Return To Me, River (Re-Writing/Editing)

Chapter Three

My ipod's alarm brings me out of a half conscious and back to the cruel hardness of reality. Although now fantasy is just as gruesome as my waking hours. Sometimes worse. I slide my finger across my ipod touch and bring my feet round and lightly jump off the bed. I purposely avoid looking at River's room as I travel across the hall to the bathroom.

When I look in the mirrory I am greeted by a small girl with big blue eyes ringed by purple shadows from lack of sleep. I'm not startled, she looks at me everyday. This girl who looks so unlike me, pale and sickly. It is extraordinary how much a person can change in less than a fortnight. I get some foundation out of the cupboard and cover most of the shadows, I look more like me now. I brush and style my hair in side ponytail, then trudge downstairs to find breakfast.

Opening the kitchen cupboard I discover that the matter of food is very clear. We need more of it. All we have is what looks like a handful of cornflakes, a crust of bread, and several tinned soups and canned fruits. When I check the fridge I come up with about half a litre of juice, a carton of milk, that I realise is almost a week over the expiry date, some butter, and suspicious looking yoghurt. I pick out the yoghurt and take off the lid, "Ugh!" The stench of rotten dairy fills my nose, making me want to wretch. Chucking that in the bin, I give up on breakfast and go back to my bedroom. Maybe I shouldn't eat something anyway. The last time I did it ended coming back up. I don't think I've eaten now for almost a full three days. That can't be healthy.

I flick through my wardrobe and find something suitable to wear. I decide on a black skirt, black leggings, and a black singlet top. When I put it on and look in the mirror attached to the back of my door I instantly feel as if I look too Goth and change into a pair blue jeans and a yellow shirt will a smiley face on it. Then I think, how can I wear this. My sister was just murdered and I'm wearing the happiest thing ever! For the next half hour I find myself franticly trying to find a suitable outfit. I look in the mirror for the thousandth time and find myself in my red leathery skirt, and three-quarter singlet top. How is that appropriate to wear anywhere! Although I know that this is probably my most worn outfit. Sitting down on my bed I start to cry, and cry and cry. I can't wear this!

Today I'm supposed to talk the police again about anything that might help find out who killed River. When they asked me before I was covered in blood and completely traumatized. Now I'm slightly more composed. Standing up I start to rip out every piece of clothing I own from my wardrobe, in the hope that now I'll be able to see something that I didn't before. Another forty five minutes later I decide on wearing my indigo coloured sweater that I felt so compelled to buy at the store, but then wore it once and it ended up at the bottom of my closet, I also slip on a pair of black jeans. I find an indigo hair ribbon and tie it in a bow around my ponytail. I don't think I've worn a ribbon since I was ten. River loves -loved- them. She used to wear them a lot. Even at the age of twelve.

How can she not be here? I ask myself for the trillionth time. Why won't she come back to me! I refrain from screaming my head off and instead pick up my ipod and hurl it against the wall. It shatters, sending pieces of glass to scatter all over the floor. It made a whole lot of noise and a small dent in my bedroom wall.

My first impulse is to worry whether my mother heard the sound. Than I remember I'm as good as alone in this house. A house deserted of love and emotion of anything other than lost terror and sadness. I slide down the wall and softly land on the floor and start to wail. Tears flowing freely down my cheeks and I catch them in the palms of my hands. Not wanting to let them go. I know not to expect my mother to come rushing up to me like she would have before. She'll stay stationery on her permanent spot on the sofa in the sitting room.

I haven't checked on her yet today, I think with slight guilt. But surely she would come to me, my hopeful side tells me, though I know it's completely untrue. If she can hear through her coma like state then she wouldn't respond. Even if I started screaming that World War III had started. Wiping tears from my eyes and face I collect my phone, delete all the invites to movies Olivia sent me. Then put it in my backpack and go down into the sitting room. Just to check that my mother is actually there and is breathing. And of course she is. Then, taking a deep breath I leave the guest room and cross to the hallway, and try to prepare myself for what they might ask me. I think off all the details I can remember, that her blood was cold when I got there so she must have been dead a while. I of course know this because I slipped in it. Her sticky, red blood. Blood that kept her alive, that flowed through her body, to her heart. The memory of it is suddenly too much for me. A queasy feeling takes me over, making me double over and I retch several times onto the carpet, though all that comes up is some water. I collapse to my knees and curl up on the carpet. Rocking gently, trying to clear my head of all those things that I can't face to remember about River. I don't won't to remember her like that. I can't! She was so much more than just corpse.

I want to scream. Call down the hallway yelling for my mother, and not stop till my voice is hoarse and my throught too sore. I want too bash my head agaisnt the wall until I pass out.

I don't. I gather my things and try to think of what other things I might be asked. Whilst I attempt to ignore the sick feeling in my stomach, and more importantly, the intense pain in my heart they has been with me since River died.

It feels worse whenever I'm reminded of her. Although right now almost everything reminds me of her. I'm ready to go. I travel down to the foyer, just inside the front door. Oicking up the keys I unlock and open the door. Stepping outside I stride across the porch and down the stairs. Going passed the side of the house and down to the backyard I climb up to a big wattle tree on the very edge of our yard.

Climbing up I wedge myself in a crook about two and a half metres off the ground. I sit to wait until it is time for me to leave for the police station I wait out here because I can't stand the house. It holds so many memories. Painful memories. But up here in this tree, it was my spot.

When I was younger I would retreat here usually when my parents were fighting. Once I grew older I would spend hours trying to find the perfect spot to stay hidden in, while I spent hours reading. River, nor my mother or father ever found me up here. And even now as I sit here lines from favourite stories cone back to me, memories of my father long forgotten return. But no River.

She still can't find me up here. But now, I am the one searching for her.