CELLOPHANE- Ginny Weasley

chapter two; is it really fading if you were never really there?

Danica Finch stays holed up in her apartment for one more month before she even dares stepping into the real world. She watches through windows as people walk by, talking on cellphones or reading newspapers or holding hands with another person. It makes her feel better, to see everyone living their lives while Danica grieves. The hole in her heart is still big, gaping and aching to be filled. Danica doesn't know how to fix that yet, and she has some slightly bigger worries on her mind. 

Something that does help the hole is alcohol. Danica's liquor cabinet is nearly drained by now, and she's getting worried she'll have to actually show her face in public. She doesn't think she'd be able to do it, it would only end in Danica going back to her apartment and sitting in the bath for another two days before doing anything else, and her fingers were already so pruned that she just doesn't think she could take it. She can barely take anything right now, as it is. She hasn't spoken to anyone in nearly two months, and the isolation is finally starting to get to her. But she can't reach out, not now, not when her brain has convinced her that her friends have forgotten about her and that nobody is ever going to love her or care for her as much as Thomas did. He was her best friend. Now, Danica has a panic attack every time the phone rings, and she lets it go to voicemail. A voicemail she is guaranteed to never return, unless she pulls herself out of the pit she's managed to bury herself in. The thing is, Danica doesn't want to yet. She wants the comfort of knowing no-one expects her to be fine, or at least she wants to keep up the illusion of the notion. 

Danica watches more days go by. She watches the season change, fall to winter. She sees the leaves change colour, green to yellow to orange to red. She watches as they tumble from the trees, sometimes ripped violently by the wind to the ground, forced from its tree. Her heart stays empty. Her soul continues to ache as her favourite season approaches. People continue to walk by her front window, some she recognizes, others are new faces. Her alcohol stash lasts her one more week than she'd expected, and once it does run out is when things start to take a turn for Danica.

She goes through withdrawals for the first two weeks. Shivers and aches, the yearning to go have a lukewarm glass of whatever would make her forget almost stronger than the fear of having to go out and face the world. She spends most of these days stuck on her floor, shaking and unable to get up. She's begun to memorize the patterns on the cold wood when things start to get even worse. 

See, Danica had never been explicitly diagnosed with any kind of mental illness, especially considering the fact that her parents didn't believe in it, and therefore refused to send her to any kind of specialist. However, if Danica had gotten the help she needed she probably would have realized her mind was not alright, or at least not alright in the way it should be. She also might have realized that she had been suffering from a plethora of mental illnesses. Anorexia nervosa, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, social anxiety disorder and depression. Danica's mind was riddled with instabilities that made losing her brother a battle. Everyday Danica felt like she was losing more of herself, every day she found herself recognizing herself less and less whenever she would look into the mirror and see herself... and her brother. It got so bad that the mirrors in her apartment had all been covered up with sheets, further turning her house into the mausoleum it was. 

Danica felt sad. Well, she felt more than sad but that was the only word that could try and explain the things she was currently feeling. Truthfully, Danica felt like she was aching. She felt like a gaping black hole of nothingness, sucking all the good and happy things she had into her dark pit to be forgotten forever, never to return. She felt like she was stuck in a never-ending time loop, playing the death of her brother over and over and over in her brain until it was all she ever thought about. Thomas' smiling face. Thomas is alive! The green light. Thomas is dead. Danica hadn't eaten a full meal in two months. All she'd been having was peppermint tea, whatever alcohol she scrounged up and a cracker or two.  That was all she could have without the insecurities coming back, or feeling like she was about to throw up. 

It was sad, really. Danica hated herself for how weak she was being. She should have been strong, it was what Thomas would have wanted. It was what Thomas would have done in her situation, too. He would have assured her parents, comforted them and then mourned her comfortably. Instead, her parents had gotten Danica, who couldn't leave her house. Danica, who drank herself into oblivion almost every day. Danica, whose parents hated her for taking away their precious, prodigal son. 

She hated it. All of it. The way that she felt so insignificant, so small. She also hated the fact that she allowed herself to feel that way. Danica wished that she could reach into her mind and erase the things that made her the person she was. She wanted to start over. A blank canvas of a girl, ready to be painted carefully, unlike the mess that Danica was. 

Danica finally leaves her house on a cold day in December. She doesn't totally leave her house by choice, but it's something. Danica had taken a warm shower that day, so her hair was looking less greasy, and she had combed what could be combed and chopped off the strands that couldn't be salvaged. She looked slightly better than she had been looking, even if she didn't feel it whatsoever. Dark bags still pooled under her eyes, and her face was still as gaunt and unnourished as ever. She almost looked more like a ghost than her brother, who was still following Danica outside as she walked hesitantly on the sidewalk. She only had a few dollars, and there was a voice in her head that was urging her to go take a trip to what used to be her and Thomas' favourite coffee place. 

She stares at the sign, covered lightly in snow, and she thinks about how bleak it all looks. How the colours don't look like they used to, how the people sound angrier than they once did. She thinks about how safe this place used to make her, and now it only filled her with an immense sense of dread. Danica wants to run away, go back to her apartment and its stench and messiness. Back to her bathtub, back to the mirror where she first saw her brother. Instead, she places one foot in front of the other, change grasped tightly in her fist, shoved in her coat pocket. 

When she opens the door, the familiar smell of warm coffee and chocolate welcome her. It doesn't comfort her any more, instead she gets in line, and stares at a random corner of the place. The bell on the door rings again, and she can sense the body heat of someone getting in line behind her. She keeps her eyes steady on the corner, moving forward when appropriate, until she feels a tap on her shoulder. Danica whips around, one of her hands grasping her wand discreetly in her coat pocket. To her surprise, it's no threat. Or at least Danica doesn't think she is a threat. 

Instead, she comes face to face with the redhead she'd seen at the funeral those all months ago. All Danica can think about is how much better she looks, and how much healthier she seems than Danica. She feels envious, because Danica knows she looks like shit, as much as she would like to pretend differently. 

"Danica, right?"

Danica is startled, and the ginger can clearly see it on her face.

"Sorry," she says "I read about your brother in the news and recognized you from the article."

"Oh," says Danica. She doesn't know how to respond.

"My name is Ginny Weasley." A perfectly polished and freckled hand reaches out to her. Danica shakes it loosely, still disturbed.

"Danica Finch." There's an awkward silence in which Danica worries she has missed a cue for her to speak, but she's distracted by Thomas' glaring eyes staring at her in the large window of the shop.

"I... look, I don't want this to be awkward but I'm here if you ever need to talk. I lost my brother, too so.. I don't know. If you need someone who can relate... I'm here." Ginny hands her a card awkwardly, and suddenly everything clicks. The graveyard, the ginger family that had accompanied Ginny Weasley that day. She had been burying her brother too.

Danica pauses. "Thank you. That's..... very thoughtful of you." Then, she thinks for a moment. "Can you talk now?"

Ginny nods.