Admiring the Light

Ep 24

*Days later*

An empty home wasn't something Natalie experienced often. Her dad had been out at a meeting with someone, and Nightwhisper was probably upstairs with Guinevere.

Poor, poor Guinevere... she wanted to help so badly. She continued checking in, even without the responses she was used to. But her younger sister had kept her silence, she hadn't made a peep.

"Hey... everything alright?" Natalie whispered through the door, but her sister probably had earbuds in. Cranking in whatever sound she could. "Everything good, Sport?"

Silence. She'd never been ignored before, but Guinevere hadn't spoken to anyone. Not in days.

"Sport, it's lunchtime-" Her dad had called them out, but even on the third time now, when she herself had stayed home to watch her sister, no sound came back. "Sport?"

"I DON'T CARE, JUST STOP."

"Alright! Okay!" Natalie backed off, she knew the accident had been hard, but she didn't realize just how difficult it must be. "It wasn't your fault, you know."

No answer. Even if it had been a scream, that had been a response. The silence just sucked on her helplessness even more. "It wasn't your fault-"

Hand on the doorknob, it wouldn't turn completely. The stop meaning it was locked finally turned her away as well. "If you wanna talk... I'm downstairs-"

Guinevere probably deserved time alone with her thoughts, Natalie thought. But she'd had all this time, and the only way she'd recover would be to open up. Right?

Everything felt way too open now, nothing had moved, but the space felt like it was widening and tightening repeatedly, like her eyes had become constantly adjusting camera lenses. "Ah- shoot- ugh-" She cursed under her breath, resting on the smaller couch opposite to the entry of the room. Her vision slowly started to balance out again, but everything still felt small. Or was it bigger?

Natalie couldn't focus on her schoolwork like this. If Guinevere could drown herself in her academics, she was the opposite, only truly able to focus on literature and writing.

Discord open, of course none of her friends could be online. She was home, as much as she regretted it. Except for one.

...

Flashback

"Yooo, what's up, girl?"

Natalie set her bag down on an empty table, hurrying over to give the older teen a hug. "Heyy, hey Natalie... hi!"

"Maeve- do you have to..." She clung to her friend, her fingers needing to be peeled away. "Do you really have to go?"

"Heh, yeah kid, I don't wanna work at Chuck e Cheese anymore. I've gotta go." She sighed, the gray sweatshirt coming off over her head. "But why so far away, Maeve? Whyyy?"

"They have a culinary program, it was either them or Johnston and Wales." She chuckled, and Natalie knew she couldn't change the mind of Maeve. Her friend loved cooking, and Johnston and Wales was even further than her planned university.

"I can't...! I need-" She sniffed.

"You don't need anything, hon." Maeve knelt down beside, her hand behind the leather jacket collar at her neck to get into Natalie's hair. "You just need to believe in yourself."

"But I need you... you help me..." She whispered, sniffling again as she pulled herself in closer.

"You'll meet others, I promise. You just need to reach out." Maeve put her forehead to Natalie. "We'll keep in touch, yes?"

...

Present

Your phone: wassup girl? :3

MAEVE!: hi

Your phone: hi!!

MAEVE!: hi

Your phone: how's college?? >:0

MAEVE!: it's fine

MAEVE!: my boyfriend's calling brb

Of course Maeve was dating now, Natalie clicked her phone off. Her last timestamped message had been from July of 2013, it made sense she'd go on with her life instead of remembering some random kid she helped.

Your phone: who's your man? >:3

MAEVE!: ollie lol

Your phone: who...?

MAEVE!: liv, he transitioned

Your phone: ohhh, good for her lol

Her mind still found it hard to wrap around the idea of being transgender, but it wasn't significant. Not right now.

Your phone: my sister's in a rough spot rn

MAEVE!: what happened?

Your phone: her gf died, car accident

Your phone: she won't talk to me

MAEVE!: she needs time <3

...

Guinevere didn't want to speak, nothing she could say would put her turmoil into words. Her girlfriend had died in the accident, and she'd watched it. She couldn't even put this into words for Natalie to begin to understand, she just couldn't reach out for support.

No Jacklyn to talk to. Because she'd killed her. She should've checked out the car. She should've checked the inhaler- she should've been the one that died. Now a great person was gone, her own great person, and it was her fault. All her fault.

She didn't even know what Jacklyn might want her to do. She just wanted to lie back down in bed. She didn't want to hear about how it was just an accident, they didn't know how it felt back in the car when she was watching Jacklyn choke. They'd just want to make her move on and forget, but she couldn't. Not until-

Until what? She mused over the idea, but all she could do was turn over and groan again. Too much thought on it just brought the hopeless feeling along. She wanted to go out in black, but that would just draw the attention to her. Something she didn't want at all.

This was something Natalie couldn't just fix with a few words and a hug. She'd seen plenty of movies, but she wasn't in hysterical tears, she just felt weighed. Depressed.

How many times had they reviewed the five stages of grief, in psychology units or literary analysis. Guinevere knew she wasn't in denial, she'd seen it. Jacklyn was dead, there was no arguing that. She wasn't bargaining with anything, again, there was no question about the events. There was no textbook definition that could help, just her, her mind, and her emotions. And everything pointed back to it being her fault, the only reason she could come up with.

Nightwhisper's paws gently leaped up to the bed, her long body rested over Guinevere's legs. But she sprung back up at the angry snap she got. "Go! Go, now!" The maine coon had been there too, and all she could connect with the cat were flashes back to the accident scene. Jacklyn's coughing for air as she struggled to stay alive.