Coming Out Is Not An Option When There's A Trap Outside The Door (girlxgirl)

Fifteen

I stared at the remote, wondering whether I should turn on the news or not. Finally, I decided to. My stomach was empty — I couldn’t throw up again. I just had to know who it was. Who died while I was sleeping with Estelle last night? I pushed the power button.

Commercials rolled across the screen. An ad for cat food. Car insurance. Nasal spray.

Then.

“…And in breaking news, the name of the victim of last night’s murder had been released.”

I waited. A picture came up on the screen. Wait. Why was…

“Tabitha Camp was killed last night while taking a walk. She was shot once in the chest and stabbed; she died almost instantly. Police have a suspect in custody…”

I didn’t hear anything else. The world ended then, shattered into a million pieces that rained down onto me and pierced every part of my body, mind, and soul.

My mind still worked enough to know that it didn’t make sense. She never went out at night. She was scared of the dark. She hated it. Especially since the fire.

Dana. The word entered my mind without permission.

And I was screaming. Screaming at the TV, at Tabitha’s smiling face on the screen, at the pieces of everything that used to make sense around me. Screaming like she had, only a week ago. Screaming, screaming, crying and screaming because I had just seen her last night and no this couldn’t be happening because it wasn’t right, it wasn’t real I was just having a nightmare, but I couldn’t wake up so I screamed and screamed and screamed…

“Jo!” Someone’s voice sounded behind the screaming, and someone touched me and I couldn’t scream anymore, just cry, so I did and let them hug me close to them while I cried because I just couldn’t wake up and was stuck in this awful awful world where something impossible had happened.

-

“…Honey?” my mom asked in a tired voice from the doorway. “You want something to eat?”

I blinked, continuing to stare at my wall. “No.” How could I eat when it was my fault my best friend was dead? How could I even live with that? I didn’t want to anymore.

“Jo…” Her voice broke. “You have to—”

“Don’t.” I closed my eyes. “Please, just don’t.”

She sighed, lingering there for a second before giving up and leaving. Off to work. Off to get away from her psychotic daughter.

Could she blame me? I’d only found out yesterday. No, she couldn’t. She couldn’t at all.

Suddenly she came back. “Jo, there’s someone here to see you.”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t even register the words until the person had already replaced my mother’s figure in my peripheral vision. Realizing that they weren’t going to go away, I turned.

Their face looked how I felt, furious and devastated and utterly shocked. Her face.

“Jo,” Estelle whispered, meeting my eyes.

“Es…” She took two steps to my bed and collapsed into me. I couldn’t help it as she started crying and let my replenished tear ducts loose, holding her head in my lap.

I will never forget the moment. It was pain at the sharpest I’d ever known. But it was also the realization that I wasn’t as quite alone as I’d thought. I had her. Estelle wasn’t going anywhere, at least for now.

“I found out at the police station,” she said after our mourning had quieted. “They tried to question me again, after they ID’d her… I thought it was a joke. I thought the whole thing was a joke. But I couldn’t figure out why they would do that, and they looked so damn serious.” She sighed. “I was so hysterical they had to sedate me. I woke up when my parents came to bail me out and wanted it to be a dream.”

“I saw it on the news. My mom found me screaming.”

“Like…” her voice trailed off, but I knew what she would have said. “Like she did.”

We were quiet, drowning in our separate but joined thoughts, thoughts that would never quite be the same.

-

So. Yeah. :(

Not much to say.

Hate me if you will, but tell me what you’re thinking?