Shards

I'm starting to doubt if I really knew Angelo as well as I thought I did.

Lou stands up, shoving her hands in her pockets and turning away. She doesn't make eye contact with Kylie, instead she tries to push past her without being seen. Kylie pulls her back by the hood of her sweatshirt, forcing Lou to face her. 

"What the hell is going on here." Kylie spits. She's defending me as if she's my sister, it's always been that way.

Kylie is a firecracker, the only girl I've ever met who could handle anything coming her way. Nothing hurt Kylie. Something like this shouldn't hurt her. 

It's obvious that this is shaking her.

Lou doesn't respond, only sighs, shrugs, and leaves without a backward glance.

This time, Kylie doesn't try to stop her.

"Nothing that she says about Angelo is true, you got that?" Kylie's words are filled with panic and she's pleading to me to trust her. She sits down next to me and puts her hand on top of mine but I pull away. "We knew him, not her. You knew him. Always remember that, got it?"

"What are you talking about?" None of this makes sense.

"You don't need to worry about it, Nat." She smiles and talks to me in that special little kid's voice. "Promise that you'll always remember that, okay?"

"Don't talk to me like that." 

"Talk to you like what?"

"You know what I mean!" I hate it when she does that, I always have. "Just tell me the truth or I'll figure it out myself."

"Natalie, I just need time." 

"You don't have time! You could die any minute, just like Angelo did!" It's so fucking unfair that she can take time for granted like this. Angelo died when he thought he had all the time in the world. "Angelo would have told me the truth but he can't! He can't because he's dead! And, and you're alive and you can tell me but you won't!" 

"You can't bring Angelo into this!" Kylie starts to cry but I don't regret a thing. 

"Why can't I? He was my brother, not yours." I don't care how much I'm hurting her right now, I just want her to understand.

"Because you just can't, Natalie. That's not how this works."

"If Angelo was alive, he would tell me the truth." 

She doesn't say anything back. All she does is stare at me as the tears roll down her face. 

I wish the world could just be put on pause for a little while, long enough for me to get my feet on the ground and get a breath of air before I suffocate in all of this madness. I feel like I'm drowning, like I'll never breathe again. 

I want everything to go back to normal, for Angelo to be alive. I want Kylie to come over and do my hair and let me do her makeup and I want to have family dinners when my mom is home from work early enough and dad is in town. I want to go out with my friends and go on dates and go to concerts. I wat to have a movie night with Angelo and go on runs with him.  I want a normal life again.

Except I can't.

I can't have a normal life because Angelo is dead and dead people can't have normal lives. Dead people can't have movie nights with their sister. Dead people can't have girlfriends. Dead people can't have family dinners. Dead people can't tell the truth.

When Angelo died, it took a piece of my heart. The more time that passes, the more I feel like I'm losing pieces of myself to his death, to his mess. I want to feel whole again because I'm sick and tired of waiting for everything to be okay. I'm sick of waiting for someone to tell me the truth. 

"Are you going to tell me or not? I'll figure it out on my own, don't think I won't." Kylie doesn't say anything. 

"I don't know."

I know I should trust Kylie, not Lou. I know I should just listen to whatever she says. I know that it's not my business. I know that whatever is going on doesn't involve me. I know that I should stay out of it, I know that it's not my problem. I know that it shouldn't be my problem, that I can go back to normal if I just leave them alone to deal with it.

It's probably nothing, anyways. 

I'm probably overreacting, anyways.

Everything is probably okay, anyways.

Probably.

I can't shake the feeling that there's something going behind the scenes. Something I never knew, something that nobody wanted me to ever know in the first place. Angelo never kept secrets for long, but maybe it was so he could keep this one.

I'm starting to doubt if I really knew Angelo as well I thought I did.

I'm starting to think that If I figure out whatever it is they're keeping from me, the piece that he took from me will come back. I won't feel hollow anymore. 

Does it really matter though? Angelo won't come back.

All I want is for Angelo to come back.