Authors Note:
Thank you for letting me share this story with you. Those who have been voting, commenting and emailing, thank you so so much. Your continued support has been inspiring me to dig deep and write something truly meaningful. I've been trying to face the uncomfortable emotions to honor the integrity of Grace's character. It's been hard, but also very rewarding.
I hope reading this story will touch you as deeply as it has touched me to write it for you.
More to come soon :)
Cheers,
Nora
—
Renascence
Noun:
The revival of something that has been dormant
—
I always slept in the fetal position.
It was like I was still in the womb, swimming in all the red, taking no breaths but still existing, still living even though I wasn't born, wasn't alive. But I hadn't been alone in the womb. Emma had been there, her heart ticking in that way that watches do, slow, methodical, calculated by her brain, running the factory of her body, her mind the foreman, giving orders while all she did was existed. And I'd existed too, right beside her, my body growing faster than hers, as if I was sucking out all the life force, taking everything and leaving her the leftovers. I'd taken so much from her then, and I've taken so much from her now.
That was why she'd been the smaller of the two of us. Shorter than me by a quarter of an inch, stunted by all that I had stolen from her. She hadn't minded it when she was alive, hadn't cared because I suspected that she loved me more than herself, almost as if loving me was loving herself, but I wondered if she would care now. I'd never asked for forgiveness, never given it a second thought until she wasn't there anymore, until it was too late to ask all the questions never asked. It was like an argument, the kind you'd think about in the shower later, replaying it and thinking of all the things you should've said — that was my life now, an argument with myself. I was angry because there was so much I wanted to say and I only had myself to blame, like I was stealing from myself too, taking away the opportunities that would've helped me win the goddamn argument.
We might've been middle-aged before I would've realized that I had a lot to apologize for. I'd always been a burden on her, always sticking to her like plastic wrap, molding myself around her, becoming her second skin, clinging to her because the only real purpose that plastic wrap serves is sticking to things.
The anxiety attacks hadn't started because she'd died. It wasn't as if they'd been a dormant disease, the fire only ignited the second things began to fall apart. No, I'd always been weak, always anxious, always rethinking and reevaluating and wondering if I was doing anything right. As long as Emma was there to lead the way, as long as she set the example that
yes, this is the way we do things,
I'd been able to live with it. Skinned knees were okay, crying was okay, getting a C+ on a paper was okay because that was life and that was the way the world worked. Like darkness and light, failure was the absence of success. Without it, you might not truly understand success at all.
But now Emma is not here to show me the way. Now I'm on this dark path that I can't escape, planting one foot in front of the other, trying to fill the void in the center of my chest with heavy emotions, the kind that weigh me down and make me tired, so fucking tired.
And so I sleep in the fetal position, making room for a person that is not there.
—
Gabriel Hart was not Emma's replacement. She was clear weather on a summer day, but Gabe was the thunderstorm, rumbling in the darkness, flashing bolts of lightning to show me that things could still be bright, but then taking it away because he was still a storm, and storms always mean destruction. And if he was the thunder, then I was the rain—something that the clouds wanted to get rid of, something that weighed too much to deal with, something that only existed to fall.
We acted as if nothing had happened. Tender touches, tender kisses, tender gazes, all swept under the rug so that we could walk over it, stomping out the ashes from the fire. We shared the same air in the classroom, whispering breaths that had meant something one day, and then the next it was lost amongst all the other breaths, all the other people that mattered as little as we pretended that we did to each other.
Chemistry was supposed to be some bullshit made up by Hollywood, but I couldn't kid myself—chemistry was fucking
real.
Gabe and I were elements that reacted badly, but under the right conditions we might've created something new, like some advancement worth telling the world about if only we hadn't been some fucked up experiment in the back of the school, sharing kisses and sharing secrets that could never be told. We had radiated toward each other, magnetic, drawn by forces that didn't really make sense because science really hasn't come that far. There was no way to explain feeling so much for a person that you barely knew.
And so I wrote it off as chemistry.
We kept on ignoring each other all the way up to the day before Christmas, the day that we were being let out for a short break to celebrate the holidays that we didn't really deserve. We didn't exchange hellos or goodbyes, but sometimes we caught eyes, speaking across the room in silence, trying not to look like we wanted the same thing. Our eyes said all the things we couldn't, speaking its own language, sharing the madness. Sometimes his eyes would soften, looking at me like I was a tragic little teenager, and it sucked because I couldn't even correct him. I wanted to tell him that I could survive this. I was surviving everything else, things like death and despair, so yes Gabe, I'll survive this. I'll survive you.
I tried to work on my speech. I had to give it in front of the class on January 2nd, the last day in the torture chamber winter session class. I thought about writing about wine because Mrs. White had given me the idea, but wine sounded stupid when I put my pen to paper. Who gives a fuck about wine anyways? Dad maybe, but fuck Dad.
I could only write poetry that didn't really make sense. The words strung together in cobwebs in my brain, linking together but not creating anything that could catch flies. I wrote in my little purple notebook, scribbling nonsense just so I could transfer that nonsense out of my brain and leave it on paper instead. I wrote about this, about Gabe being a thunderstorm, about Emma in the womb, about the void that I kept trying to fill.
—
Christmas was exactly as depressing and stupid as I'd predicted it would be. Mom and Grandma fought about trivial things, getting into the little things until somehow they got lost in the big things, bringing up shit that was twenty years old. Resentment was so heavy at the dinner table that you could almost taste it, until you could taste nothing else. Turkey and mashed potatoes and green beans and everything American sat on the table, a feast made for a group of people that were pretending really hard that they were a family when they didn't know the first thing about it.
A few days after Christmas I got an express delivery box from Dad. It was almost like I'd been an afterthought, one that kept gnawing at him in the back of his mind until he just gave in, sending me gifts so he could make himself feel better. I dropped off the box at the post office without opening it. I wasn't feeling that generous this Christmas. Satisfaction wasn't cheap, and I couldn't afford to give it him.
Things changed a little on New Year's Eve. We didn't watch the ball drop on TV or anything, but we all sort of sat together in the living room and tried existing around each other. Grandma knitted like she was on the cover of Grandmother Weekly, and Grandpa whittled a piece of wood making something that I couldn't be bothered to make out. Mom went through her phone, probably stalking old high school boyfriends because she
could
afford satisfaction and it was a gift she fully intended on spoiling herself with. I read
Pride and Prejudice
because I was really hungry for a bullshit love story. I wanted to read about Mr. Darcy, the shittiest love interest of all time. The arrogant, egotistic bastard that had to buy Lizzy's love. Sometimes it was nice to read about shitty guys to distract your brain from thinking about nice guys—
the
nice guy.
He texted me at midnight.
We were only human. Humans aren't really good at resisting temptation. Read a history book if you want proof. We destroy everything, and its all rooted from temptation.
Gabe:
I'm sorry about everything.
Me:
I am too.
Gabe:
I didn't check to see how you were doing. I should have texted you sooner.
Me:
There's no rulebook for this. You're just protecting yourself. It's understandable.
Gabe:
I'm not protecting myself. I'm protecting you.
See, I wish he hadn't said that. They're 'nice guy' words. The genuine kind, not the kind that come from neckbeards that pretend to be your friend so they can get in your pants and then call you a whore when you reject them. I think Gabe did get tempted to get in my pants after I acted like a deranged cocktease, but his intention had never been to hurt me. For a few hours we'd lost control together, but then it was over and we just sort of pretended that we were okay with it. His texts suck because it confirms that he's just like me—that he's been pretending. We both cared too much and I don't think either of us understood why.
Me:
I'm sorry I did this to you.
Gabe:
I did this. I hurt you.
Me:
You didn't. We'll get over it. How are you?
Gabe:
I'm alright. How are you holding up? How's break?
Me:
It's a nightmare. My family is pretty dysfunctional.
Gabe:
