I Wish

Chapter 11

The rest of the day was frightfully normal. If my whole family hadn’t up and decided to forget my name and replace it, I would even have said it was nice. I lounged on the couch, hung out with said family, did some dishes, and generally had a… not a nice day, but an ordinary one. Something that I scarcely believed was possible. I could have coped with it, how crazy things had gotten, right until a couple of hours before I went to sleep, that is. I’d gotten my jammies on, and crawled into bed. A cup of hot chocolate and some double coated Tim Tams are sitting on the side table. My phone opened to my favourite reading app. I began to pursue my newest obsession, and then I stopped. It worked like that for a little while. Stopping and starting, swapping books even. Sometimes chapters cost coins or you had to wait for them to unlock, so I had twenty-three running all at once. So it’s not like I had a lack of options to work with, but that didn’t seem to matter. I burned through all of them without being able to finish a single chapter of anything. The next thing I registered, I wasn’t even holding my phone anymore. Throwing my phone wasn’t very mature, but I was fortunate for it to bounce on the bed and not off the side. I could feel myself breathing loudly, trying once again to control my temper and, man was I over doing that. Giving up, I end up shimmying down deeper into the covers. I plucked the spare pillow from the other side of my bed, popped it over my face and let out the loudest growl I dared to. At least the loudest I was willing to give without risking people wanting to know if I was okay. For a moment I lay there, my hands digging into the cotton as I squeezed it as hard as I could, and I tried my best to ignore the thump-thump-thump vibrating through my blood, daring me to get up and do something about it.

For the love of?! The thought was cut off by the need for air and my pillow was slammed back where I had plucked it from. This needed acknowledging, not that it would help my mood any. Ivy had ruined it. Absolutely and completely ruined it. Reading was the closest thing I got to going anywhere, it was an escape that I felt bad about being so lukewarm over before we stopped being able to go out. I kept thinking about their situation, and comparing it to my own, about what I’d do in their situation or about how they would deal with mine. Almost everything I read someone had a mystical bond of some sort. With fresh eyes, none of it was quite the romantic adventure it had first appeared to be. More than that, with something to compare it to, none of this was the distraction I’d been craving. A little getaway without having to move, because I sure as hell wasn’t getting out of here anywhere else. Unless… I stamped on that stray idea, Ivy was on my s**t list now and I was not interested in hanging out with her even if it did mean I could go somewhere. So reading was no longer of the good. Instead, it was just making me more stuck in the headspace I was in. Briefly, I stared at the white paint on the ceiling, and wondered if there was a way to crawl out. Tim Tams. I thought to myself, because okay, sure she ruined the book but the snacks? They were sacred. This was the point where I decided that I was done with absolutely everything, and I just wasn’t going to think about it again. It was an unidentifiable amount of time later, after an excessively angry midnight snack, I passed out. Probably aided by the fact that I really hoped nobody else wanted any of those Tim Tams, because they were gone now. Small chocolate crumbs on my pillowcase and, as I discovered when I woke up the next morning, stuck to my face.

***

The first thing I became aware of was the sniffling. Tiny little hiccupping sobs, as I stood in the corner of a room I didn’t recognise. Correction, almost didn’t recognise. I have vague recollections of those bronze silky sheets. It was Ivy, crying that is. I would have known that even if I hadn’t been looking straight at her. Purely by how much it hurt. I could see her though. She had her back to me, shoulders shaking and sitting perched on the edge of the bed as if she wasn’t sure she deserved to be there, with her long legs folded up against her chest. Hair hanging around her face in curtains that looked red in the seemingly source-less light, illuminating the room against the dark. Hunched over trembling with her hand over her mouth, as if she were trying to stifle the noise. Immediately, I wanted to comfort her, hands itching to get a hold of her. It mixed with the anger I had before I fell asleep and for a short while they battled. I had no concept of what being stabbed in the stomach felt like, but this would be my best guess. Before I could figure out what to say, and how to help, but I would never admit that to her, she leapt up and threw a ceramic decoration onto a wall. Never even noticing I was there. Huh.

“Damn it!” she yelled a clear bellow before her voice turned wobbly, “I did everything right. Everything like I was supposed to, just like she showed me. I did everything right. Why didn’t she come?” Her temper tantrum didn’t make this any less painful to watch, it left uncomfortable cramps in my stomach and stitches in my chest, but it sure went a long way into helping me ignore it. A couple more things were tossed, and as she cried it became apparent that all this was because I hadn’t come back the very next night.

“Are you kidding me? ARE YOU f*****g KIDDING ME?” I shouted in pure blinding frustration at her, and she jumped, looking hopeful when she spotted me. I did not want to find that adorable right now, the complete one-eighty she’d done should have been terrifying. Not cute.

“Are you doing this on purpose?” she asked with what could only be described as anime eyes and a dazzlingly bright grin, headless to the destruction around us she had just caused. Like, now that I was here, it didn’t even matter. Still not cute… Still. Not. Cute. I chide myself harshly.

“Showing up? No, no idea how I’m even managing it,” I said impatiently, “But this, this you did on purpose. What even?!” She looked at the ground briefly, biting her bottom lip with her hands behind her back. One foot planted behind the other and knees slightly bent like a little girl who was busted doing something they’d already been told not to. Ivy was doing her best to look endearing and contrite, and I would have to work harder to make sure she didn’t pick up on how well it was working.

“Oh, I was redecorating,” Ivy told me, “I have already picked out a bunch of things to replace them all for when you visit.” She was really sure that was going to happen. I wasn’t. She kept talking as I cautiously took a couple of steps towards her. “You know if you didn’t do this on purpose you’re going to have a big headache tomorrow,” she said with a pitying tone before it turned accusing, “You didn’t come.” It was an open invitation. I didn’t think it had a next night only stamp on it, I thought just a little bit bitterly.

“Yeah, because your mojo said I had to come back when I was ready and I’m still mad at you,” I said, throwing a pillow from the bed at her. It hit her squarely in the face. She squeaked, and that was the point my entire rib cage started to feel like there was a bird trapped in there. Fluttering its wings futilely to get out.

“Why? What did I do?” she cried, tossing the pillow back on the bed with a pout.

“I’m not even going to start on the name thing and how much that creeps me out, because seriously I can’t even know my own name,” I say, taking a couple of steps closer to her. She cuts me off.

“That’s because it’s dangerous,” she protested, and I think she was starting to get really annoyed with my willingness to ignore that.

“Sure it is, but then you ruined reading,” I informed her. This bewildered her.

“I’m not sure I even want to know,” she muttered finally when it became apparent that she wasn’t going to elaborate. Her arms crossed over her chest, and the feeling it invoked was similar to that time my mum busted me climbing out my window when I was twelve. Well that was just wince inducing. “You really should wake up now, unless you want a migraine tomorrow, this sort of thing takes practice,” Ivy continued, but this time at a normal volume, “Will you visit tomorrow?”

“Nope. I will visit when, and if, I’m ready to. Live with it,” I told her, raising my chin to look up into her eyes… Now was not the time to be thinking about how very long her legs were. It wasn’t, but I couldn’t help it.

“Are you ever going to stop being mad at me for things that I have no control over?” she asked sadly and blowing out a heavy sigh,

“It’s not like I had any control over this, everything happened to me the way it did to you. Are we really going to fight about it forever?” No, because eventually someone would crack, and then we’d just end up right where we were going anyway. Only with wasted time and regrets. There were few things I could think of that would make this situation more of a crapfest than that would, but still.

“I have feelings, you know, and opinions, and a right to all of them, because they are damn well valid,” I informed her, and even though I answered her she still shot a betrayed look as if I’d just told her to take a hike.

“Then just go,” she said dismissively, drawing into herself. Mentally retreating, if not physically. I was sort of just standing there and staring at her and wondering how she had missed the point. Ivy really had no idea what I’d meant by that.

“No,” I said again, and I was fervently excited over the part where I seemed to have a much easier time saying it now.

“Why?” she huffed, turning to face away from me, “You’ve made your opinions on the matter perfectly clear.” Had I thought? Did I really? Because if this was her reaction, then I’m thinking that I should probably start to find a better way to express myself.

“Because we are going to lay on that f*****g bed for five minutes, and make nice, because your feelings are valid too,” I hissed at her. Stick a fork in it, done, with the whole situation. I was literally tackled, and although I’ll deny it later. She thanked Light, and I wondered if that was a fairy thing. Like the equivalent of thanking god. She over projected, and we skidded across the silky sheets and toppled to a cold stone floor. It started off a riot of shared giggles.

“This is much better,” Ivy said as we lay facing each other, “Now tell me all about your favourite things.” We whispered together like a couple of girls in primary school on a sleepover, until it felt like I was falling asleep again. The world faded into a shadow of blackness. Except I didn’t fall asleep.

***

I woke up, and oh… she was not kidding about how badly my head would hurt. Somebody needed to tell the sun that they could take the day off. Go home, we’ll see you tomorrow when my eyeballs can tolerate you. It continued to shine brightly in the sky unrepentantly. What a bastard. I pulled the blanket over my head and decided I wasn’t going to get up. Tomorrow can wait. It wasn’t like there was anything important to do anyway, just like every other day this year.