Hidden Gifts

Two

"I miss her." Damie says.

"Me too." Talia replies as they both look over Clare's grave. Several roses and sunflowers, Clare's favorite, lay on the tombstone.

"I still can't believe she just... Died." Damie says as a tear slid down her face. "They said she was involved in an accident and just left. We didn't even get to see her body, Talia, this is an empty grave. She didn't have a proper burial and her body has probably decayed in some forest and some capitalistic men probably want to chop it up to build condo's."

"It's not right I know but that's all we got. We should just be thankful she had already written her will before she died. They would have taken everything from us then separated us and make us go into foster care."

"I may have lost her but I won't lose you. I swear on my life I'll do anything to protect you, Talia. You're the only thing I can call family and nothing can take you away from me." Damie engulfs her in a huge embrace.

Damie has been hurt too many times, not only by Clare's death. Talia feared that if she was gone Damie would lose her mind.

"I'll do anything to protect you too. We're sisters and that's what Clare would have wanted. I wish I could actually talk to her dead body and not an empty casket but wherever she is I know she's listening and she's happy. Whether in heaven or in hell she's proud of us." Talia says and hugs her back tightly.

They stay like that for a while before the grave digger tells them that they're about to close.

Two girls walking alone at mid night was the perfect opportunity for psychopaths to use them in ways that would traumatize and scare them out luckily they made it home untouched.

"You have school tomorrow, T, sorry I kept you up this late." Damie says.

"You didn't keep me up, I wanted to follow you to the cemetery and Damie."

"Yeah?"

"Stop being so hard on yourself. Clare's death was not your fault and I will be okay. Taking care of me is not your responsibility alone, I'll take care of myself and you too."

"You don't get it. I'm twenty one everything feels like my responsibility because I'm practically an adult. After Clare died everything just feel apart, I lost my job and I haven't gotten one in six months. We sold some stuff to pay for mortgage and now the house likes semi empty. I need to do better in order to take care of both of us."

Talia looks down knowing she's right. She can't depend on false hope forever knowing that life was a terrible mistress with horrible surprises.

"Our lives our really in shambles." Talia let's out a humourless laugh.

"Yeah." Damie laughs too.

Empty graves. Empty hearts. Empty souls.

~~~
After all her classes Talia had hoped to go home immediately without any disturbances. School had been a hassle and they only had two classes of people there: the idiots and the annoying idiots.

Natalie was part of the annoying idiots and like every mean girl in every movie she drew power from diminishing people's self esteem.

Talia was no exception.

She wasn't scared of Natalie, not in the slightest, in fact she wanted to break her stupid nose and craved to just watch her wallow in pain but for Damie's sake she did not do anything that would end her in prison.

"Why are you in such a rush, negro?" Natalie said from behind her.

Negro. Meaning a black person. But the way Natalie used it had the same equivalent of calling her the n word.