for the sins of her mother

secrets

Mei tried to recall her morning routine. Wake up. Go back to sleep. Wake up. Stare at ceiling. Brush her teeth, granola with honey, get dressed and put on makeup if she could be bothered. Play piano, avoid coursework. Simple.

Impossible. Getting downstairs was harder than climbing Everest. She had to go in clusters of five at a time, stopping whenever her legs threatened to give out. Zenia sat at the kitchen table in the kind of 'just woke up' look that only sees the light of day on Paris runways, dissecting an apple with a silver knife.
"Morning?" said Mei, preparing for the eventuality that her mother had been replaced by a doppelganger.
"Good morning," replied Zenia, not looking up from her apple. Mei decided she wasn't going to get an explanation and might as well not bother.

"I'm meeting Chiyo today."
"You are aware I can afford to get you a therapist?" How to help your child with grief. "There is no need for you to offload everything onto this- how old is she? Thirteen?"
"She's nineteen, mum. Otherwise our friendship would be weird." Zenia ate a sliver of apple.
"Well if she insists on being under five feet tall and walking around in pastel knitwear, I don't know what you expect me to do."
"Bye." Zenia waved goodbye, opened her mouth to say something and gave up.

Chiyo opened the door in seconds and Mei could see a nest of cushions she had made for herself by it. Dark shadows on her face betrayed how little she had slept, and there was no bow in her hair for the first time Mei could remember.

"Please don't make me talk about it. I can't- I'll- I'll break. I can't. Let's pretend this is a puzzle. Let's pretend we'll find Vera, alive, at the end of it." Mei was embarrassed by her relief. There was nothing to say.

"We should look for Seb. We can find his address, it won't be too hard." "And we should go to Vera's house," said Mei with the brazen defensiveness of people who feel deeply guilty. It wasn't for their doomed investigation. It was because Mei needed to see a place that belonged to Vera, to breathe in air heavy with her energy. To say goodbye. Chiyo, understanding her true intention, nodded.

"Then we'll do that today, unless the police are searching there." Chiyo's face was tough, resolved. She looked the part of a fighter, only betrayed by the tremor in her hands. Mei cursed whatever cruel, sadistic god was watching them. Chiyo was a sunbeam in human form, pure innocence.

They walked to Vera's apartment hand in hand, cutting off each other's circulation. They had exhausted words. There was no police tape around the block of flats. Bins overflowed into the stairwell and every surface was covered in graffiti. Some of it had the unmistakable psychedelic fever-dream look of Vera's art. Mei stood, breathing in stagnant air and rotting trash, entranced. There was a complicated design of butterflies, every colour of the rainbow, bursting from a jar, and a girl with clocks for eyes, each signed with a scribbled 'Vee' so small it was invisible unless you knew where to look with it. Each artwork had been scrawled over with crude tags, and each time she had grown more art around them, turning their harsh edges into something beautiful. Mei could see her standing there, hair pulled back in paint-covered overalls, unaware that anything existed beside her canvas. Her genius friend. Tears pooled in the bottom of her lashes; if she blinked, they would fall. She didn't blink.

Chiyo reached for the doorbell and Mei rejoiced that not all the naive optimism had been knocked out of her. Mei pushed Chiyo's hand away and used the twist-and-pull knack for the door that Vera had shown her. It swung open. Chiyo looked shocked. Mei hated the irrational delight from Vera telling a secret to her, and only her. "The door jams," she whispered. "I figured it was simpler this way."

Chiyo walked without making a sound. It made Mei feel like a lumbering elephant (cross bred with a dinosaur) and she was all too aware of every floorboard that creaked underneath her. Glancing into the living room, she realised the effort was unnecessary. Vera's father was passed out on the threadbare sofa, bottle in hand. His size and muscle were imposing, but in sleep he was harmless. Even vulnerable.

Vera's room was the size of a cupboard, big enough for a bed with boxes of clothes underneath and a small desk, yet it brimmed with Vera's personality. The walls were a rich velvety purple that she had painted herself, and there was a whole jungle of plants hanging from the ceiling in hand-crocheted holders. There was a half drunk can of coke and a paranormal book with a page half-annotated on her table. There was a stuffed octopus in the corner of the desk and possible outfits for tomorrow laid out on the floor. She was having trouble deciding between 50s housewife and full Victorian Gothic. Mei buried her face in her hands.

She resurfaced after her tear ducts gave up with an undignified streaming nose and the cuff of her hoodie damp. Chiyo had blood on her chin from biting her lip, giving her the coveted 'saddest vampire of the year' award. Mei forced her thoughts onto the task at hand.

"We can do this. I know she makes her passwords. Would it be- wrong- it check her laptop?" Chiyo hesitated, twisting a hair tie between her fingers.

"Yes. Do it anyway." With the feeling that she was crossing a point of no return, Mei picked up the beat-up laptop. It was covered in stickers, with biscuit crumbs between the keys.

Vera stared over Mei's shoulder and laughed. "Seriously? 'Password'?"
"It's reverse psychology," insisted Mei. "They would never believe that someone of my massive intellect would have such a basic password." Vera rolled her eyes.
"You have to have a system, you see. Mine are all different paranormal occurrences, corresponding to the technology I use them for. Laptop? Murder aliens that came out of laptops. No one will ever figure it out."

"Yeah, but I know now."
"True. Delete my search history if I get murdered, will you?"

Vera's background was her favourite singer, and the chaos that was her files made Mei wince. She opened Vera's instagram with the guilt of someone robbing an altar. She clicked on her messages and her heart fell into her stomach.

kill yourself kill yourself kill yourself kill yourself

your an evil bitch and im going to cut you up die die die die

i know where you live i have your address and im always watching ill kill you if you don't stop if you don't leave me alone i'll fucking kill you