Bits and Pieces

For This Me

They've been dead for two weeks.

You'd think I would be upset. And to be completely honest, I'm not. Does that make me a horrible person? My parents are dead, barely cold in their graves, and here I am already moving on. Maybe it's so easy to move on because it's felt like this for a long time. But now, it's finally real.

I'm sitting on the floor of the apartment. Red cups are strewn all over the floor, trash on every imaginable surface. Consuela has gone home for the night. I pushed her out before it really got started. I know I should clean everything up, but, I don't really want to, and who can stop me? So I go into my room, fall on top of the bed, still in my dress, and not even tucked under the covers.

I wake up with a headache. Panic sets in as I realize the whole apartment is a disaster. Mother and father will see, mother and father will see is all I can think as I hurry out of bed. Then I stop. I remember everything: the car crash, the hospital, the funeral.

I look in the mirror. My roots, dark, brown, and boring, have started growing in. The top of my head looks like it's some kind of striped. I haven't had my hair done in who knows how long. I look tired and almost afraid.

For some reason, I go find Consuela and get a trash bag. Being the good maid that she is, she has already started. I have never helped clean before. I start putting things in bags and I see my hands. I remember what mother used to say: You can tell a lot about a person by looking at their hands. My nails are chipped. I haven't gotten them done since the funeral. They desperately needed to be filled in. My hands are chapped, and my cuticles are peeling. I look down and I've filled up a trash bag, and I take it to the kitchen and set it on the floor. I don't know where the trash goes. Consuela's always taken care of those things. And I can't ask her, not about any of the things that have happened. Not because she's the help, but because she can hardly speak English. I feel exhausted, and I hurt all over. I decide to take a shower.

When I get out, I somehow feel much better. But at the same time, I don't feel better at all. I'm sitting on my bed, and I text James. I don't love him, I decide. I know that now. I felt like I had to love him. That was the destiny my parents set for me. They put us together and expected us to go along. Now that they are gone, I don't have to do any of those things. No Yale, no family of four, and most of all, no James.

I meet him at my favorite coffee shop. It only takes a minute, the feeling was mutual, and then I sit there with just my coffee and me. I play with the corner of my phone case, and I'm waiting for the call. It's taken Charles, our- my lawyer, forever to "sort out the will". But I know what's really going on. I didn't get anything, and he doesn't want to tell me. I get it at 2:39 on that Sunday. Two weeks and one day after they died. Charles doesn't tell me, but he asks me to come down to the office. I do. I have my driver pick me up, and while I'm in there, I let him go. If what is coming is really coming, then there is no point in keeping him here. He should get on with his life. And so should I.

Charles greets me with a sad smile, and gives me the whole spiel on how my parents really, really loved me, but they wanted Ben to have some of the things he never had. So they were depriving me of everything I've always had, and they were spoiling my father's first child, my stepbrother, who was adopted by people from upstate. Father felt guilty later, leaving Ben with no information. Father was only seventeen when he was born, and they reconnected later. Mother never much liked the whole thing. But if Ben is getting everything, I can see that father had won this battle in the end, like always. They were leaving me alone. Ben is fine. He has a wife, a family, a nice house and a job. Now he has even more, and I don't have anything.

Charles goes on to say there is a reserve of money for my college, and all education-related expenses. He tells me the will was written before I turned eighteen, and that they had named my Aunt Rose my legal guardian. I find out that Ben has decided to sell the apartment. I should probably start packing my things up, he says. They'll be showing it soon. I nod and I leave, unable to speak.

I take the subway for the first time in my life. I get home and spend a long time conveying to Consuela that I have to leave, and that she should too. When she finally goes, I sit on the couch and lose any decorum I still have in me. I cry and I cry and I cry. I don't have anyone or anything, I think. I don't have any real friends, I don't have James, I don't have my house or any money. It's then I realize what a facade my life has been. Everything about and around me is fake. So unbearingly fake. And if this is the life I've been given to live, then I'm going to live it. I know now that I may not have as long as I thought. Life's short, and there's time to burn bridges.

After an hour, I compose myself and go to sleep.

When I wake up, I go to the salon. They cut my hair in an almost-bob and dye the whole thing the same brown as my roots. I go to the nail salon and get my fake nails removed. I haven't had my nails off since I was fourteen. My hands feel lighter now. My nails look weak. You can tell a lot a person by looking at their hands. I go home feeling a lot better than I ever did when I was fake.

And now I'm packing. I've been packing for hours. As it turns out, I have a lot of stuff. And with no one here to help me, the work is slow. I decide to get rid of a lot of it. I text some girls from high school, girls who I once considered my friends. They come with sad eyes, like they are sorry my parents are dead, but I know they only want my stuff. After many hours, I get it all down to a backpack, two bags and a suitcase. Those bags contain every part of my life so far. I call a taxi company. I look up the address in the yellow pages. I take one deep breath in that apartment, then I close the door and I don't look back. Not ever.

We pull up in the driveway two hours later. I pay the excessive fare, unload my bags, and soon, I am alone again. This time, however, I am on a front porch. I ring the doorbell, and a woman I have never seen before answers.

She has a sad look on her face, but joy at the same time.

"Welcome home, Emilia." And then my Aunt Rose pulls me into a loving hug, the only real love I think I've ever felt.

All of a sudden, I have found the home that was made for me. For this Emilia, for this me.

a/n: sorry its fast. this was for a class and I had a three pg limit. ;( 

Luv ya,

Alexa