Phoenix's Lies

Just Go Back to Normal

Phoenix

A week passes before any of us fully relax. All of us who had been at that little meet-up after what Riv and I found and since Ari suggested going back to normal but none of us can. No matter how much we want to we're stuck in a place where we look over our shoulders at every corner.

School is no easier since those of us who are close, who are involved have to work to keep from talking about it since we didn't know who could be listening, who we could trust given the game of hide and seek we're stuck playing. For how long we don't know. We try to find moments of happiness, of peace, but it's hard. Hard not knowing when it will all crash down on top of us. Bury us.

Riv takes it the worst since I know she thinks she's to blame. She pulls away and tries to keep her distance once we get home. I chalked it up to processing the information to start with, After all, it was a lot to digest, a lot revealed. But as time went on it got more and more with her. More silence. More distance. Isolation. I want to help but she won't tell me so I can't figure out what to do, or to say.

By the time the week is up, I'm done waiting for her. Done waiting to see if she'll talk to me since I can see where she's pulling back. Not just from me either. Everyone, no matter how much we try to get her to open up she doesn't do it. Just remain quiet. She'll sit with us and sometimes get involved but for the most part, she just sits there. Thinking,

Ari corners me about it. "What's up with her? She's worse than before you came back and I can't figure out why." She gives me a look and I sigh, hating that I can't answer her. "Nix? Has she spoken to you about whatever she's sitting on?"

I shake my head. She hasn't spoken to me and it hurts me to see that I'm not the only one who realises it. Because she can put on a good show. With me. With Lena and Lib. with Ari and the guys. She can put on a good show since she's had so much practice that we all didn't see it for what it was. What she's doing with it.

"Nope, she won't talk to me at all. About anything and I don't know why Ari. I thought at first it was to do with what we'd found between us. What we'd discussed at that meeting we all had last week but then it carried on. She kept being silent, removed. I don't know how to reach her and I'm worried we'll lose her if one of us doesn't try." I switch my eyes to where Riv's sitting under a tree with a book and see how she's alone. Again. "I want to help Ari but I don't know how. She's pulled away and I don't know how to pull back without breaking her."

Ari sighs and sits, motioning for me to do the same. I do and between us, we watch how Riv sits there, a book now discarded as she watches the world with an expression I've seen more than I'd care to admit to myself since I've been back the past few months. Ari seems to have no more of an idea than I do since she just remains quiet. Both of us watch the girl we care about disappear before our eyes as she pulls into herself.

"It started as a coping mechanism, you know. The isolation." Ari's words are slow and low, laced with pain. I turned to look at her, "When her mother's abuse got worse after you left she pulled away slowly, even from me and Hunt. We worried she was doing something stupid with her life so we refused to give up on her. She just seemed to give up and accept it then." She pauses, her eyes on mine. "She didn't before you left. She always talked to you about what happened to her at home and saw you as a way to avoid dealing with the trauma by hiding behind how happy you made her. When you left that wall of disassociation cracked a little but didn't collapse. She still had her family. When they died she dropped the wall and just gave up. That's what she's doing now. She's seeing the bad shit stacked against us and forgetting to see the good. She's lost but in a different way."

She's silent then but I can tell she has more to say. Thankful that she doesn't since what she's already said makes me feel a little worse about how Riv and I left things years ago, no matter if she's forgiven me for it, I'm finding it harder to forgive myself. Just like I think she is having trouble doing over what happened to Cordi before I came back. Sighing I realise that we're both a little too similar. Toxic partnership. Riv's words from before come back and I think I understand it in part. We both have a hold too tight on the other. Both lost alone. Toxic partnership.