One Small Step | ✔

Glance, Smile, And Dive

We end up
not playing skee ball,
Instead,
we go to the park.

The sun hides behind a few clouds,
but it's relatively a good day.
Not much to complain about
I guess.

There are kids everywhere.
By the pond,
playing on the stepping stones.
Happy.

We sit on a bench
and he stretches
an arm
behind me.

He speaks first.
"So, Miss Tallulah,
Care to enlighten me
on your popular story?"

I weigh my options.
Either he finds out on his own,
by way of rumours.
Or I give him the right story.

I choose to tell him
what everyone says,
but in my own words,
the Truth.

"Six months ago,
my best friend went to a party.
He was a completely wild player,
but everyone loved him.

"He was almost never serious.
But there were two things
he was serious about.
Never doing drugs and alcohol."

Roman interrupts,
"Hold on, he's a party animal,
but he doesn't do drugs or alcohol?
That's unheard of."

I shrug.
"Alcohol tore apart his family.
Goodness knows
What drugs would have done.

"His mom left because
his dad was an alcoholic,
Only to become one
on the Vegas strip."

Roman visibly winces.
"Sorry, you can continue now."
Roman says,
sheepishly.

"It was the one thing I could
always count on him for,
doing right.
always.

"But that night at the party,
he drank more than he ever did,
ran into the frigid cold water,
and froze to death.

"He wasn't so drunk
that he couldn't think straight.
He was sober enough
to tell right from wrong.

"It was intentional.
I found the note the next morning.
Too
late.

"Four months ago,
my older sister killed herself.
She was on the other side of the country,
in university."

I take a breath and plunge back in.
"She was twenty-five,
had a steady job,
and was doing amazing in school.

"One day,
she told her roommate
she was going for a walk.
She never came back.

"Twenty-four hours later,
they dragged the lake nearby,
suspecting that was where she disappeared.
She had told her roommate she was going to enjoy the view.

"They found her body,
broken,
bloody
and lifeless, obviously.

"My brother called me,
when he heard.
He told me to check her wall.
It wasn't what I expected.

"Black shadows,
red blood.
It covered the wall.
And on it was a note for me.

"She hadn't been pushed.
She had jumped.
She meant to
end her life."

My voice is not mine.
Cold,
detached,
hard.

The birds chirp happily,
singing their songs,
alive
and cheerful.

I hate them,
their cheerfulness,
their lives,
their peace.

Roman sighs,
"Siblings never make
any sense,
do they?

I look at him.
He gives me a sad smile.
"My best friend and cousin,
is also my adopted brother.

"His father, my uncle,
died doing an experiment at his lab.
His mother
died later of heart break.