Aurora

Chapter 6

With wild eyes I stared around the cabin of the jet. I noticed my grandfather passed out on a posh leather armchair at the far end of the room, mumbling quietly. One of the plane's staff came rushing out of the front part of the jet to check if I was okay.

"Ma'am are you alright? We heard a scream." The woman's face showed concern yet I heard annoyance in her tone. Looking past her I saw a couple more young women and a man who couldn't be much older than me. The man and one of the women looked on with a sort of passive aggressive disgust, while the second woman looked like she was about to start laughing.

"No, no, just had a bad dream, I'm okay." I replied, suddenly wanting to be left alone.

The woman in the front snickered audibly, eliciting a raised eyebrow in her direction from the man.

"Well if you need anything, you know where we are." she rolled her eyes as she turned away from me and walked back to her comrades.

Taking a second look around the jet's gaudy interior my eyes lingered for a long moment on the counter that had, when we boarded the jet, been filled with all kinds of alcohol, but was now bare except for empty bottles, and a few spots of broken glass that appeared to have been hastily cleaned off by someone who wasn't too concerned with it or was simply hasty. Taking a second look to where my Grandfather slouched unconscious in his chair, I saw that three empty bottles sat next to him on a small coffee table. My stomach churned just a bit. I got up slowly, and made a true attempt to clean off the counters. Just a few minutes later the broken glass was all gone and the bottles had either been thrown away or put back in where I thought they might have been.

My grandfather had consumed almost all of the alcohol on the plane. No wonder he has fallen so deeply unconscious.My mom once told me that my grandfather drank heavily on the rare occasion he brought any alcohol to his lips. But I had never observed this myself. I had never even seen my grandfather bring a drink to his lips. But now...all I could think of was the empty bottles on the counters and the liquor in the limo.

I sat down in my couch and opened up instagram and began scrolling. I hadn't done that in days, and it felt odd, doing something so typical and routine. Soon though things started to bother me. Because of course they did. There were "Pray For Alex" hashtags springing up among people who lived around me. Determined not to let it get to me I kept on scrolling through. Then I saw something that made my blood boil. Ashley had posted a picture of me and her with the hashtag, saying that she was my best friend and continued to support me through the intense suffering I was going through. She made herself out to be my sole friend or at least only trusted one. She went on and on about how sad I seemed, and how much she had tried to help me.

"How dare she," I muttered through clenched teeth, "that bitch."

I was fuming over this.I had never been a violent person, but at that moment i could have hit her. Or anyone for that matter. I put down my phone. My hands shook as I walked over to the cooler that held soda. I poured out a can of coke into a glass, and lifted it to my lips before pausing. I set the glass down as i looked over to the counter. A few bottles still had a little in them. I stole a look over at my grandfather to check if he was still asleep. Asleep was an understatement. So I walked over to the counter and emptied what was left of a bottle of brown liquor into my glass with the coke. I took a sip and I could taste the potent, bitter liquid clearly through the sweetness of the soda. I looked down into the liquid at the ripples from my hand shaking the glass. As I stared a single drop fell from my face and into my glass. I hadn't even realized I was crying. I fell down to sitting on the floor and the tears kept coming. No sound escaped my lips, there was no movement in my face. So I kept drinking my drink. Enjoying the harsh taste on my tongue. Eventually my glass was empty and my tears were gone. I walked back up to the counter, not even bothering with the soda this time. I simply picked up another bottle and emptied it once again into my glass. Then, I knocked it back, loving the burn of the liquid on my throat. I did this twice more, and then the bottles were all emptied. I staggered back to the couch and threw myself down. Reaching into my bag I pulled out my book. I opened it up and trailed my finger across the page as I read. My hand was steady now. It no longer shook with the ache of rage and hurt. I fell into the words on the page. I comprehended none of it, and I felt nothing in my heart or head. It was just numbness and cold. It had been years since I last drank. The last time was at a party after me and a guy named Samuel had broken up after six months in eighth grade. I was at the party with Ashley, and some guys had brought a ton of drinks. I spent most of the night getting hammered to forget the past six months. I don't even remember how that night had ended except that I woke up in the back of some guys truck the next morning.

My mind drifted off on this path and my finger traced lazy circles on the page of my book. Movement and slight noise in the cabin caught my attention through the fog in my brain. Looking over it was my grandfather tossing around. What time was it? I had fallen asleep during the day, but the window shades were closed and the cabin was lit by lights in the ceiling. I turned off the switch on the wall and opened the shade by my couch. The sky was filled with brilliance. The moon shone like an eye of some great god of sorrow. But that wasn't what made my breath catch in my lungs. The plane was surrounded by colors. The Aurora Borealis, or northern lights looked like great dragons in the sky, beautiful ribbons of color so brilliant that they would inspire an artist to attempt to make something so ethereal and wondrous.

"Beautiful isn't it," came the hoarse voice of my grandfather from behind me. I turned around to see tears in his eyes, "the Aurora. Do you remember when your grandmother called you that? She said you were as vibrant as the northern sky." and with that he turned back around and fell asleep again in the armchair.

I did remember my grandmother calling me Aurora. Years ago, with my family gathered around in our living room over the holidays, the smell of my mother and grandmother's cooking wafting through the house. My birthdays when I had all my friends and family around to celebrate me. And then the memory of me visiting the hospital where my grandma was on her deathbed. The last time she had ever called me Aurora. The fog in my mind was pierced by the bow of pain sailing through like a ship through the mist. The tears returned, this time with a few silent sobs as I drifted back off to sleep.