for the sins of her mother

Vow

Mei got out of bed, deciding that life was preferable to more nightmares by a very slim margin. Your world imploding around you does not excuse you from having to brush your teeth. Mei was surprised to realise that. Her hair was still a bird's nest, she still needed to do her laundry, she wanted a glass of water. Life's propensity to go on was supposed to be a comforting fact (this, too, shall pass), but she despised it. Life was sprinting along with no regard for the devastation in its wake, dragging her behind it when she needed to stop, to turn back.

She yanked a brush through her hair and resolved to cut it short. She had said that a thousand times and never done it. She sat on the stairs, thinking through the secondary issue of talking to her mother. She sidestepped that problem by avoiding it altogether. She checked around every door to determine that Zenia was either asleep or out somewhere. She made breakfast, realised that food disgusted her and pushed it around the plate before throwing it away. She didn't have the strength to make herself feel guilty. She wrote a note and shut the door without making a sound. She walked, music turned up to eardrum-bursting volume. On autopilot she found herself walking the familiar route to Vera's house, movements as easy as breathing. She swerved around towards her true destination. She fixed Chiyo in her mind as a reason to stay strong.

Chiyo's house was tiny and cramped. There were photos on the walls, but none from less than ten years ago. It always reminded Mei of a place frozen in time, waiting for something. Chiyo was closed off about her family, so she never asked what. Neither did Vera, it was the one area where they both managed to apply tact. Vera was gone. Her being rejected this fact. She wasn't lost in her thoughts for too long, her spiral interrupted by Chiyo's soft footsteps down the hallway.

They looked at each other, knowing there was nothing to say. Mei had never looked at Chiyo's face with any attention to detail, not with Vera around. Always pale, she had become transparent, the red circling her eyes bright against the white of her skin. Her eyes were big pools of ink, framed by short lashes stuck together by tears. Her looks and demeanour always made people want to protect her. The effect had been magnified by a hundredfold. She was shaking, clasping her hands tight to try and stop it. Mei made an abortive attempt to speak, gave up, and hugged her. Chiyo was thin, fragile, with the bones of a sparrow. With Chiyo's head against her chest, Mei let herself cry. Waves of tears shook her and she clung to Chiyo, her one anchor in the storm. They were cutting off each other's circulation but none of that mattered. They pulled away after a long moment, Mei's chest damp where Chiyo had cried.

Chiyo's room was proportional to her size and doubled as a storage cupboard. Her walls were a peeling lilac and there was a vase of dried flowers on a cardboard box. A stuffed cat named Terry lounged on the three adjoining cardboard boxes with cushions on that served as a sofa. Terry was the object of Chiyo's near-boundless capacity for love until she moved out and got a real cat. Mei and Chiyo sat on their sofa, their legs touching. The silence stretched between them.

"Hi," said Mei, her voice squeaky. Chiyo made a sound that could have once resembled a laugh.
"Hi," she mimicked without a trace of mockery. "Oh, god." Mei nodded.

"Oh god."
"Vera-" Chiyo started and cut off, pulling her cardigan around her.
"I'm so sorry," Mei said. "I'm- god I'm- I'm so sorry." It was strange, to apologise for grief, but automatic.
"It's not- you didn't- she was-"

"She was here yesterday. We had lunch with her, we talked in the clubroom and she told a ghost story and she was here, she was with us," Mei stated, trying to rationalise it. All of those things were true. She could comprehend none of them.

"And- she's not here any more," said Chiyo, taking up Mei's train of thought. "And- she's not going to be here, she's not- she's not going to be here ever again." Saying that awful sentence, Chiyo's speech was steady and deliberate. So much for protecting her from harm. Mei shook her head.
"We're going to wake up soon. Our lives are on hold, but we'll wake up and everything will start again, and she'll be there, and it'll all be-" Mei realised how delusional she sounded and took a shuddering breath. Get a grip, Mei, you're meant to be the strong one. Chiyo's face had hardened and her fists were clenched.