Suicide // Haylor AU

Chapter 9

Double update 1/2

MONDAY, MARCH 18

20 days left

Monday morning in my house is probably my least favorite time of the week. I can't ever sneak in an extra fifteen minutes of sleep because Kendall always gets up extra early to root through her entire closet. God forbid she chooses the wrong outfit. Apparently the statement you make on Monday is really important—according to Kendall, what you wear on Monday determines how the rest of your week will be. Like, if you dress really nice and get tons of compliments, you'll pass your algebra quiz on Thursday. I don't really think polynomials have anything to do with wedges or skinny jeans, but Kendall is completely convinced. Good thing I wear a variation of the same thing every day—gray striped long-sleeved T-shirt, black jeans, gray sneakers—so there's no chance of things ever being different for me.
"Taylor," she hisses. "Taylor, wake up."
"Kendall," I groan, and roll over on my side. I press my face farther into the pillow in hopes of drowning her out. "I don't really care whether you wear your purple sweater dress or your red pencil skirt. I'm sure everyone will think you look beautiful either way."
I hear the end of my bed creak. She starts poking me in the sides and I squirm away from her, my limbs tangled in the sheets. "What the hell?"
"Wake up!" She bounces back up and paces around the room. "Look out the window."
I rub my temples. I was planning on sleeping for at least another fifteen minutes, twenty if I decided not to brush my hair. Sighing, I force myself out of bed. I stumble over to the small window that's positioned in the very middle of the back wall of our room. That window has been our dividing line for the last three years—left side for me, right side for Kendall. Her side is covered with pages she's ripped out of fashion magazines and pictures of her and friends and her collection of saltshakers. She has this strange obsession with unique saltshakers—shakers shaped like owls, trucks, wolves—she finds them at thrift stores. My wall is empty.
"Look," she presses, pointing at the window.
Outside, I see that the grass is blanketed with snow. I blink because the sun is out and it makes our whole yard glisten. The snow is piled against the trunks of the oak trees, and from what I can see, it looks like we must have gotten at least four inches. "Isn't it amazing?" Kendall says, clapping behind me. "School is canceled!"
"It never snows in March," I say.
"It did once when we were little, remember?"
I remember. It was a good day. I couldn't have been older than nine, Kendall must have been seven then, and Rob was two. Dad drove me to spend the day over here because he still wanted to work at the store, hoping that he might get some extra foot traffic since all the kids would be out of school.
That morning Mom made us chocolate-chip pancakes and then we spent the rest of the day building snowmen in the yard and sledding down the hill on Vine Street. We felt like a real family that day—I didn't feel like an interloper who only came to visit on weekends.
That was a long time ago.
It's silent for a few moments. Me staring out the window at the fresh snow and Kendall watching me stare. Neither one of us knows how to talk to the other anymore.
"I think I'm going to go back to sleep," I say. That's what a snow day means now, not pancakes and snowmen, but extra hours in my bed. Alone.
I hear her make the verbal equivalent of a frown—a whiny snort. "Are you like still tired from Saturday night?"
"What?"
"You were out late," she says.
I flop back into my bed and pull the comforter over my face. I'm not going to talk about Harry with Kendall. Not in a million years.
She sits down at the end of my bed again. "Who were you with? Do you have a boyfriend now or something?"
I can't help but laugh. If I have a boyfriend, his name is Death. And I'm pretty sure Harry is in love with him, too. It's like a love triangle gone wrong. Or maybe it's a love triangle gone right: we both get the guy on April 7.
She huffs and I feel the bed move as she gets up. "Fine. Just laugh at me. I was only trying to talk to my big sister. Excuse me for making an effort."
Oh, now you want to talk to me? I feel the urge to laugh all over again. The irony of the whole thing. She's only interested in talking to me when a half foot of snow separates her from hanging out with her friends. "Half sister," I correct her, and for a second I feel a little guilty. Then the black slug comes to the rescue.
"You're impossible," she says, and sighs. If I didn't know her better, I'd say she was sad. She leans against the wall, her hand on the door handle. "So you know, Mom made pancakes."
I hear the door slam as she leaves. A few seconds later, it opens again "Oh, and so you know, Steve . . ." She says "Steve" in the exact same way I always do, stretching it out like it's a loose rubber band. There's an awkward pause and then she continues, "Yeah, Steve, he's at work. Sparkle didn't close the factory."
"You mean your dad," I correct her again. "Your dad is at work."
"Yeah, my dad. The one you hate for no understandable reason. The one that gave you a home."
That's it. I throw the comforter off of me and sit up straight. "How generous of him. And I don't hate him, Kendall."
"Oh yeah? Well, you sure act like it. I'm tired of you spending every day feeling sorry for yourself just because of what your dad did. Newsflash: You aren't your dad. And you should stop blaming everyone else for what he did. Yourself included."
Tell that to everyone else, I think. I flash her a snarly frown, hoping she'll leave me in peace, but she stays. She stares at me for a while, her hands on her slender hips. I stare back at her, trying to figure out how we are even half sisters. With her a little bit tanned skin, brown-colored hair, and tiny nose, she looks like the prototypical Kentucky beauty pageant contestant. She's like the sun and I'm like the bumpy, brooding moon. The only thing we have in common is our eyes. We both have Mom's blue, almond-shaped eyes.
Right now, her hair is in a braid and she's wearing boy boxers and an oversized Kentucky Wildcats T-shirt. I wonder if she's given up on her Monday rule. I'm about to comment on it, but before I do, she says, "I just wish you weren't so sad all the time, Taylor."
Me too, Kendall. Me too.
I take a deep breath and get out of bed. "I'll meet you downstairs for pancakes. Just let me brush my teeth."
She smiles like I just told her she aced her algebra exam and skips out of our room. I don't think I've skipped since the last March snow day.
I walk down the hall to the bathroom and squeeze some toothpaste onto my toothbrush. I take the toothbrush back to our room and scrub my teeth as I look out the window. I overhear Mom and Kendall and Rob talking in the kitchen.
"She's coming down soon," Kendall says.
"Oh, good!" Mom says. "I'm so glad you convinced her to get out of bed."
The smell of maple syrup fills the entire house. I can hear Rob banging his fists on the kitchen table. "Make sure you add extra chocolate chips," he says. "Taylor loves chocolate chips."
My heart swells and I wait for the black slug to take the feeling away from me, but it doesn't. It lets me keep it. The swelling turns into a small, sharp ache—it's going to be harder to leave them than I realized.
As I put on my slippers and pad down the stairs, I find myself wishing that every day were like this one. If every day were like this one, I don't think I'd be so eager to be gone.

The problem is, March snow days are miracles. You can't live for miracles.