Like It Was Yesterday

Part Sixteen

I stayed with Elizabeth White for another week or so. We got along great. She was like the mother I never had. My mom never cared about me as much as she did. She gave me new clothes to wear, food, and she liked to talk. We talked about a lot of stuff. Stuff we liked, stuff we didn’t like, what was going on in the world today, all of that. She told me she would always be here if I ever needed her. I was happy to be staying with her, but I knew I couldn’t stay forever. I needed to get back to you.

One morning when it seemed sunny and warm out again I decided it was time to go. Elizabeth gave me some things to take with me and I headed off toward the town where you still lived. She even gave me directions on how to get there. It’s a good thing she thought of that, because I would have forgotten to get them from her.

It seemed like a long way back. The directions she gave me were confusing sometimes. I occasionally had to stop and ask random people on the street what they meant. The people were always nice. They even felt bad for me sometimes. I must have looked pretty bad after a while without really taking a bath. I also didn’t have a way to properly was my clothes.

A few days later I was starting to get tired form all the walking and not having enough food to eat. I ran out of money too, so I couldn’t just get more.

Elizabeth did give me a little food and money, she also gave me more clothes and a blanket so I didn’t have to sleep covering up with only a jacket, but I ran out of food and money very fast. It seemed I was always hungry, and I just had to eat.

            I thought about how you must be doing, probably safe at home. Nice and warm. I sometimes wondered if maybe you forgot about me. Maybe you moved on and found someone else. How was I supposed to know? I wasn’t going to give up though, I needed to find you.

One day, I started to feel too tired to walk any farther, and went to lie down in a park somewhere. I’m guessing it had something to do with barely sleeping in the past few days.

It was still somewhat warmer out, but I was shivering really badly. I was afraid I might be getting sick. I couldn’t get sick. What would I do if I did? I couldn’t go to anyone. I wouldn’t even be able to pay if I went to a doctor. How would I get better on my own? Honestly, I probably wouldn’t.

After a while I for some reason decided to get up and go on a walk. My shivering had gone away and I thought I might be getting better. I felt kind of sore, and thought that maybe it was just because I had been walking so much in the past few days, rarely ever stopping. I couldn’t though. I still had so far to go.

I started to get kind of dizzy after a while. Now I was really starting to get worried, so I turned around and started to go back to my bench. I fell about three or four times before I got there and finally some lady came and helped me walk back. She asked me if I was ok, so I told her I was just sore from walking so much in the past few days, and that all I really needed was a brake. I also mentioned how I hadn’t had any water to drink in the past few days. I got lectured on how that wasn’t good for me, and that I should really be home with my family instead of wandering around by myself, so I told her they kicked me out. It wasn’t true, but I wasn’t going to tell her I was running away. She’d make me go back. I also told her the reason I was walking so far is because I already knew where I was going to be living. Just so she wouldn’t suggest I stay with her. I had no time for that.

When she left I sat on the bench for a while longer thinking about what it was going to be like when I got back to you.

I ended up falling asleep on that bench, and woke up the next morning back at Elizabeth’s house. I was lying in a small room with a little lamp on the desk next to me and Elizabeth sitting in a chair across from the bed. I was so confused. I started to wonder if that was all a dream. Maybe I never actually left her house. Then I tried to sit up and realized I was wrong. Every muscle in my body seemed to hurt. It was horrible. It also meant that I had to be sick. How long had I been asleep for exactly?

“You’re awake, good. I was starting to worry,” Elizabeth said with a smile on her face.

 “How did I get here again” I asked. “And how long have I been sleeping for exactly? ”

 “I was going into town to buy some groceries and I saw you sleeping on that bench. You didn’t looks too well, so I brought you back here. You’ve been sleeping for about 10 hours now. I was starting to wonder whether you were going to wake up or not.”

It wasn’t that hard to believe that I didn’t look too well. I didn’t feel too well either. My head hurt, I felt dizzy, and I was slightly cold, and in so much pain. How was I ever going to make it back to you if I felt like this? I could barely even move.

 “How am I going to get back to Iliana if I feel like this? I feel terrible.”

“I’m afraid you’re going to have to stay here for a while,” Elizabeth told me. “At least until you feel better.”

 “What if something happens to her? What if she’s gone or something when I get back? I need to be with her now.”

 “I’m sorry, but I can’t let you leave. You said yourself you feel terrible. And I don’t think you’re in any condition to move anywhere.”

As the days went on I never really got any better. I just started to get worse. Occasionally I would start crying and Elizabeth would have to come comfort me. I started to get the feeling that I wasn’t ever going to make it back to you. It hurt thinking about that, but I couldn’t deny it. I had never felt this sick in my life.

            Every once in a while Elizabeth would come read to me, or tell me a story about her and her sister, giving me things to drink that would hopefully make me feel better. They never really did though.

Once she told me about how her sister was always making jewelry and stuff. She made a necklace that Elizabeth really liked. It was supposedly magic. After that Elizabeth started making a bunch of fake versions of Evelyn’s, making them have a little magic too, but not as much because Evelyn’s was real and hers wasn’t.

 She made a lot of money selling them to stores so they could sell them to other people. She said they were supposed to help people find who they were looking for. When both of you had the necklace, they would appear to glow a bright gold, connecting you no matter how far apart you were. The only catch was you had to realize you loved the other person. If you didn’t already know that, it would work, but not like it was supposed to. It would only glow a little, letting you know there was at least some connection there.

 It was a nice story, I often wondered if it would have been easier if we had something like that, where we were always connected. Then we’d always know the other one was still out there, and that we still loved each other.

“That’s so cool. How do you make them magic though? I thought that stuff wasn’t real.”

Elizabeth smiled.

“Oh it is real, but I can’t tell you how to make something magic. It’s kind of a secret. No one knew me and my sister could do these thing. We never told anyone.”

“How could your parents not realize that? I think I would have noticed.”

“Like I said before, they were always fighting. That’s why we got separated. They never paid attention to us.”

“What about other people, your friends… teachers?”

“They never really paid attention either. As for friends, we never really talked to many people.”

After another few days I couldn’t eat because I just wasn’t hungry… ever. I thought that was weird, because before I couldn’t seem to eat enough. I lost a lot of weight and Elizabeth seemed to get really concerned. She called a doctor, but even he didn’t know what was wrong with me. He tried to give me medicine, but nothing worked. He said he’d never seen anyone as sick as I was. Which meant only one thing, there was no way I was making it back to you.

            Late one night while she was telling me about all the crazy things her and her sister used to do I fell into a very deep sleep… and never woke up again.