Grayscale

-Chapter 15-

Sorry in advance for the spam of quotes, but they all fit so well and I couldn't decide which one to use, so I used all of them.

"So wake me up when it's all over,

When I'm wiser and I'm older

All this time I was finding myself

And I didn't know I was lost."

"Maybe it's not about the happy ending. Maybe it's about the story."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I bend over, collapsing into a bench, not from physical exhaustion but from mental exhaustion. I couldn't leave. Not yet. I have to know why. Why she chose to end her life, and why didn't she talk to anybody about it, and why she was always so closed off about her past. I have to know.

I push myself off the bench, turning around, staring straight ahead. Slamming into the double doors, I see Sierra before me again. She looks up at me, her face wet. Seeing me, she wipes her face hastily.

"You'll always be Sierra to me," I say.

Sierra smiles. "I like it better this way too."

We stare at each other in silence before I say, "Why? What was wrong?" I whisper.

"All this time, it wasn't you who was out of place, it was me," Sierra says. "And I'm guessing you won't leave until you hear the story. But you better listen and stay, because it's a long one."

"I'm not going anywhere," I attest.

Sierra stares at me in the eyes. "One day, I was looking at my wrist, and I saw the translucent vine-like veins. I wanted to kill it. Not myself, but something underneath there that was lurking in the midst of me, something I didn't want there. It might sound crazy, but I am crazy after all, that's why I'm in here. But it would keep on growing if I didn't do something about it. And I couldn't kill it." She falls silent, breaking off the gaze and staring at her lap instead.

"That's all?" I badger. "This is why you're in here?"

"Hang on," Sierra says. "There's more. But I think why I'm saying all of this is because I couldn't take living in this world anymore. This world wasn't the one I wanted to live in." Sierra opens her hand, and unfurls a tiny slip of paper she was holding onto so tightly.

"'But if these years have taught me anything it is this: you can never run away. Not ever. The only way out is in.' I did a lot of reading the past week and wrote this down. My whole life, I've been trying to run away from what our world is, but I couldn't. I realized in the end that no matter what I did, I wouldn't be able to separate myself, and one day, I might end up like everyone else. There was nothing I wanted less than to be that," Sierra sighs. "Besides, the aspect of something on the other side was so alluring. I wanted to see and know what lay beyond, if there was anything. I needed to know. It was a constant question pricking me. Life and death. Death and life. If life was so awful, and there was nothing left to live for, then could death be any worse?"

You had me. But I don't say it out loud. It was clear she didn't think of me. Or, if she did, maybe I wasn't worth living for either.

"The single thread that barely holds you up," Sierra continues, "it breaks so easily, and then you fall into the chasm of death. Death. What is the first word that enters your mind when you hear that?"

"Sad, unpleasant, morbid, gone."

"But it really shouldn't be that way. Death, for me, was just another adventure. An adventure I didn't end up conquering."

"Sierra," I interrupt.

"An adventure that I no longer want to conquer," Sierra talks over me.

We stay silent like this for a while, me processing everything she just said, and Sierra, with whatever she does when she's silent. Thinking, probably. Thinking that led to over-thinking that led to this.

"So," I say, "you didn't try to kill yourself because you were depressed or whatever?"

Sierra exhales, crossing her legs. "That was one of the reasons, though extremely minor compared to my others. Or not, I don't know. Everything played a huge role in, well this. And they all piled onto each other and built the bridge which led me here." Her gaze trails off my face again, as she picks at her nail polish. I gawk at Sierra, taken aback. She never picked at her nails. I suppose I assumed that because she was confident in herself, a kind of a stereotype and expectation I placed on her, but she wasn't, or didn't seem like that type of person.

"Why were you depressed?" I finally asked, wincing at my bluntness, but it seemed like a good place to start after another prolonged silence.

"My parents passed away a while ago, and our family, we were all extremely close. Ryan and I did everything together, but after their death, we just kind of drifted apart. Didn't understand each other. Moved from state to state with our cousin who became our legal guardian. And I just kept losing everyone who I became close to."

I knew Sierra had a dark past, but I wasn't ready for the raw sorrow that she didn't mask when she spoke. But she didn't need to be here. She needed to be out and moving, where she belonged, hiking and running in the rain and sitting in trees at three in the morning but not here. "What if we go back for a month, and then you'll see you won't lose anyone this time? A round of bad luck doesn't mean an eternity of bad luck."

"I don't want to go back. I finished my time there. I can't go back," Sierra's voice wobbles. "I'm scared, Marley. I really am."

Sierra? Scared? Those two words have never been used in a sentence before. "Why would you be scared? You're Sierra Ryder. You're not scared of anything."

Sierra closes her eyes. "That's not true. I'm scared of losing people. You're the longest friend I've ever had. I don't want to lose you too because of me. I'm bad luck, no matter what you say. I'm scared of myself, Marley. I don't know who I am, or what I want, or anything."

"You helped me find myself before. Now, I'm going to help you." The tears Sierra so desperately fought to keep in before, the ones she wiped away when I came in now rained down her face like a long awaited thunderstorm, a heavy rainfall after years of drought.

I clasp onto her motionless hand, and she squeezes my hand in the slightest most unnoticeable way, as if she were thanking me for helping her and being there and just listening. "Think about it this way," I say. "We have one last school year together, one more summer together, and an infinite amount of memories to make."

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A/N:

THE END

(please read this)

Hope y'all enjoyed Grayscale, and I send my love to those who read all the way to the end. You guys are literally the best and may you be blessed with fortune forever. But seriously, thanks to all for the many votes, comments, and reads! I will remember you all forever and never forget you.

I hope to continue writing on this site so next update I will have an author's note asking about which book to post next and I'll have the summaries up and stuff, so be sure to read that too.

This writing journey has been such a wonderful, amazing first experience. To my silent readers, and to my non-silent readers, since this is THE last chapter, I would love to know your thoughts on Grayscale, especially the ones who don't usually comment. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I think I'm going to cry now because I'll miss updating every Friday.

Warmest love <3,

Coral Augustine