Katie Stelter
Sometimes when I closed my eyes, I would only see her. There was nothing but emptiness in my mind, a cold and desolate vacuum extracting all that was vibrant, yet still I anchored her face secured. Trapped. She filled the void with her obnoxious laugh and dramatic flair. She was the sun in a dark room that failed to shelter itself from the light. And while she lived there, alone in my thoughts, she was still a blurry figure of secrets never to be uncovered.
I opened my eyes to look upon her – a paralyzed body dressed in graceless modesty. She lay in a bed of white, only half of her petite figure shown off, framed like art in a museum. I stood beside her, a statue guarding over a coffin with a line of people waiting to view her, examine her, pray over her. They whispered low in the quiet room, careful of their word choice and their audience. Careful of what I might hear.
It was strange. No one ever really looked the same in their deathbed as they did alive, yet somehow her color was animated, lively – like at any moment she would just blink and arise. Knowing her, it was all some sort of prank and she would jump out any minute to see who fell for the trick. I imagined her smile, wide with assurance that she fooled everyone in the room, convincing them that she truly died. I almost wished for it.
“She sure was a beauty.” I didn’t know who spoke. I didn’t know a lot of the people who came, in all honesty. Most of my friends had already left. Something about funerals being too depressing, someone had said. At least they could turn it off eventually. She wasn’t their sister.
“I know how hard this must be for you. For all of you.”
I didn’t move. I focused on her eyelids and remained silent. They walked away.
I inhaled a deep breath, waiting for her chest to bulk up like mine. I waited for her eyes to blink or wink or for her to spit out a silly joke or complain about how I always got her in trouble whenever she played her music too loud or woke me up in the middle of the night talking with a new guy on the phone every other weekend. I waited for her to stop playing with me and just breathe already.
She didn’t. But I did. I tried not to, but couldn’t hold it in longer than a minute. I tried for two, but still failed. If I could, I’d give her every breath I had left.
People came and went, most of them spewing out rehearsed apologies and fond memories. I drowned them out as I emptied my lungs and counted the seconds that we were the same. No breath. No movement. No life.
“Evelyn, the service is about to start.”
No life.
“We need to sit down.”
She wasn’t gone. She was here, she was just playing a cruel joke. A real fucking cruel joke. I just needed to see her wake up. I knew she would. She had to.
Zoe wouldn’t leave like this.
“Evelyn, don’t do this today.”
I ran. I didn’t care where I was going, but I couldn’t be in there with everyone apologizing for something that wasn’t worth apologizing for. She did this to herself. It was her fault. She left me with a lifetime of questions and nothing to erase the pain.
Why did you do it?
Didn’t you care about me?
How could you not talk to your own sister?
Why didn’t you take me with you?
Didn’t you know you could have killed me, too?
I stopped running. Silence – in my mind and all around me. She’d never answer the questions that consumed me. Though I guess even in death she was still a mystery.