Closing Both Eyes

Chapter 3

I got up from the couch, eyeing the door carefully and watched it barge open.  There stood a very enthusiastic Larissa, holding an unfamiliar key, danging from her maniqured fingertips.

“Got it” she beaded, and closed the door behind her with her foot.  Besides the closing thud, the house went silent, no noise, not even a car passed.  My reaction went numb, I didn’t have a reaction, I didn’t have anything.  Only Larissa could save this moment…

“Maya?” the sound of her voice invaded the cold silence, and pricked at my ears.

“What?” I dumbly replied, snapping my concious back to her.

“I got it, the apartment in Edele Street, remember, Maya?  Maya…” her voice trailed off like footsteps in the snow, into a distant echo I couldn’t digest.

“Yea” I mutter, my lips only just parting.  “We really should talk”.  I didn’t believe that she heard me but she did.  She put her bag and new keys down with that rattling jingle and took my tiny shoulders under her arm.

“What’s wrong, May?” she soothed her tone.  I looked at her in the eyes, they sparkled heavy hazel and danced with greys that you would find in a setting sky.

“I don’t know” I lied, taking a breath.  “I guess I just don’t want you to leave”.  Rissa did what she always did, and smiled as if I was a child, her daugher.

“Aw” she pouted.  “I know, sweety.  I don’t want to leave you but we both know this is a good thing, right?  And for you too, you can get a job, start up again like you’ve always wanted”. She bared her teeth, and for the first time in my life I looked at her as an animal.

“No” I shrugged her heavy arm off of me.  “You don’t get it” I started.  “You don’t get what it’s like to be unemployed and lonely, or scared or sad or anything because all you’ve ever done was go ahead and avoid all those things.  Like me, excuse me if I weigh you down a little, Ris, but did you ever think maybe I need someone, not to leave me?” she stood aghast, blinking her inked, balck lashes against cheeks.

“What?” she finally burst.  I had made a horrible mistake.

“You heard” I swollowed my fear and straightened my back.  Larissa wasn’t the one to fight, it was one of those things she avioded.  But she was the person who knew how to fight.

“No, I heard you” she took a slow step forward.  “You think, that staying and looking after a fully grown woman for years, after even our own mother decided it was time to move on, and then to start thinking about me for once in years of babysitting is, what, sinful to you?” she took another slow step forward, and crossed her arms over her chest.

“No-“

“What, selfish, stingy-“

“No-“ I try to plea, but her steps kept coming towards me.

“Greedy!”

“NO!” I yell, full forcful and thick, like a layer of stone came smashing down on poor Rissa.

“Sorry” I mutter, head down and all.  My face went warm, hot, heated up with boiling blood and rising emotions.

“Damn right you are” she said.  “And let me add a little something else to maybe spring clean your fucking useless brain, if you’re gonna yell at someone as moronically as you did to me, then go scream at mum.  She left, remember?  Or have you just got it in for me?  Because I have a life?” she spat her words and turned around, picked up her bag and her keys and charged for the door.

“If you need me, I’m in Edele Street, but seriously, don’t come by until you have some worth saying, maybe it’ll take another two years until you think of it”.  And she slammed the door, shut, closed.  

The ghosts started pouring out of the closets, and cobwebs were forming.  The light disppeared and the curtains were drawn.  Not really, just metaphorically.  Though it didn’t feel metaphorical, these walls were now haunted by everyone who left me, or died.  And now I’m on my own.