Faded Lights: A Collection of Short Pieces

Past the Glass

TW: Includes violence and grief 

She looked like a porcelain doll smashed on the concrete. Red seeped over the skid marks on the road toward me. We weren't even a block away from our house, but my feet wouldn't move. I stared at her body, waiting—praying—for her chest to lift and fall. For any sign of life. The puddle of blood oozed around my white converse.

~ ~ ~

One. Rain struck the metal roof as lightning tore through the sky.

Two. Thunder roared in the distance and I counted the seconds like sheep.

Three. A beam of yellowed light shone from under the door.

Bang. My nightstand shook as someone barreled into it.

"Oof." Kat repositioned, turning the flashlight on so it shone on the plastic crown atop her brown curly hair. "The great reading fairy has come to chase away your nightmares once more." She crawled under the covers and slid a book between us. "You shall tell no one about me. Do you accept these terms?"

I scooched toward her warmth; happy she was here. "I accept."

With a different voice for each character, my sister's tales of adventure lulled me to sleep and I forgot about the storm.

~ ~ ~

What if she's different from before? The question gnaws at me like crows picking at roadkill. For seven months while Katherine was in a coma, the question kept me away from the hospital. And now that she's awake, the question taunts me to find out the truth.

Through the double paneled glass of the hospital room door, there's a face absent of Kat's dimpled smile. Instead, a person with a narrow face and a frame too thin sits in a white room on a white bed. The beeping of the various machines hooked up to her reminds me that she's not okay. Her brown hair, which many noted made us look like twins, hangs limply over her face as she tells my parents that she doesn't remember what happened.

Peering through the glass, I wonder if Katherine will ever remember pretending to be the reading fairy. If she even remembers me. If she hates me.

~ ~ ~

"Count with me." Her curly hair shot toward the sky as she swung in the plastic seat far too small for her. "One."

I didn't count with her, but she continued anyway. "Two."

"Three!" She waited until the top to jump off, the playset nearly toppling over. I rushed toward her as if me being there would help. She landed with a curtsy, and laughed.

"It's not funny." I tried to ignore the fright plastered on my face. "You could have gotten hurt."

"How so?" She skipped backwards toward her car.

"You could have hit your head or something. What if you forgot everything?"

"If I forget everything, just tell me that my favorite color is orange, that I love to read, and that my favorite person is you."

I stood, dumbfounded. "I'm your favorite person?"

"Of course." Her green eyes shimmered in the setting sun. "But if I forgot everything, I might think you're lying. So, you'll have to prove it to me."

I prided myself on being her favorite person until that winter day when I found her sprawled out on the concrete and did nothing as she bled out.

~ ~ ~

Katherine writes furiously in a notebook as she asks our parents questions that I can't hear. I wonder if she knows I graduated without her, and if I had gotten help sooner, she might not be in this situation.

My vision blurs as tears wet my cheeks. The sterilized air of the hospital is suffocating. It should have been me. The person who couldn't even run for help for her sister—who still can't take a single step into her hospital room.

Not Kat. Not the person who could warm an entire room with a single smile.

Our parents coax her to take a bite of toast. Katherine smiles, pushing the hair back from her tan face. I touch my fingers to the cold glass, wondering if she's different than before. Wondering if she remembers.

Kat turns her head toward the door as if to tell me that if it were me in her situation, she would be by my side. She would quiz me on the past books the reading fairy read and crack jokes.

I meet Kat's gaze. The same sparkle in her eyes as the day on the playset.

It's time for me to unfreeze my feet from the concrete.

For the first time in months, I push the door open to face my sister and move past the glass.

Note: This piece was first published in Rubbertop Review in the 2022 issue print issue. To learn more about them visit them here: https://ideaexchange.uakron.edu/rubbertopreview/