Broken (temporary title)

Chapter 6

Today, when I wake up, I don't hear anything. No crying, no crashing bottles, no puking, no snoring... nothing. Absolutely nothing at all. Sahara waits patiently for me when I wake, smiling. As soon as my eyelids flutter open, she hands me something wrapped in a blue jacket.

"Happy holidays, Vanna," she nods gently at the thing. "For you."

I don't know what holiday it is; Sahara is the only one who actually calculates the dates. She's like a human calendar.

I eagerly open the arms of the jacket and carefully unfold it. Inside is a book with a midnight-blue lace sewn into a vanilla cover with matching blue stars.

"It's a journal," she further explains as I examine the object, flipping through its blank cream-white pages. Attached is a silver-and-gold-colored pen with shiny, gel-black ink that runs smoothly over the cream paper. "You can write in it.

"Write what?" I ask. "Is it math?"

Sahara gives me a slight smile and chuckles. "No, silly. It's a writing journal... you know, for writing..."

I nod as if I understand. "So... not math," I say dumbly. She laughs.

"No. You could write stories. We did that in first grade back in the school at home, remember? With Miss Mooringham?"

"Yes. I remember."

"And then maybe we could read them at night!" Her eyes light up and we say in unison, "Just like we used to."

And for once, I'm not mad or dizzy or bitter or confused. I've gotten enough rest to think clearly, or I'm so tired that I'm not thinking at all. But for once, the memories don't fuse me. They just appear, asking only to be acknowledged. And acknowledged only they are.

"How 'bout we make one up now?" Sahara suggests, smiling sweetly, teal eyes sparkling.

I nod. "Ok." We pause and there's a comfortable silence for a minute. Finally, I speak. "How do we do this exactly?"

Now Sahara looks serious. "Um... I don't know. Let's do something random."

"Maybe we could create people?" I suggest.

"Characters!!!" Sahara shouts and grins, proud to have remembered the term.

"We can make them twins," I say, and suddenly I don't feel like the person I was yesterday anymore.

"Yes," her eyes widen at the suggestion. She bolts with excitement. "And we can set them in a house, with a mother and father and older brother. Oh, it's perfect! And maybe one day you can get it published, if we can find out how. I mean, it would make a great book. Everything in the characters' lives is perfect, so it means the book would be perfection too."

"Yeah," I nod in agreement. "Let's name the twins..." I tap my fingers against the smooth-feeling, nice-sounding cover. "Let's name them Arahas and Annavas."

"Wow," she gawks. "You can spell our names backwards?! I thought you forgot how to do that by now!"

"Shut up, Miss I-Can-Do-Multiplication!" I laugh, drooling out sarcasm and rolling my eyes. "I just don't get it! What the hell does it mean?!"

Sahara giggles. "You're hilarious, Vanna."

"And you're not taking this seriously, Hara," I say in the same tone, keeping a straight face. We've switched roles. I think it's a twin thing.

"Oh," she mutters. "you really don't..."

"Yeeaaah..." I say, trying to end the conversation. We fall into an awkward silence.

"Well, okay, we've got the people-"

"Characters," I wink.

"Yes, that." She pauses. "I can't think. You must be contagious."

I laugh. "Whatever. What do we do now? We've got the names of the characters."

Sahara shrugs. "I'm not really sure. You wanna get Striker? We can ask him. And if he doesn't have a good answer, we can play a game instead."

"But he's drunk," I groan. She heads for the living room. "Sahara, it's no use!" I shout back, but she's already gone. She comes back several minutes later with Striker trailing behind her, holding her hand and skipping.

"Striker," I bark, trying to get his attention right away. "How do you write a story?"

Striker's too busy prancing around, trying to catch an imaginary butterfly.

I repeat my question a total of forty-six times.

"Savanna, why do you even bother asking anymore?" Sahara chuckles. "You don't expect a decent answer from this, do you?" She asks, gesturing to Striker. I let out a halfhearted laugh.

Suddenly, Striker stops frolicking. I think for a second that maybe he caught the imaginary butterfly.

"Damn it," he mutters. "Turned into a caterpillar."

I roll my eyes and sigh. Sahara's right. This is useless.

"Striker, what's in a story?" I say one last time.

Shockingly, this time, he turns to face me.

"The secret behind a good story..." he says, his tone suddenly wise and knowing. "Let them feel," he whispers. He drops his voice even lower, as if he's about to tell me something top-secret. "Let your main character go through a lot. Let them be treated like shit in the story so that the readers could sympathize with them. Let them be treated like gold so that the readers smile at their happiness. Let them go through thick and thin so that the readers could, too. Let the character fall in love so the readers could see their beautiful side. And then, when you've fallen in love with the character yourself, when the readers are attached to them, let go. Let something happen. Let them be attached to the readers only by a string. Bring your character close to death, and then, when you're just about to come to their end, save them. And you've saved the readers."

I blink at the sudden beauty of his words. I don't know what to say. All I could manage to squeak out is, "The fuck?"

Striker looks dazed now, no longer staring at me, opening his mouth to say something more, jumbled syllables spilling out. He stops trying to speak, just looks wide-eyed, surprised at what he said. He isn't alone.

"Striker?" I ask gently, nudging his shoulder. He jumps up, them gives me his famous I'm-So-Drunk-LOL grin.

"Waffles!!!" He shrieks and continues his earlier frolicking. Damn, this kid's weird when he's drunk.

"You don't even know the half of it," Sahara mumbles behind me, looking traumatized.

I laugh.