Plight of Amour.

Five years. Five long, excruciating years passed by before I knew what was happening. And so many things happened to my life. On my fifteenth birthday, as a gift to me, Father sent one of the many books I had written to a publishing agency. He asked them to give him a response by my birthday on October 1st. Which they did.

They loved it and said they would love to publish. And they did.

Against my wish. My father pretty much forced me into the thing; I didn’t want to because I knew I did not want to be well-known or anything.

Needless to say, I kept tabs on Bill and the band as much as I could, looking up his name, watching interviews and videos, buying their albums. But my life became hectic really fast. My books were in high demand and everyone wanted to interview or do a segment on the teenaged romance novelist who had interesting stories to tell.

All the while through my fame, I never lost fate that we would find each other again, especially with both of us in the media so often. It would be easy! Right?

The years that passed are a mere blur to me, like my mind didn’t want to comprehend or remember my time without him. Eventually, the pain got worse with seeing him surrounded by so many fans, most of them terribly attractive girls. One thing would repeat in my head.

Why would he see me when a million other girls saw him?

I became withdrawn from the world, hiding in my office, typing and writing the hours away. The only time I came out was to eat or for the few hours of home school with a private tutor. Other than that, I wasn’t alive.

Rillia blamed it all on Father, because it was his idea for me to start getting my books published in the first place. But they didn’t know that I wasn’t upset about being famous. I just missed him. I missed Bill and Tom. And Georg and Gustav.

It hurt to watch them get more famous, get better, and grow into attractive men…And I wasn’t there to celebrate it with them.

I had been there through everything with Bill. We had been best friends since we were so young. I was there when he discovered he had a talent for singing and he was the first one to tell me that my writing abilities were unique and amazing.

I was there through everything and it didn’t seem right that I had to miss out on everything now.

Rillia and Father fought frequently around this time, all of the fights about me. Though I would never understand why. Finally, Father kicked Rillia out, having had enough. But she demanded that I come with her. She wouldn’t go if I wasn’t in her care.

So we moved. We ended up moving around a lot, because neither of us were happy where we ended up. Finally, I was seventeen; it was exactly two days after my birthday. Rillia said we were moving again, this time to our hometown.

The thought of returning made me sick, but it was a good kind of sick. I knew that it would finally be over. The pain of missing him.

But could I find him?

/-/-/-/

The house was empty. I could tell when we drove up to it. It had been empty for a long time, along with ours. I could feel my chest tearing apart as Rillia slowed the car down in front of our old house.

I opened the door and slid out onto the sidewalk. I couldn’t breathe. This had to be a sign telling me to turn back around, just go back to where I belonged in another city. I would never find him. The sinking feeling in my stomach proved that theory correct.

I heard Rillia slam her own door shut.

“Well…at least we got our old house back.” Her words didn’t ease the pain in my stomach.

“Because that makes me feel better,” I muttered, stuffing my hands in my coat pockets. The air was cold, just like I remembered. It even smelled the same.

Sighing, I walked forward to our old house. Rillia did her research before she told me we were moving and found out that the people who had bought our house had moved out recently. So she bought it again.

The memories would hurt, that was for sure, but I couldn’t argue with my legal guardian. I was still underage, after all.

The door was new and someone had attempted to paint over the original yellow color of the front exterior, but gave up. The porch was exactly as I remembered it, but I quickly noticed that the shutters on almost all the windows had been painted black.

I made a face. I didn’t even want to know what they did to the inside of the house.

I pulled the house key from my coat pocket and unlocked the darkly painted door. The interior wasn’t exactly how I remembered it either. Everything was bland, white, but the furniture that came with the house was actually quite enjoyable.

I sighed, slipping the key back into my pocket. I was home, finally, but it didn’t feel like it. It felt like an empty house, not what I remembered.

Rillia hopped up onto the porch beside me and dropped our suitcases. “How does it look inside?”

I shrugged and slid over the threshold, my heels clacking on the wooden floor and echoing through the lifeless structure. It didn’t look like I remembered it. Someone had painted all the rooms completely white.

Thank god our furniture was coming in the U-haul truck in the next few days, and that included my reliable computer and laptop. I couldn’t wait to get them back so I could start writing again.

I trudged my way through the almost unfamiliar living room and to the kitchen. I needed to see the backyard, where our plight was set, to see if it brought back as many memories as I hoped it would. To see if anything left held any significance. Anything that would make me feel like he was still there, holding my hand, smiling.

“Rillia!” I called as I gripped the knob on the backdoor.

“Yes?” There was a loud thud. “Damn suitcase.”

I shook my head. “I’ll be outside if you need me. Just put my suitcase up in my room, okay?”

“You got it!”

I opened the door and walked out. I jumped off the deck.

It was still there, I could see. The backyard that held the best years of my life, all the kisses, tears, hugs, secrets, and promises. I couldn’t believe I was actually looking at it. My heart threatened to stop beating.

The walk over to the other house was much longer than I remembered…

But that could have been because I was inching my way forward very slowly, like I was cautious of what might happen when I stepped onto the other property, when my foot penetrated the invisible wall that seemed to be holding me back.

I clutched my hands into fists. There was a fire burning in my stomach. It grew hotter as I neared, making me even more reluctant to cross over.

Nonetheless I still moved forward through the overgrown grass, my legs beginning to itch from the exposure of the raw plants. I could see his window as I trudged along.

His window.

The window.

The burning in my stomach bolted up into my chest, hovering around my heart painfully. I had to stop walking at this point. The pain was too much.

Though I was standing a little bit away, I could still see into the dark room that once held so much love.

They were really gone.

My heart ached viciously. This ache was the same pain I felt the whole five years I had been away.

I wanted to bury myself right in the yard, to drown my sorrows so I wouldn’t have to face them again.

I took three steps forward, until I was directly in front of the window. I pressed my hands on either side of it and leaned my forehead against the cold glass. I peered into the darkness, but couldn’t see anything. I could only barely make out the frame of the doorway.

It was no use, I realized. I would never find Bill again. Our paths would never cross once more. I just knew it.

And a wave of defeat and rejection washed over me, taking with it any hope I had left. Rillia would decapitate me when she heard of my failure, since the only reason she brought me back here was because she knew how much pain I was in without Bill.

What about our plight? Didn’t that mean anything anymore? a little voice whispered in the back of my mind.

Oh, of course not! another voice answered. He’s famous now! You mean nothing to him anymore.

A sigh passed my lips as I pushed away from the window and looked around. I loved that the backyard hadn’t changed at all from what I remembered. All the trees were in their original places, they were just larger, and Simone’s once beautiful flowers were dead.

It hurt me, but it made me happy. It took me back to those memories.

But, unlike I had been hoping, he was not there. I couldn’t feel his presence any longer.

So, I plopped down right where I sat and stared, many incoherent thoughts flitting through my head. If I had my computer, it would be the perfect time to start writing. I created my best work with my mood at its worst.

I slipped my hand into my coat pocket and pulled out my wallet. I yanked the zipper down and let it fall open. From the side flap, his smiling face stared up at me. It was the last picture we had taken together, and in it, I was standing beside him, my arms wrapped around him in a loving hug.

It was from a happier time in my life, when everything was right, when I could still look up at any point in time and find him there, grinning. When we would lay on his bedroom floor after he sang me to sleep. When there was still laughter in me, when I woke up and didn’t feel like a rabid tiger had eaten my innards. When I still had the energy to dance around wildly with Tom, Georg, and Gustav.

Before my mind died while my body still existed on earth.

Before…just before.

And if before had never ended, would the present be perfect? Could it be everything I ever wished for with a ring on my finger, a big house, and little dark haired babies running around?

My warped fantasies…

I was only seventeen. Of course my mind was messed up! Wasn’t everyone’s at this age?

“Damn, I need my computer.” I slapped my hands on my knees and pushed myself up to a standing position. Rillia would probably be poking her head out to see if I was okay at some point, and I didn’t want her to see me sitting in the grass, just staring off in space like a psycho.

Her “therapist” side would be peeking out and she would send me through a whole session of strange questions that I didn’t feel like answering.

I walked with my head bowed, my hands in my pockets, clutching my wallet and my house key until I thought my hand might break. My knuckles hurt from the tight grip, but I bared it.

Just as I jumped back onto the deck, the backdoor flung open and Rillia popped her head out.

“You okay, Calla?” There was a bright red streak on her forehead and a bruise forming on her cheek.

“I’m fine. But what happened to you?” I pointed to her face, my eyebrow raised.

Rillia stepped aside, and I entered back into the house. She crossed her arms over her chest.

“The suitcases were putting up a fight,” she whispered. “Your suitcase fell on top of me and sent me tumbling down the stairs.”

I laughed dryly. My poor klutz of a sister. I felt bad for her and how she couldn’t walk without breaking, spraining, or bruising something.

“Poor thing,” I whispered, starting up the steps.

Rillia caught my wrist before I could turn the corner and disappear. I turned around, staring down at her.

“What?” I whispered.

“Did…did you go over to their house?” Her eyes were wide. She was preparing for the rampage I usually threw whenever someone mentioned them.

But I was not going to start screaming like I normally would.

“Yes.” I pulled my wrist from her hand and started walking again. “Their house is empty.”

I heard Rillia mutter something, but I was too far up the stairs to hear her. I veered my way down the hall to my bedroom. I couldn’t wait to lie down and write some things in a notebook or my diary before I lost my mind.

I opened my bedroom door and sighed. The walls were still the light orange from my childhood. The bed had no sheets on it and the mattress was a lot smaller than I would have liked, but it would have to do until our furniture came.

My suitcase was propped against the farthest wall, along with one of my bags. I shrugged out of my coat and draped it over the headboard on the bed before grabbing my suitcase.

I smiled. My diary sat right on top, exactly where I put it. I grabbed it quickly and threw it open to the page set for today and started writing.

We made it to the house today. It looks almost exactly like we left it, except one major difference. Bill’s no longer there…