slipping away from me and back to him, Aiden, back to the ‘golden five’. I try not to dwell at the moment because my heart already hurts so much but it is difficult. I want to dwell and obsess over every interaction until the truth is laid clear but I can’t, not here, and not now. Later when I am alone I can and will, but for right now I shall mourn.
I am standing on the edge of the porch at the funeral home watching the rain drops fall from the dark sky. My mother is inside making nice with the extended family and friends, she thought she would never see under these circumstances, with condolences and casseroles.
It is almost poetic that it is raining today. Charlie loved the rain, adored the feel of the drops on her skin. She once told me freshly home from a party, boys and alcohol still mixed into her breath, that rain made her feel alive. I have felt dead since she died and I wait, wait to feel alive once more but the feeling never does reach me and I am left disappointed and bitter.
A universe exists with inside of me and I know it is slowly dying like she did. Mould grows on my lungs making it difficult to breathe because I have been left out in the open far too long, I am deteriorating. I am all that is left, I should have been the one who died because she is…was so much more than me. More in every conceivable way, yet here I stand, mould in my lungs, further from her than ever before and I think I am finally going to cry.
I have not shed a tear since my family received the news, I am too hurt to cry, the tears they simply won’t come. I can feel them collecting behind my eyes but they refuse to fall and it is confusing and irritating all at the same time. I focus on the rain and not my tears, because no matter how hard I try to force them they will never fall, the pain it is simply too much.
The rain is thick and heavy and I can barely see across the street. I want to desperately to feel something other than this gut wrenching sorrow mixed with a tinge of emptiness, that I almost, almost step out into the torrential downpour just to feel something. But I chicken out in the end.
I never was all that brave.
I simply do not possess the energy it would take to step out into the rain and feel alive. I am not sure why I am so exhausted, it could have to do with the fact that these days I am no longer sleeping, or it could be that today the realisation that my sister is dead hit me. That she is actually gone.
I am only starting to realise that while I was found my sister was terribly lost, I will forever miss her, the woman she could have become and the lost girl she was. I know that right now I should walk back inside and find my mother, hold her hand and finish her sentences when her voice breaks. Pretend like my world is not slowly collapsing, but just like stepping out into the rain I do not physically possess the energy required. I am drained emotionally and physically.
I do not realise I am not alone until a sigh sounds behind me, a very familiar sigh that I have heard many a late evening. It almost brings a smile to my face, because he is here and that is more than I could ever want. Cam, my best friend for the past twelve years of my life stands leaning against a pole a cigarette hanging behind his ear staring at me like I am somehow broken. I want to yell at him for looking at me like that, because I am fine. But the words, the anger it won’t come and I just feel worn out like I have lived a thousand lives in the span of one day.
“Thought I might find you out here,” Cam says taking the cigarette and going through the motions of lighting it, he doesn’t bother to offer it to me. I have never been a smoker but I am suddenly desperate to be stupid and selfish and take the cigarette and puff it to the tip.
“Am I that predictable?” I question staring into his dark eyes, his lip quirks up the slightest bit, today is not a day for smiles, and I think he knows that so he never raises his lip into more than a smirk and I am eternally grateful. Cam always knows what I need before I know I need it.
“No,” I let out a sigh of relief reaching for the cigarette and plucking it from between his rose red lips, bright because of the cold weather. I look at the cigarette for a long while waiting for Cam to stop me from smoking but the moment never comes. And with shaking hands I take the smoke and place between my lips inhaling, smoke fills my lungs and I splutter. Cough and choke on the thick cloud of smoke. Cam watches me with interest,
“Smooth,” He tells me quietly taking the cigarette back, “Don’t start Clover, you’ll never stop” He tells me as if talking about himself. I wonder what else we start that we can never stop, I think that will be me and my investigation into my sister’s murder, the moment I start I won’t ever be able to stop and for a single moment I am terrified of the unknown and the inevitable.
“Cam” I ask almost as if the while word depends on the question and I think it might, at least my world does. “Does it ever get easier?” Cam lost his mum a few years back to cancer and I know he knows exactly what I am referring to from the expression on his face.
“Do you want the truth or a lie”
“Lie to me” I plead,
“Then yes, it gets better Clover” I want to wrap myself in this lie but I can’t because I know it won’t ever get better, it will only get worse as time pours on and I forget about my sister more and more each day until one day when she is nothing more than a distant memory. I sigh and cough out some more smoke.
“Come Clove, let’s go inside”
“One more minute” I ask and he gives me it, when that minute is up I feel no different. Maybe a little more determined but still soul achingly sad, and I don’t know that will ever pass. I hope not, I never want to be happy without my sister.
The rain falls harder than ever and I still can’t cry. But like I promised Cam I turn away from the sky and the rain and head inside, turning my back on my sister it feels like. I walk inside and look back, only once.
That was until today when I buried my sister.
I never even got the chance to say goodbye, it all stings. The pain of not saying goodbye and our last interaction being a fight because she was slowly slipping away from me and back to him, Aiden, back to the ‘golden five’. I try not to dwell at the moment because my heart already hurts so much but it is difficult. I want to dwell and obsess over every interaction until the truth is laid clear but I can’t, not here, and not now. Later when I am alone I can and will, but for right now I shall mourn.
I am standing on the edge of the porch at the funeral home watching the rain drops fall from the dark sky. My mother is inside making nice with the extended family and friends, she thought she would never see under these circumstances, with condolences and casseroles.
It is almost poetic that it is raining today. Charlie loved the rain, adored the feel of the drops on her skin. She once told me freshly home from a party, boys and alcohol still mixed into her breath, that rain made her feel alive. I have felt dead since she died and I wait, wait to feel alive once more but the feeling never does reach me and I am left disappointed and bitter.
A universe exists with inside of me and I know it is slowly dying like she did. Mould grows on my lungs making it difficult to breathe because I have been left out in the open far too long, I am deteriorating. I am all that is left, I should have been the one who died because she is…was so much more than me. More in every conceivable way, yet here I stand, mould in my lungs, further from her than ever before and I think I am finally going to cry.
I have not shed a tear since my family received the news, I am too hurt to cry, the tears they simply won’t come. I can feel them collecting behind my eyes but they refuse to fall and it is confusing and irritating all at the same time. I focus on the rain and not my tears, because no matter how hard I try to force them they will never fall, the pain it is simply too much.
The rain is thick and heavy and I can barely see across the street. I want to desperately to feel something other than this gut wrenching sorrow mixed with a tinge of emptiness, that I almost, almost step out into the torrential downpour just to feel something. But I chicken out in the end.
I never was all that brave.
I simply do not possess the energy it would take to step out into the rain and feel alive. I am not sure why I am so exhausted, it could have to do with the fact that these days I am no longer sleeping, or it could be that today the realisation that my sister is dead hit me. That she is actually gone.
I am only starting to realise that while I was found my sister was terribly lost, I will forever miss her, the woman she could have become and the lost girl she was. I know that right now I should walk back inside and find my mother, hold her hand and finish her sentences when her voice breaks. Pretend like my world is not slowly collapsing, but just like stepping out into the rain I do not physically possess the energy required. I am drained emotionally and physically.
I do not realise I am not alone until a sigh sounds behind me, a very familiar sigh that I have heard many a late evening. It almost brings a smile to my face, because he is here and that is more than I could ever want. Cam, my best friend for the past twelve years of my life stands leaning against a pole a cigarette hanging behind his ear staring at me like I am somehow broken. I want to yell at him for looking at me like that, because I am fine. But the words, the anger it won’t come and I just feel worn out like I have lived a thousand lives in the span of one day.
“Thought I might find you out here,” Cam says taking the cigarette and going through the motions of lighting it, he doesn’t bother to offer it to me. I have never been a smoker but I am suddenly desperate to be stupid and selfish and take the cigarette and puff it to the tip.
“Am I that predictable?” I question staring into his dark eyes, his lip quirks up the slightest bit, today is not a day for smiles, and I think he knows that so he never raises his lip into more than a smirk and I am eternally grateful. Cam always knows what I need before I know I need it.
“No,” I let out a sigh of relief reaching for the cigarette and plucking it from between his rose red lips, bright because of the cold weather. I look at the cigarette for a long while waiting for Cam to stop me from smoking but the moment never comes. And with shaking hands I take the smoke and place between my lips inhaling, smoke fills my lungs and I splutter. Cough and choke on the thick cloud of smoke. Cam watches me with interest,
“Smooth,” He tells me quietly taking the cigarette back, “Don’t start Clover, you’ll never stop” He tells me as if talking about himself. I wonder what else we start that we can never stop, I think that will be me and my investigation into my sister’s murder, the moment I start I won’t ever be able to stop and for a single moment I am terrified of the unknown and the inevitable.
“Cam” I ask almost as if the while word depends on the question and I think it might, at least my world does. “Does it ever get easier?” Cam lost his mum a few years back to cancer and I know he knows exactly what I am referring to from the expression on his face.
“Do you want the truth or a lie”
“Lie to me” I plead,
“Then yes, it gets better Clover” I want to wrap myself in this lie but I can’t because I know it won’t ever get better, it will only get worse as time pours on and I forget about my sister more and more each day until one day when she is nothing more than a distant memory. I sigh and cough out some more smoke.
“Come Clove, let’s go inside”
“One more minute” I ask and he gives me it, when that minute is up I feel no different. Maybe a little more determined but still soul achingly sad, and I don’t know that will ever pass. I hope not, I never want to be happy without my sister.
The rain falls harder than ever and I still can’t cry. But like I promised Cam I turn away from the sky and the rain and head inside, turning my back on my sister it feels like. I walk inside and look back, only once.