The Truth Will Set You Free

I'm Not Paying for that Wineglass

~Poppy~

            Siblings. The two kids were Hector and Meridith’s siblings? Way to make everything more complicated. Now we were connected and stuff, and you couldn’t leave too people in such an emotional state with no one else. We walked back onto the train and Meredith’s head fell onto my shoulder. At least she was being nicer to us.

            “He disappeared a couple months ago,” she sniffled. “I wanted to see him again, but not like that! What happened?”

            “I don’t know, honestly.” I attempted and failed at cheering her up. There was really nothing I could do as we rolled back into the city, the quiet whirr of the train humming in the background. My shoulder was wet with her tears and as we got up and started walking back to the apartment, our new home. I had forgotten that we were stuck there now; now that we had made personal connections. I wasn’t going to see my parents again. My heart dropped, but I couldn’t be sad-everywhere I looked there were people with even worse personal conditions. I had to suck it up-but it was such a large loss, how could I?

            Peter. I still had Peter, my brother, my better half. We jolted up in the elevator, and it was like I was never coming down.

            I finally got a good look at Hector-his eyes were puffy, and he was sniffling a bit. We snuck into our room and sat in silence until we heard a banging on the door. “Get dressed-it’s our night out for dinner and we’re supposed to be there in a half hour,” Meridith’s mom yelled, completely oblivious to all that had happened that day. Meridith and I shuffled past her to let the boys get dressed and we slid into her room.

            “You can wear that, it’ll be fine, whatever.” Meridith rummaged through her closet as I sat awkwardly perched on her bed, her covers a lot softer than mine.

            “I’m really sorry,” I whispered. I wanted to help, wanted to make her feel better, but what else could you do? I couldn’t make it go away, I was absolutely helpless in the matter.

            She turned around, a tissue blotting her mascara that was running down her cheeks. “It’s fine,” she breathed. “I just want to know what happened.”

            “We can find out, if it’ll make you feel better, I promise, we will.” I put a hand on her shoulder; wasn’t that the right thing to do?

            She looked up at me, a weak smile emerging. “Promise?”

            “Promise.”

-Peter-

            “I’m going to be sick, oh god…damn it, I’m literally about to puke.” Poppy moaned, her head rolling over the back of her soft seat covering. We were sitting single file, taking up all five seats in the cramped mini air-train. The little car, driven by Meridith’s mom, was speeding through the city just as fast as the regular train, only this one made a stomach-lurching turn onto a side street every ten seconds or so. We finally skidded to a halt on the side of the road, hopping out to see the train close it’s doors and zoom away. Poppy stuck her hand out before Hector held her back.

            “It’s ok,” he laughed. “It’s not ours-when we need to get back home, we simply call a new one.”

            “Like a taxi,” I whispered to her. She nodded in realization as we felt the cool chill of the restaurants entryway. I looked around-it was all earth tones, the floor made up of small shiny rocks. A large waterfall was in the middle of the room, the rushing water cascading down into a small fountain pool. The lighting was fairly dim, and there were tons of tables arranged in circular patterns around the liquid centerpiece. We walked around, Meridith’s mom staring at a little device. We finally stopped at a table right next to the waterfall and she placed the device in the middle of the table.