~ Chapter 20 ~

Reaching Icy Eve proved to be far more difficult than I had made it sound in my impassioned plea. Not only was there distance between her heart and mine, her feelings and mine—but there was physical distance, plagued by snow and whipping wind and the icy diamond she had encapsulated herself in.

The wind batted my face, slicing invisible blades across my skin as the cold pummeled straight through me. Hair in my eyes, snowflakes clinging to my lashes, I could barely see. My shoes slid across the cracked pavement, my legs threatening to lose their strength, but I pushed forward anyway, pressing all of my weight against the unseen force.

Icy Eve’s scream punctured the air even from her her diamond-shaped cage. It chilled me in another way, my chest aching with a pain that both was and wasn’t my own.

“Eve!” I cried against the wind, not knowing what else to call her. But the wind stole the name, carrying it off behind me, and I feared she hadn’t heard.

I feared I couldn’t reach her after all, that I would take one step forward, only to be forced ten steps back.

In the length of a heartbeat, my old friend doubt returned with its cousin fear. I could hear their voices in my mind, whispering and taunting.

“What do you think you’re doing here, anyway?”

“She doesn’t know you. You don’t know her. You’re so arrogant, thinking you understand her pain.”

“Why don’t you just leave?”

“A person like you could never reach anyone.”

“...aren’t your failed stories proof of that?”

It was those last words, that last thought, that did it—that made me lose my footing, my feet slipping as the wind slid them from underneath me, and I floated briefly before landing flat on my face.

The cold that seeped from the concrete stung. The icy poke of the frozen grass shooting up from the cracks in the concrete drew blood from my cheek. But nothing hurt so much as those mental words.

Because they were true, weren’t they?

My failed books—my failed career, my failed life—were proof that I was a person who couldn’t reach anyone. A person who could keep writing and grasping, and never gain anything or make any change because of it.

But what had I expected, always playing the role of the Ivy everyone wanted me to be? I had become a writer because I could put together words in a satisfying way. But a writer wasn’t an actor—and no amount of writing a script for myself meant that I could perform it. Just like no amount of wishing meant that I could suddenly get my old life back...that I could get what I had lost back.

I wrote and wrote and wrote, wanting my words to mean something to someone. But they were just empty phrases, just lovesick sentences. They didn’t mean anything—because my grandmother, the only person I had ever really loved, was gone.

Just like Icy Eve’s brother.

And I was still holding on.

Just like Icy Eve herself.

If I couldn’t fix my own heart, how could I hope to fix hers?

I sure hadn’t been able to fix my career with those terrible books, even though I had tried, grasping for any lose thread I could find, doing my best to please everyone.

“Come on, Ivy. Even if it’s not your best work, you should be proud of it.”

Suddenly, Satsuya’s words from the bookstore echoed in my mind, and my fingers twitched. An image of him checking the spine of my horrendous Vampire on the Midnight Beach flitted before my internal vision.

“It’s well worn, so obviously someone’s read it.”

Maybe they had read it to make fun of it. Maybe they had played some sort of hilarious drinking game with the cheesy lines in that story. But maybe, just maybe, somewhere in the world, someone had loved that awful novel I’d written. Though it was an ending for me, maybe that book, ridiculous as it was, was a beginning for them.

So maybe it’s okay that coming here was a new beginning for me.

My fingers found purchase, the cold of the concrete cutting into my hands as I forcefully pushed myself up, the wind even fiercer now.

Maybe it’s okay that I’m still sad. That a part of me wants to go home. That a part of me is happy that I met these people. That a part of me wants to forgive Satsuya for his past.

Fingers digging into the cold ground, searching out grooves, I crawled forward towards the blurry, barely-seen vision of Icy Eve and her diamond prison.

Maybe it’s okay if I can’t save her by myself.

Maybe all I can do is reach.

Maybe that’s enough.

My fingers were growing numb, my head hurt, and I wondered what was detaining Satsuya, but I still pressed on. Eventually, my shivering, aching body reached Icy Eve’s diamond, the wind so loud I feared for my eardrums. I reached up, mostly blind, and my hand connected with the Uni’s fashioned prison—

And I tumbled right through the structure, as if the walls of that icy diamond didn’t exist.

I landed hard on my face once more, a shallow pool of cold water splashing me. My body scrunched behind me, at an angle, splayed across the bottom of the diamond’s curve. Inside the prison it wasn’t nearly as cold, and aside from the orchestra of the wind outside—and Icy Eve’s crying—the space was almost peaceful.

Empty.

“Eve!” My throat was tight, but I called her name, reaching up to touch the tip of her high heels.

She floated above me in the center of the diamond-shaped grief, held aloft by a thin trail of ice that rose up and curled around her body, a shimmering vine without flowers or thorns. She held her face in her hands, and though I called her, she didn’t appear to hear.

You can do this, Ivy, I encouraged myself, my strength returning somewhat.

You said you were tired of being angry at yourself for not being perfect, so prove it.

Do what you can! Be imperfect now!

“Eve!” I tried to scramble up the side of the diamond, only to slide back down, water splashing on my clothes as I fought to balance myself. “Eve, you have to listen to me! Please!”

Icy Eve didn’t acknowledge me, but her sobs grew ever so slightly fainter, so I carried on.

“Please, you have to stop this!” I tried again, willing my voice to project even through the tightness in my throat. “I—I know—I know you’re sad. I know you miss your brother, and—”

A wall of the icy diamond cracked as Icy Eve’s hands pulled back, pure loathing in her glare as she screamed, “What do you know? My brother is dead! One of my best friends killed him. And I—I wasn’t there!” She sobbed, shaking her head, fingers clawing across her dark cheeks. “He was suffering, and I couldn’t help. If there was no other way, shouldn’t it have been me? Shouldn’t I have ended it for him? But I didn’t! I didn’t know. How didn’t I know? I was supposed to take care of him.” When she fixed her teary eyes full of hatred on me again, I wondered if she saw me at all—until icy spears shot forward from the diamond’s wall, growing like over-long thorns. “Don’t pretend like you understand!”

I barely dodged the spikes, scrambling to the other side of the small space. I pressed up against the sleek cold of the diamond, heart beating frantically. The icy spikes continued to grow, to come for me, but I still wasn’t willing to give up.

She had heard me—but she hadn’t heard me yet.

Please, Satsuya, don’t rush in and save the day.

Give me more time.

But what could I say?

Be imperfect, I reminded myself, sucking in a large breath through my teeth.

And more importantly—

Be honest.

“I do understand! She—she’s gone, too. She’s dead.” I tore the words from my throat, my still-stinging eyes blurring. I wanted to curl into a ball, to never stop crying. “My grandmother. She’s gone. The only person who ever actually noticed me—who ever actually saw Ivy. The only person who actually cared what I was feeling. She was the one who always took care of me, and I wanted to grow into someone who could take care of her, but I couldn’t. I can’t. Because now there’s no chance. She’s gone, and I’m here—stuck with myself.”

My legs gave out, and I slid back to the bottom of the diamond, landing in that pool of water. The icy spears stopped growing just before they pierced my face, my neck, my chest. Icy Eve, too, was frozen, no more screams coming from her mouth.

I stared at those spears as if they held the answers, wondering what else I could say. What else there was to say.

“I don’t want to live without my grandmother.” The words slipped out, and they were the truth—so truthful, it hurt. “I don’t want to keep waking up, and remembering she’s no longer there. I don’t want to slowly lose color in her memory, to question whether that was how her laugh sounded or what she really said. I don’t want any of that. I just want her back.” My cheeks were hot with tears, but I couldn’t stop talking. “It’s been a little while now, but I still don’t know what it means to move forward. I still don’t want to. But I—I still don’t want to give up, either. I don’t understand it.”

How could I want time to halt, to go back, and to move forward—all at the same time? How could I not want to continue life, and still want to continue it? How could I hate myself, and still try to be proud of my progress?

What was the answer?

Could I find it?

“I don’t want to continue, and yet I’m still here. There has to be a reason for that, right?” I looked up, as if my eyes were pulled by a thread, to meet Icy Eve’s gaze. And though she was still suspended, I felt as if the distance between us were smaller now. “I want to believe I’m here for a purpose. My grandmother always said it was so. And I do believe it, when I’m not feeling sorrow. Like I believe in the love my grandmother had, in the love I want for myself. Maybe you want to believe, too?” I reached my hand out, wondering if I could close the distance. “Maybe we can search for a reason together? Maybe...what we’ve both lost isn’t really gone?”

Icy Eve’s arms went limp, fell to her sides. But, slowly, slowly, one hand moved, reaching out towards me.

And as it reached, everything shattered.

She fell towards me, a small smile gracing her lips.

Our fingers touched as ice rained down, a kaleidoscope of jewel-like shards.

And as my eyes fell closed from exhaustion, I felt the warmth of someone’s arm wrap around me, pulling me from that diamond prison.