When You Are Gone

Chapter 15

Rebecca got a job. Waiting tables at Sandy's restaurant at a gas station, just out of town, conveniently far away from me. It's not what she wanted but she once told me that life isn't what anyone wanted. Her face is still beautiful but getting stained with tears, red eyes and sleeplessness – it still can't be worse than mine.

"So is your whole family leaving?" I asked her.

"No, just me."

I stared down at my sneakers, my hands thrust deep in my jacket pockets.

"It's not like I'm leaving forever," she said scanning the emotions on my face. "I hope you're not upset."

I shook my head lightly.

"How long?"

"I don't know. A month, or two."

She was plucking petals off a flower, a pearl white daisy. Releasing them on the table.

"What are you going to do there?"

A smile crept onto her face, "Lose my head missing you," she chuckled. "And maybe get a job."

The petals ran out. She twirled the stem between her fingers.

We sat quietly across from each other at the table in the café. She ordered another cup of black coffee. With no sugar or any artificial sweeteners. She'd cut her hair. It was now very short, dangling just above her jawline. People would stare at us. Again, you could draw a circle around us – just the two of us, that's how odd and ill-disposed we were. She sipped her coffee and looked up at me. I turned my head down and started moving the sugar sachets around with my fingers.

"Are you sure you don't want another cup."

I shook my head. The silence dominated once again. The only sound was the waiters broom on the hard marble floor and the shuffling of feet exiting the café. One of the workers had already turned the open sign to sorry, we're closed.

"Oh. I almost forgot." She said sliding her hand into the inner pocket of her jacket.

"There's no need for a parting gift," I said feeling somewhere between a tear and a gag.

"It's not a gift." She held out her hand with a small piece of paper embraced between her fingers and her palm.

"Here." She placed it on the table in front of me, among the sachets I had laid out. "I have an uncle who works at a gallery in the city. I sent him a picture of your painting. He loves it. His contact details are on there. You should call him."

She left a week before my nineteenth birthday. The same day Francie was having her operation. She was lying somewhere in a theatre in a gown mad at me for not responding to her text messages, her five missed calls, about to have knives and needles pierce through her body. About to be temporarily dead. Unsure as to whether she will wake up or allow her body to go wherever her spirit had gone that night after the accident.