Diantha's Gate

4

"Ok, I'm just saying, you are not allowed to be even the slightest bit productive tonight."

Brynn's huge, fuzzy ringlets protruded above the fridge door, her face bent down inspecting the contents of our refrigerator.

"Uggh, please tell me y'all bought more of those sweet and spicy pickle chips. I am going to cry if you didn't."

I watched her with amusement from my favorite chair at our small wooden table. "Ok, no productivity tonight, check," I said, with an exaggerated deep breath.

"The pickle things?" she tried again, peeking at me hopefully over the fridge door.

"I think you may be S.O.L. there," I said with regret. "Put 'em on the grocery list, and better luck next time."

Over the past thirteen years, each of our houses had begun carrying the other's favorite snacks, a true testament to the level of our friendship. Not only was Brynn considered a second daughter in our house; I ,too, was always more than welcome among Brynn's family. To be fair, everyone was welcome among Brynn's family. More often than not, Drew, Lav, and I would wake up in various rooms within the Elwood Home and sit down to a breakfast at the huge dining room farmhouse table as if we belonged there. All eight seats were often occupied.

While everyone was equally welcome in our house, it was much smaller and less lively. My mom and I were the only occupants, and she was often at work, leaving the house to me. Two stories, but extremely narrow, our home consisted of two bedrooms, a conjoining bathroom, a cozy kitchen, a breakfast nook, and a living room. Brynn's house, in comparison, was a massive structure composed of five bedrooms, two entertainment areas, a huge dining room, a fully decked out kitchen, and an extravagant back garden.

The house also held an appealing aura; the Elwoods had always promoted interesting conversation and laughter. It was just such a comfortable place to be, for each member of the family was extremely unique but equally accepting. There was always something to discuss or debate, and it seemed that every conversation was frequently interrupted by the comforting boom of Michael Elwood's laughter. Best. Laugh. Ever.

Brynn's father had always been one of my favorite people, perhaps because I'd lost my own dad and appreciated his paternal influence. Or perhaps because he was rarely caught without a bright smile. The kind that would reach his rich brown eyes and form laughter lines that gently creased his rich brown face. Brynn's mother, Meghan, may have enjoyed laughing even more than her husband, and she seemingly made it her personal mission to ensure that I didn't brood or take things too seriously for obnoxiously long periods of time, even when I tried my hardest. I felt like this was secretly a goal of the whole family's. Like they had weekly meetings and took notes on the progress that they'd made on my levels of contentment.

After renouncing parts of me that hurt too much to invoke any longer, I'd gradually become someone who found pleasure in the more serious aspects of life.

Serious. Responsible. Reasonable. That's who I'd become when Aemion no longer come to me at night. After mourning his absence, alongside my father's, for many years following the Spring and Summer I was six, I determined that I had subconsciously created him to battle the loss of my dad and the terrors that followed.

This had been a reasonable conclusion, as I had no longer been plagued at night by the Faceless Man's presence. But even after deciding that Aemion had to have been a figment of my imagination, I couldn't avoid the sense of betrayal I'd experienced each morning upon waking and discovering that he had, once again, failed to come to me in the night. Even with the knowledge that our friendship may have been forged by the smiths of a child's malleable understanding of the world, I'd still felt, for the longest time, that nothing could have been more concrete and life-altering.