Till Next Time | completed | currently under re-edit

32

32
Anastasia finally calls after three days.
My heart does a massive somersault the moment I see her name flash across the screen.
"Hello!" I pick up frantically. All the wait, all the subdued fear, and questions momentarily dispel into thin air, replaced only by one recurring thought, like the last flicker of a dying star-

If I let her go now, I am never getting her back.

"This is Steve talking," Mr. Collins answers. I feel disappointed and stupid at it, yet again.
But he sounds lighter, if not happier, and relieved almost.
"The new medicines are working," he says, "She has been awake for some time now."
I latch on to the flicker, steering myself around, pledging to follow it. No more running.
I hear the phone being shuffled, changing hands.
Then, "Hello, Brook," Anastasia slurs on the other side.
I let a tear slip and bite my lips to keep from sniffing back.
"Hi, Ana," I say, my voice nearly giving way to my emotions, "I missed you."
"Come then." I barely make out what she's saying. "Need to talk."
"Yes." I wipe the tear away, a smile breaking onto my face. "I'm on my way."

In twenty minutes, I stand outside her door, a bouquet of daisies still smelling of freshly cut grass clutched in my hand when Mr. Collins opens the door. He has bags under his eyes, but a twinkle in them. He looks like he hasn't combed in a while.

He doesn't have to lead me to her room today. But as soon as the door creaks open at my push, I tangibly sense the mood shift.
The room was dark, broken only by a slight accent of escaping sunlight. As my eyes adjust to the darkness, I can make out Anastasia on her bed staring at me, blinking occasionally.
Had she not blinked, I probably would not have seen her there.

"Move the curtains away. It's a beautiful day," I say.
"Can't see-". She abruptly stops, leaving the sentence incomplete.
I frown. "Can't see what?"
"Me," she says, a drag in her voice as if she's struggling to speak.

The confusion clears, her intent in plain sight. The questions I had involuntarily forgotten about all come sweeping back, more ominous than ever.

I move closer to her, aware of her eyes following me, and put the flowers on her lap.
I spot a faint smile on her face. "Nice."
"How do you feel?" I ask.
"Empty," she answers.
I inhale sharply. "Do you know what happened the last day in Chicago?"
"Hm."

I understand then what may seem like monosyllabic answers to avoid a conversation may just be fatigue.

"I was really scared, you know."
No answer.
"Why'd you do that?"
"What?" she says.
"Do you have an eating disorder, Anastasia?"
She doesn't answer.
"Why did you never eat?" I sit on her side and slowly take her hand in mine in a bout of courage. Her fingers feel stiff and icy cold. "Why do you not eat?"
"I don't feel hungry," she speaks her first full sentence.
I sigh not knowing what to say next.
"Try?" I say. "Try. For my sake."
She slowly shakes her head. "Not enough."
The pit of my stomach feels like it's on fire. She repeats it, rubbing salt to a raw wound. "Not enough."

Not enough. My sake is not enough.
I am not enough.

My head droops in frustration.
"Then what will be enough?" I ask, "What will be worth it?"
She doesn't answer back, again.
"It's complicated," she eventually says.
"No," I snap at her, "No, it's not. You have people who love you. You have your father. You have me. You have a life ahead of you. It isn't complicated. If you love these things, you try. Else, you don't."
I get up to leave.
"Don't go," she croaks.
"I'm sorry. I have to."
She stirs a little, then clears her throat. It sounds like stale water and cobwebs. "Why?"
"Because you are hiding something from me. From all of us. I can't say what it is, but I feel it!"
I am screaming at her now. "Because you are giving up on people who never gave up on you and it hurts. Because you just said, that none of this-" I flail my arms around, pointing at nothing in particular. "-is enough. I am not enough!"

"I chose to let you in, Anastasia." I reach out and touch her cheek. She moves away.
"I put my guard down. Please don't shut me out now. Please."
Her breath gets tighter. She fumbles with her words.
"Please," I say again.
"Don't make me lie. Not to you," she says, agitated.

I step away from her. Lie?
"I am not giving up on you. I'll visit again."
Miss Jane's words pass through my memories.
"Someday, you'll want to talk."

I walk out, ignoring Mr. Collins on the couch, straight to my car.

Dad was home. His car was parked in the driveway.
I step into the hall, expecting the same stillness. But something feels different.
Like I'm being watched or I am interrupting someone else.
I write it off as my overwhelmed nerves and move over to the staircase, my heart beating harder with every step towards it.

The discomfort reaches a peak and makes me stop at the foot of the first step.
I put my hand over my chest and whisper, "Why the fuck would you not shut up?" and immediately feel ridiculous.
I fleet a glance of Dad's office, the door tightly shut, which almost never happens.

I move closer to his door, out of morbid curiosity and a tinge of instinct, and put my ear against it. I hear dull shuffling inside and the sound of paper being flipped. And a woman talking.

I stagger back and rack my memory.
Did you see your mother's car in the driveway?
No.
Did you see your mother's car in the garage this morning?
I think and I think hard, with my heart racing and yet failing behind to my thoughts.
No. No, I did not.

I push the door open. It swings and hits the walls with a sick bang!
My father winces up and the woman turns around.
Samuelson.
Counselor Samuelson.
I point at her with disgust. "What is she doing here?"
No one is allowed in his office. He smacked my fists with a wooden ruler one time that I broke the rule.
Yet Samuelson was in there.

"Brooklyn, calm down," she says and inadvertently rips the façade away.
The voice outside my door that night.
"It was you!" I roar. My voice echoed through the hall. "It was you that night!"
"What night?" Samuelson says with her audacious confidence.

"Brooklyn." Someone says from behind.
My mother.
"Step away," she says, a strange coldness in her voice.
"Mom, she-"
"Brooklyn I know!" she says.

It falls quiet, all at once.

"Fuck you." It comes bellowing out from the deepest chasms in my chest.  "Fuck all of you."

I run up the stairs.
I hear my mother call my name one last time before I slam the door shut and collapse against it.