Ethereal Dusk

Chapter 1

You can't help the things your heart longs for.

A good nights sleep. A sound mind. To be alone without feeling lonely. I was never exactly able to put a finger on this strange feeling of uncertainty. Like somehow, I was missing my own truth.

From a young age I knew there was something dark inside me, deep down beneath the surface. Something so vast that it could move mountains, stir hurricanes, or fuck... I don't know. Create stars? But all of that came after the accident.

"Earth to Roslyn. Yoo-hoo!" mom says before a bundled up t-shirt smacks the side of my face.

I slowly turn my head to glare at her from where I stand by the bedroom window.

"Seriously?"

"Are you even listening to me?" she asks, arching a brow.

"Yes, I was just enjoying this marvelous weather," I say as I look out the window again, crossing my arms.

"It's raining," she says from where she sits on the floor in front of a massive pile of my clothes.

"Exactly."

On days she felt especially lonely mom would make the forty-five minute drive to visit me at my apartment. Which was at least once a week. It wasn't her fault that she couldn't be alone for long periods of time. She knew a pain different from the ones I held inside of my own heart. Her other half had departed this world and taken so much of her with him.

So I didn't mind her presence. In fact, I looked forward to it.

She was the one person who could love me without anything in return. Not that I had nothing to reciprocate, she just loved me unconditionally. I could be struck by lightening and turned to a vegetable and she'd still visit me every week to talk about her latest Pilates group's drama while stealing my clothes.

"You would think you attend funerals for a living with how much black you have in here," she says as she stretches out a crop top that's upside down.

"That hasn't stopped you from jacking my style since I was old enough to share clothes with you. And I like black. It slims me out and it's what I'm most comfortable in," I say as I shrug a shoulder and pick up my mug from the windowsill to take a sip of coffee. Maybe if I added a shot or two of alcohol to the cup I could ease the anxiety that pools in my chest today. What do they call that? An Irish coffee?

I scan all of the black clothes hanging in my closet. Only three shirts have any color to them, and two of them are white. The third is a hideous bright orange construction shirt that used to belong to my father. It's not that I was goth or anything like that. I just loved the way the dark shade enveloped me.

There's nothing quiet like the feeling of vanishing into the shadows. Away from prying eyes and expectations. Even sleeping in the pitch black was a necessity. My blackout curtains being one of the only reasons I could get what little hours of sleep in every night that I did. I loved the dark like my mother loved me.

Unconditionally.

"Yeah, you're right. It does slim me out," she says as she holds a long-sleeve up to her chest.

"Makes me feel like I still have a few miles left on this old thing."

I raise a brow and giggle as she swings the shirt around her head like she's about to rope a calf.

"What are you laughing at? Everything you have is what your momma gave ya! Except for that spicy personality. You can pay homage to your father for that," she says as she stands up to rummage through my shirts that hang in the closet.