Tale 1: War of the Protector

Chapter 5

"I mean, I was nervous, but I wouldn't cry," I could hear Trish say. "What do you think was wrong?"

After my breakdown Mr. Meyers dismissed Trish and talked to me for a little bit. I managed to convince him that it was only a nervous breakdown. Of course, being my principal he knew all about what had happened years ago. He just couldn't connect it to the phone call to my mother.

As I was leaving the office, I could hear Trish talking right outside. I wondered why she was lingering around, and who she was talking to.

"Not sure," I could hear the other person say. I immediately recognized his voice for Cody Alice's. "She's really strange."

"Just drop it guys," I heard Ryan say.

Right. Cody and Ryan were probably sitting outside, waiting for the principal to call them in.

"Something wrong?" the principal asked me.

I looked back and shook my head. "Nothing's wrong."

Then I grudgingly opened the door to be greeted by three curious faces.

"Are you okay?" Ryan asked in the ensuing silence.

"I'm perfectly fine," I said. "What makes you think I'm not?"

"I don't know," he mumbled. "Trish was just saying that - "

"You totally went crazy!" Trish finished.

I gave her a flat look and just walked away.

"Wait!" Ryan called. "Lily, stop!"

Suddenly the principal poked his head out of the office. "Ryan Delane? I'll talk to you first."

Ryan sighed through his nose, giving me a look that said We'll talk about this later, before he disappeared into the office.

"Wait," Trish said to herself. "You're Lily Emerson... Emerson? I feel like I've heard that before. Where have I heard that?" She glanced at Cody. His face was completely and surprisingly stoic.

I scoffed and turned, intending to leave.

"Wait," she said. "Wasn't it a while ago? It was some big news." Slowly, she started to piece it together. "It was in the paper and all over the news."

My feet came to a stop. "Stop, Trish."

"It was... it was a car accident." She paused, really thinking it over. "And like, ten people died."

"Seven," Cody put in, with a soft undertone in his voice. "It was seven people."

"But for some reason Emerson was such a big name in it," Trish said.

I crossed my arms, turning completely to face the two. They both shut up, probably from the look on my face.

"Emerson was such a big name in it," I started, "because Craig Emerson was my father, and he was one of the seven who died. The school made a little tribute to me and my sister May for it, if you remember. Three days after the accident my sister ran away, which made further headlines. Everyone at school was talking about it, if you remember that either. My mom was then sent to the looney house for a few weeks, which also went out to the public." I took a deep breath.

A long moment of silence ensued. Trish only stared at me, pity obvious in her eyes. Cody wasn't even looking at me, but at the wall.

I let the uncomfortable silence suck the atmosphere dry for a minute. Then I turned and left.

I didn't stop when I left the room. I didn't stop when hit the school's front doors. I didn't stop until I was home, slamming the front door shut behind me.

I realized I was shaking. I slid to the floor and remained there for quite a while. Time must have passed but I felt none of it.

My father was dead.

My mother was as good as dead.

And my sister was gone.

If she was still alive, my sister Andaliana May would have been turning twenty in January. She ran away when my father died, just a few months after her fifteenth birthday. She left during a spring rain. The police couldn't find her, not that she wanted to be found. She left a note specifically telling us that she didn't want to be found, and that her part in our family was over.

She was my best friend. We told each other all of our secrets. We had our disagreements and our fights, but we were sisters.

I remembered the nights when I couldn't sleep, and I would roam into her room and wake her up. We'd lay in her bed together, awake. If I didn't drift off in a few minutes she'd take me down to the kitchen and we'd have hot chocolate and a snack. If I still couldn't sleep, she'd stay up all night with me, watching Spongebob in the living room until our parents woke up and demanded to know if we stayed up all night. We did that when I was six, and all the way to when I was thirteen.

We were sisters. Sometimes we were enemies, but most times we were closer than the blood that ran through our veins.

As for my mother... My mom hadn't said much after my father died. She held May and I for comfort, and we all cried. But when May ran away she shut her door to me. I listened to her cry, day and night. Three weeks later I went back to school and confessed what was happening to my counsellors. I was thirteen, and I didn't know what else to do. So, my mom was sent to counseling, and then the looney house. I stayed with Ryan, worrying over what had happened to my mom.

After some time she got better and was returned home. And for a while she was okay. She was okay with pretending that nothing had happened, and that I was her only child and it had always been just me and her.

But... it was an impossible feat. Pictures of May, of Dad, and all of us together lingered on the walls of the house. May's academic trophies stayed in the living room. Dad's shirts still hung in the closet next to Mom's dresses. We could see May's tomato garden through the kitchen window, slowly rotting into nothing. And every time we exited and entered the house we could see Dad's initials were carved into the front doorframe, intertwining with Mom's initials for when they first built the house.

So you can see how it wasn't long before my mother caved back into depression. She talked to me less and less. Then she only gave me one word responses. Then she just stopped talking. Then she stopped leaving her room. Then she stopped getting out of bed.

I didn't tell a soul, though. I didn't need to send my mom back to counseling, or the looney house. I didn't need the public humiliation again. I didn't want the sympathy. I didn't want the fake friends who were only there because I lost my dad and my sister; my role-model and my best friend; the man who played baseball with me, and the girl who I grew up following everywhere and copying everything from.

My father was the man who left me on accident.

But my sister was the girl who left me on purpose.

Despite everything though, the thought didn't stop me from dragging myself up the stairs and into her room. It didn't stop me from curling up on her dusty sheets. It didn't stop me from crying myself to sleep.