CoMari Au (Omori)

Part 33

It was the afternoon of the day MARI and I had got released. MOMMY left her first job early today, so she could have dinner with MARI and I. This would be the first time she saw MARI awake.

MARI was resting on the couch when MOMMY came home. Even though MARI had been discharged, the coma had still affected her a lot. The doctors said she would get tired, dizzy, and sick faster, at least for the first couple of months.

Immediately, both of them started crying as soon as they saw each other.

MOMMY ran over and hugged MARI. It seemed like the first time she had been happy in 4 years. The first time she'd been happy since MARI went into the coma.

"My baby... my baby is back." MOMMY kept repeating, tears cascading down her face. 

Her shoulder length wavy hair had lost all it's shine, messy from always working just to pay for her daughter's hospital bills. She had gone from being round full to frail and skinny from stress and depression. 

Her eyes were tired and lost and empty. 

But when she saw MARI, they lit up.

The last bit of life in them, the last spark of light, the last embers of the dying fire had been reignited.

MARI is crying too.

For a minute I feel jealous. 

They are holding each other, as if the other is so fragile they might break.

I feel like the most fragile person in the world.

I want MOMMY to hold me, I want to be just as loved as MARI. 

But MARI is beautiful, she hasn't done any wrong, and I've hurt the boy I loved most, so it's clear she deserves much more than I do.

After dinner, where MOMMY pays no attention to me, and it's okay. I understand.

I ask for MARI's help to make cookies after MOMMY leaves for her second job, and we make cookies together. 

I pack the cookies up, and bring them to AUBREY's house.

I knock on the door. AUBREY answers.

"Hey, uh, AUBREY... I made you cookies." I say.

She smiles, happy, and brushes her pink hair back from her face, and it falls back immediately. It looks like cherry blossoms, breezing in the wind, enchanting. I love cherry blossoms, they are spring and rebirth and renewal and romance and everything beautiful.

"Thanks. Any reason?" She asks.

I shake my head, and then begin to talk. "It's just... nice to do something for someone sometimes, you know? You're my friend, I like you. Maybe you were sad, maybe for a reason, maybe for no reason, maybe you weren't sad, maybe you were having the best day, oh god, maybe I ruined that, but maybe I didn't and you were happy and I made you even happier or maybe you were sad and I cheered you up."

She laughs to herself. "You're good at monologuing. All those..." She flicks my forehead lightly, teasing. "Words up in there."

"Haha... it's nothing... just word vomit..." I say, embarrassed. I like this compliment. It means something to me. 

She shakes her head. "You've got a talent for... words. Become a writer or some shit. Thanks for the cookies."

She opens up the box of cookies, takes one out, and gives it to me. 

I eat it. 

MARI's cookies taste like happiness.

(543 words) (4 chapters left, no chapter on saturday)