Strange Trails

1

247 days. 247 days since Oliver killed himself. 247 days of coming home and expecting to see him sitting there, smile at me and then say something that would make me laugh. 220 days of going to therapy sessions twice a week. 220 days of fighting therapy sessions. 190 days since mum had a day off work. 150 days since I lost contact to the last of my friends and turned into a recluse. 100 days since I lost my part-time job. 50 days since my little brother's birthday. 25 days since I saw my cat. 7 days since I started my senior year and it's been exactly 47 seconds, since I cut my hair.

I stared at my foreign reflection in the mirror.

In 247 I have felt shock, tired, sadness, distress, anger, emptiness, loneliness, confusion and a thousand more emotions.

I felt like it showed on my face.
My cheeks were almost hollow looking, my usually olive skin had lost a lot of colour and my brown hair that used to be so full and long had grown thin at the ends, the natural wave in it limp from years of abuse from bleach and hair dyes. I stared at the long strands of dead hair that lay in the upstairs bathroom sink. That was the last of my coloured hair.

I now stared at my natural brown waves that fell a little passed my shoulders.

It had been a while since I'd seen my natural hair colour. My waves were full again and voluminous as I stared at the choppy cut and glanced at the scissors I'd discarded in the sink.

I had dark circles under my eyes that made me resemble a raccoon. My freckles that littered my nose that I had spent the past four years covering up, were on full display to the world and my eyebrows were thick and overgrown from lack of care.

My lips were chapped and dry and I attempted licking them to get some moisture back in, knowing full well it would do nothing.

My lashes were long and full of eight months of no mascara or eyelash glue or anything that could potentially cause breakage.

I stared at my natural reflection for the first time in forever, 14 inches of thin, bleached hair lay in the sink next to a pair of my scissors from freshman year.

She looked tired. Frail.

Was this what grief did to everyone? I don't care. It's what it was doing to me.
I sighed and turned the faucet on, letting cold water flood the basin and wash the long strands of hair down the sink. I watched as the last blonde strand swirled down the drain and with it the last thing that reminded me of Sophia Chambers from eight months ago.

I exited our messy upstairs bathroom to enter my even untidier room. Knowing that I should clean it but I just didn't have the energy to do it at the moment. So instead I fell back onto my bed and glanced at the flashing numbers of my alarm clock.

3:15 in the morning.

Most people probably have a passion. Find something to channel their grief through.

My mother for example? She works. A lot.

She works as a lawyer. One of two in town. If she wasn't working, she was sleeping, if she wasn't sleeping, she was nagging me.
I didn't care that she wasn't around much. I suppose it was good. She frustrated me. All we did since it had happened was argue.

I did however feel bad for my little brother Noah. He had just turned nine recently and mum was barely around. I was around more than her and when she did come home it would already be way past nine or ten, sometimes even later, which meant Noah was already in bed. Ollie used to look after Noah when mum had late shifts. He made it look easy. He'd cook dinner for the three of us, leave a plate for mum in the microwave and help Noah with his homework and get him in bed before his bedtime, every single time.
I let Noah choose when he wanted to go to bed.

I did cook for us, but it was either always bland or burnt or just inedible. Noah always ate it, anyway, not wanting to offend me.

He was a good brother. Probably a better brother than I am a sister.

Ollie had been the closest to a father figure Noah was getting I suppose. Mum didn't seem to be finding a new boyfriend anytime soon and dad had left almost seven years ago now, when I was ten, Ollie almost eleven and Noah was just one.

I can't say that I blame him.

If I was him, I probably would've left to.

Him and mum had met in Egypt 20 years ago, mum was her first year out of high school and taking a gap year- I guess she was kind of cool back then, and dad was born and raised in Egypt. They ran into each other and claimed it was love at first sight. At least that's what they told me when they were younger.

Now mum says that he only married her for a ticket into America. Considering they have three children and were married for twelve years and dad moved back to Egypt six years ago- I highly doubt her theory.

I really couldn't blame him for ditching. Mum's a psycho. I wouldn't want to be married to her either.

She had no idea what dad was up to now, she didn't want to know. Well secretly, I think she did, but I wasn't going to be the one to tell her that dad and I text from time to time. Not often, but occasionally.
She had no clue that he had a fiancé and I was not going to be the one to tell her. Ollie had never wanted any contact to dad and Noah was too young to even remember who he was, so I was the only one who spoke to dad. I guess I was the only one who understood why he wouldn't want to stick around.

Imagine moving from a big exciting city in Egypt, to New York, U.S.A. the city of dreams to then pack everything up and move back to your wife's hometown in Indiana with a two-year old and a three-year-old. Ollie and I were 11 months apart. Which meant we had been in the same grade at school. A hometown with a population of about 10 000. Luckily, we still had a school because people from neighbouring towns came here too considering it was one of the only schools for a while around here.

Nothing ever happens here. Like ever.

It's a dead-end town known for a famous train robbery in 1874. That was it. We had a good football team as well, but I had no interest in football whatsoever so that did little to excite me.

The day I graduate is the day I get out of Baskerville, Indiana.

I wasn't sure where. Maybe I'd head to Egypt, but then again, my Egyptian Arabic was so bad it was basically non-existent. I thought about going to Italy, but Italian was another language I did not know. I sometimes considered New York but it was too close to home. I wanted out. Out-out. Not just a few states away out.

I reached over and switched off the lamp balancing on my bedside table, the only source of light in my room the illuminated numbers of my alarm clock.

There was no way in hell, I was getting any sleep now.