Please Don't Look at Me

Number 1

Lying in bed. Eyes watching my fan spin round and around again, unstopping. Music blaring directly into my ears through tangled earbuds. Rain hitting the shoddy windowpanes outside my window. Incense burning. 2:34 in the morning. I finally stand for the first time in hours. My cheeks are warm to the touch from the continuous stream of tears. I become aware of the one sock on my left foot, the other tangled in my sheets. I make my way to my door, pulling one of my ex-boyfriend's hoodies over my head. I slink down the hall, down the staircase, being sure to avoid the one creaky step. My hand finally reaches the front door's handle. Opening the door to the smell of fresh rain and grass, the way the moon illuminates through the night. I lay on the scratchy driveway, feeling each and every pebble make marks on the back of the calves. Shut my eyes. Feel the cold, yet warm and inviting, rain and breeze hit my forehead, wetting my hair. Deep sighs feel miles deeper out here. 4:56 AM. Slumping back into the house. I see my mother at the top of the staircase, hands wrapped around her small frame, holding her robe together. Shaking her head, knowing better than to worry about where I am, or when I'll be back. I pull myself back into bed, wet clothes and rain smell infesting my bed. I find the one lone sock with my foot, pushing it around for a little while longer. Finally, shutting off my lights, shutting my eyes, shutting off the world.

I feel a hand on my mid back. "Alora? Honey?" My name burns a hole through me. I open my crusted over eyes to see my mother. She looks worse. Cheeks sunken in, dark circles enveloping her big eyes. "Hey mom.", my voice doesn't even sound like my own, foreign. Her cracked lips form into a tight-lipped smile, "I made breakfast, I know you aren't usually hungry in the morning but." I smile back, knowing our smiles are identical. "That sounds great mom. Thank you." She leaves and I pull myself up, feeling heavier each day. Walking downstairs, I don't hear the usual commotion. Oliver screaming about toy trucks, his favorite classmates this week. My dad's coffee cup hitting the hardwood table, the rustling of the newspaper. My mother yelling at him to use a coaster. I'll never get to hear those sounds again. The light in the kitchen seems different, less familiar. I sit at my usual spot at the table, right across from my mom. Setting a cup of coffee in front of me, made just the way I like it. Though, Dad made it better. "So, we've arranged a day for the, well you know.", the way my mom's voice crackles could have sent me spiraling. Only 11:24, already mentioning it. "Oh, okay, when?" I push my eggs around my plate, it's as if I can see them getting colder. A card is placed in front of my plate of food I'm not going to eat.

"Rest In Paradise. Oliver and Peter Franco." The font is cheesy. My little brother being held by my father at the hospital, the light hitting my father's teary eyes just right. The card in my hand goes in and out of clear vision, my eyes welling up with tears. "November 17, 2021" My brother's 6th birthday, what a way to celebrate. "Alora, I know it's going to be hard for you to be ready to go bu-." I cut her off, "Yeah, it will." I grab my cup of coffee, lukewarm at this point, and rush back up to my room, nearly tripping over the last stair. I get to my door, but I stop. Oliver's room is right next to mine, always has been. I approach his door, his name spelled out on his door, with stickers plastered from the top of the door frame to the very bottom. I open up into the room, the air feeling thick and stale in here. The room is bright, like him. His bed unkempt, toys sprawled out all over the floor. I stand and just look, his presence wrapping around my shaky legs. I sit in his twin sized race car bed, smelling his pillows and blankets. The bright green and yellow paint on the walls hurt my eyes and my heart. Spiky, his favorite stuffed animal, sitting at the headboard, as if he's waiting for him to come back, keeping watch for him. I pick him up and hold him close to my heart, letting Spiky hear my heartbeat. I melt. I cry and Spiky soaks up the tears, it's as if he's letting me let it all out. My mother's slippers start shuffling down the hallway, approaching Oliver's room. I look up right as she reaches the threshold. Her broken eyes burning a hole directly into me. Sitting on the bed with me, his bed, she looks at me with tears pooling in her formally bright, happy eyes. "Oh baby, I know. I should've been there; it should have been me. I'm so sorry..." Her tone getting more and more strained. I grab her forearm, her skin cold to the touch. "Don't. Drunk drivers can't be stopped. It was thundering, the road was slippery. There was nothing we could have done." I find it hard to trust the words coming out of my mouth. "I know baby. I just.... lost my family. I have you and you have me, always and forever Alora." The dark conversation we are having in this happy room is off putting. 

Night falls again. Just like it does at the end of every day. I lose track of time, feeling all hope of finding the man responsible for the deaths of my father and brother soak out of my pores. Deciding I should at least pretend that I doesn't hurt so much. I close my eyes, watching the circles and shapes inside of my eyelids until I drift off to sleep.