UNSEEN

TWO

  There's a sound on my window pane, a hauntingly familiar one. Rain. It's rolling down, I can barely see anything. Everything looks wet, everything smells wet. There's a knock on my bedroom door.

Rain, Rain, go away, please just go the fuck away.

she opens the door wide open. I smell her scent. I can't describe it, but I've always been aware of it. The smell of the womb I was in, combined with honey and cocoa lotion, lavender shampoo, sweat and maybe a little bit of Evan. She doesn't smell like my father anymore. That's okay. I wouldn't want him around. Not now, not ever. 

"Honey, you're awake." she says, pretending to be surprised when she's well aware I was up all night. I don't speak. Every passing day, it's getting harder for me to form words out of my mouth. It's getting harder to hear. The gunshot is blocking out every other sound. I don't speak, she doesn't expect me to. She just places my clothes on the bed next to me. They're warm, crisp, straight out of the dryer. 

"Well, are you going to come down for breakfast?" 

I look up at her. She's a deep woman. At least she used to be. Like a poet.  When I was a kid, she used to tell me stories that pierced right through my heart, haunted my nights and shaped my soul. She saw the world differently. Of course, that's what writers do. And now, here she is, bothered about petty things like breakfast. She can't sit in one place and think. This is what death does to people. It doesn't kill just one person, it kills many. 

I nod. she smiles at me. Not her real smile, of course. The forced one. It's been almost two months since Liv was killed. They think she's growing out of it. But they always forget, always, that nobody grows out of pain. One just learns to live with it. And I'm having a really hard time. 

I follow her down the stairs and into the living room. Evan and Jason are already at the table. 

"Morning." Evan says. I say it back. That's it. We have a wonderful relationship.

Jason is trying to solve the Rubik's cube. He's doing it wrong. I'm not even sure if he knows the point of it. He's as thickheaded as his father. He looks like him too, when you see them next to each other, slurping their cereal. Barring the chin part and the beard, they practically have the same face. The chin, he gets from his late mother.

I sit next to the blonde little dope and wonder how he doesn't feel weird living in a different house with a different family in a different city. But then, he's just a ten year old with the brains of a five year old.

I grab my cereal and the remote and jump on the couch. I skip through channels. It's Saturday. there's nothing to watch. Nothing but the news about my dead sister. 

The reporter looks like he's in his forties. Olivia Whitney's name brings an odd glow on his face. I don't blame him, honestly. It's a fascination. Everybody wonders how the killer got away without leaving any evidence behind. 

" The curious case of Olivia Whitney is close to closing down due to insufficient evidence. The murder that took place on 28th of September in the woods behind Liberty High school has no leads whatsoever. No fingerprints, no weapons, and only Olivia's footprints were found. Since the police thinks there's nothing left to find at the crime scene and the ME found nothing but a bullet wound on the sixteen year old's forehead, it looks like Miss Whitney's murder will forever be a conundrum. "

"Reece, Turn that off. "mother says sternly. I don't want to turn it off. I feel a loud laugh coming up.           

She will forever be a conundrum.     

She grabs the remote and turns it off. 

"Aren't they hilarious?" I say, with wildness in my eyes. Evan holds her to calm her down. "We're not going to watch any news in this house. Not until they stop. Is that understood?" Everyone except me nods.                    

"Why? " I say. "They'll have a killer before we do. " 

 One step, another step, two steps together,then one step up the stairs. I run back up and barge into Liv's room. I go there often these days. I lock the door. Last thing I need is for my mother to follow me here. The room is still the same. We moved nothing. And that's what keeps me thinking that she'll come back. 

I jump on the bed. Something's wrong. It's bulging out from one of the sides. I push my hand under the mattress and pull out a diary. It's Liv's journal. It must have been in the center, but me sleeping on it every afternoon probably pushed it aside. This bundle of pages in my hand contains all of Olivia Whitney's secrets, the ones even I didn't know. 

I have to turn it in. It would be illegal not to. I must turn it in. 

I laugh out loud. I can't fool myself.