superabundance

"Okay. Thank you for telling me. Goodbye."

Dead.

She was dead.

Pills, was it?

Just when I thought she was getting better.

I paced around my room, not knowing what to do now, my heart pounding a mile a minute.

"Higher, Keegan, higher." seven year old Delilah screamed at the  top of her lungs while nine year old me tried to push her on the swing. After a few moments Delilah told me to stop. She had such a fickle mind, "Let's go back inside, my mom made cookies."

I followed her into her house, already detecting the sweet aroma of freshly baked cookies.

"Hey kids, I made a fresh batch of cookies. You can go right ahead and munch on them till lunch is ready." said Mrs. Jenkins as we sat at the island in the kitchen. She was a lovely lady, treated me like her own, and I loved her like my own mother.

"How about we head to the beach after lunch?"

Delilah and I beamed and nodded at her eagerly.

I screamed into my pillow. I felt a void in my chest, I felt like I was being stabbed multiple times in the same spot and there was no one to rescue me.

Delilah's mother was dead.

When we were younger, Mrs. Jenkins was always so happy and proud of everything we did. Delilah and I had been neighbours ever since we were born. Her mom was friends with mine, that is until mine died. Cancer was a bitch. Since then, I'd always considered Delilah's mom as my mother as well. She treated me as the son she never had. When I was fourteen and Delilah was twelve, her dad walked out on them. Apparently he had found someone else, and decided it was best for everyone if he just left. It wasn't. Mrs. Jenkins had been a mess ever since. She became an alcoholic, and popped the occasional pill or two every now and then. She believed that it was her fault her husband had walked out on them. It wasn't.

And now she was gone.

The first thing I thought about after I got the call was Delilah. I had to be there for her. I needed to be there for her. What if she got bad again? I grabbed the home phone and quickly dialed Delilah's number, then I ran to my window and opened it. After the fourth ring, she answered. I looked up and saw her opening her window as well.

"Black?" I asked.

"Yes." She uttered.

"Okay." I said and hung up. I grabbed my jacket and ran out of the  front door. Black was bad.

Ever since her dad left, we made codes for things. It made it easier for us to tell each other things that hurt too much to talk about. Pink meant heartbreak, it was for whenever one of us had broken up with their partner. Green meant sick. We had a code for this so whenever one of us was too tired to speak we understood that they were sick. We had a code for everything. And then there was black. Black was the worst. Black was for Delilah and Delilah only.

Black meant she was getting bad again.

"Dandy? How's it going in there?"

She had been in there for a while now and I was starting to worry. I twisted the door knob and slowly opened the door to find a fully clothed Delilah standing in the bathtub, hair messy, water running,

blade in hand.

"You said white." I whispered.

"I know."