The moment her dad had come into the living room was when Ezra felt her last unhurt breath. The moment he sighed too deeply was when she realised something wasn't right. The moment he told her that Kya was dead was when she fell apart.
In reality, Ezra didn't really show that she was human wreckage. The twins were too close and too clueless for her to scream or cry; it would scare them, snatch away their naivety. She simply folded them into an embrace and kept them there as if they were going to evaporate too. Then, she looked her dad in the eye, unblinking eye contact. Eyes were the window to the soul after all, and they were both incomplete now. She pressed herself close to him, arms around his body. After a pause, he had wrapped her up too. She supposed she felt safe for a brief moment, but safety, she learned, wasn't meant to last.
A while after that, she stopped pretending like nothing had affected her. She put down the doll she was entertaining the twins with and headed out of the front door. The sun beamed down at her, unaware of the storm clouds around. Her steps were quiet against the chaos in her head.
That's what it was: chaos. There weren't many other ways to describe the deafening sounds in her head, all the thoughts fighting for her full attention. There wasn't enough room for it all, and everything was building up and swarming, flitting around in her brain. She didn't know if any of it was even coherent. It was a mess, knife-like fragments of phrases and sharp shards of memories. None of it had ever been painful before, but this wasn't before.
Before was gone now, where Kya was alive and breathing, and after was an endless stretch of empty life that Ezra didn't know how to handle. What are you supposed to do when everything is thrown to the ground? Ezra didn't know how to pick up the pieces without cutting herself on the edges.
The air clung to her lungs. She didn't know if she wanted it to anymore. Oh, the things she would give to pass some of that air to Kya. Ezra wondered if her sister's lungs were empty or if they were the blackened casket of her last screams to the world, the silent ones that none of them had heard. It was too late now to start listening.
Only a few moments later, Ezra was confronted with the sound of someone talking. The words were really what caught her attention, but she still found it hard to listen.
"I don't know what to do now." Whoever it was sounded tearful.
Ezra paused her mind for a moment, trying to hone in on the conversation. Somehow she found herself opposite Solo's, on the other side of the street. Right outside the building was Tina, standing with someone Ezra didn't know. The person she was with didn't talk much, but she guessed they were only there to listen.
"I just," Tina said. Ezra took in the expression on her face; she truly did look lost. "I don't understand. He was meant to be getting better and he didn't."
The other person placed a hand on her shoulder and sent her comforting looks. "He might not be..." They didn't finish their sentence.
"Who am I kidding?" Tina shrugged to herself solemnly, "His mum said he slit his wrist, what else could that mean?"
The words sent a jolt through Ezra, and she tore herself away from the conversation. Everything around her was suddenly screaming. She wanted to scream. What was she supposed to do now? Who was Tina talking about? Ezra could assume it was Luke. Her head was a riot.
She'd forgotten about Luke for a little while, which she tried not to feel guilty for. Now everything seemed to be crashing down around her. How stupid she felt now that she realised all the time she'd wasted fantasising about him while the dreams all cracked and fall apart around her. It was just a stupid crush, and yet somehow it seemed miles away now. It wasn't justified anymore. God, it felt so unimportant.
