Today’s outfit is a black and gray flannel shirt tucked in my cut-up black jeans to be shorts. I find my black high boots and put on the darkest make-up I can do. It ends up blending nicely together, a perfect mixture of being pretty and a bad bitch. Lastly, I put on my bead bracelets to cover up the marks on my wrists. I take one more look in the mirror, bruised knees and a bloody nose, lovely. Yet it beats the disgusting naked body I just finished starting at thirty minutes ago.

I’m not even sure if I’m even human anymore. I’m just wasting time in a complex universe walking step by step aimlessly. I don’t have dreams, I don’t have something to look forward to. I don’t even know why I’m even here anymore. Any time I try to find myself all I find is dirt. I look at myself like I’m art but really I’m garbage. I laugh in my head and think of something Cody once said in a freestyle of his. I breathe in carcinogens because I’m car-sick again looking at this course through my head. That’s exactly how I feel. I’m just a carcass playing the part of being alive.

I drank too much and now my head’s a pain. My hands are cold and I wonder why I even got out of bed at all. I don’t want to be here at all. I want to run away. I want to say sorry. I want to disappear. I’m trapped in my head and wrapped in thorns. I just want to be free.

Here I am trapped in the past; wishing for something that’s gone.

Maybe one day I’ll be able to fight this hell.

Yet that’s another lie to make myself feel better.

I’m not long for this world anymore. Elizabeth had the right idea.

-

The skies are awfully gray today. A storm waiting to drop at any second, ready to flood the streets. In Darkwood, nobody ever uses an umbrella to hide from the rain. I don’t think I have ever seen anyone use it outside of Seattle. For some reason, Everyone is walking to school has one.

There are three girls standing by the lockers on my way to class. I recognize two of them almost immediately. It’s Megan and Amanda. They fucking hate our guts and especially hate me because I was fucking Amanda’s brother. They’re picking on some girl whose hair is covering her face. I recognize that it’s Jana Kramer as I get closer.

Jana Kramer was their friend as well right up until Ellie’s death. She became a recluse and doesn’t talk to anyone anymore. I don’t see why they would pick on her.

Out of all the things I don’t want to do, this is one where I do. “Don’t you guys have something better to do?”

It stops them right on their tracks. “Yeah whatever, Sara. This doesn’t concern you.” Megan says.

“Class is almost over, what are you doing here?”

“Fuck off.”

“Fine, but I’m going to the office and telling them you’re ditching again. Aren’t you on probation, Amanda?”

“Bitch,” Amanda mutters under her breath and walks away.

Megan lets go of Jana Kramer, “You know if it wasn’t for your stupid brother you would get your ass beat too.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

Megan scoffs and walks away.

Jana gets herself upright and looks at me for a second. She’s a mess. She used to be so cute, I even had a crush on her. She isn’t the same person anymore. I don’t look away because I expect her to thank me or something but she just walks away. I can’t even get that.

School just isn’t it for me. I’ve been here for ten minutes and I’m already over it. I text Emily that I’m ditching and head out the same way I came in.

“Sara, wait!” I hear Lucas behind me. “Dude, what’s up? Why haven’t you answered my texts? Why’d you break up us?”

I sigh. I don’t have the time for this. “Dude, you’re just not it. It’s lame. I’m done. Leave me alone.”

“Lame, what did Andrew convince you?”

“No. I’m just over it.”

And I leave it at that. I never felt anything with him anyway. It was disgusting.

I don’t know what I expect to find on the top of the hill in Darkwood. It’s my favorite spot and not a lot of people come here, so it’s nice. It gives me space to breathe and time to think. I’m not sure why I did end things with Lucas. It was the perfect cover.

But at least I have an excuse that I’m not gay and that I didn’t kiss Elizabeth. Now Andrew won’t disown me if he suspects anything. I have seen the way he treats Isaac and all the other gay kids. I don’t want to be that.

But I’m not gay.

I’m not.

I’m not.

I think about Mom. If she were still alive, I wonder if my life would be like this? Dad wouldn’t be a drunk piece of shit. Andrew would have turned up normal and not an asshole. I wouldn’t be so depressed all the time and have these doubts in my mind. She’s the ghost that haunts me.

She was so kind. An artist who loved anything that had beauty. I can’t remember much of her anymore, but from what I do, it warms me. I miss her so much. There isn’t a day where I wish Dad didn’t leave her alone the night she died. I can’t even remember if I cried but I do remember that was the last time Andrew cried.

I catch myself taking a drag of an unlit cigarette.

Down the hill I see Jana Kramer walking up. She doesn’t spot me. I didn’t talk to her much but over the summer she would often spend time with us along with Elizabeth. It felt like she was going to be part of the group before the suicide. Now Jana Kramer spends all her time avoiding people.

Her name isn’t actually Jana Kramer, it’s just what everyone calls her. Nobody knows her actual name, or at least, we all forgot. Elizabeth was the one who gave her the name as a joke and everyone’s been using it for years now.

Jana Kramer looks up and once she sees that I’m on the top of the hill, turns around and walks away.

In the pit of my misery, I want to feel like I feel when I’m asleep.

“Are you okay?” A voice wakes me.

I’m laying on the grass looking up at the sky. There is nothing but nearly black skies and a woman’s head looking down on me.

“Yeah, who are you?”

“I live down the street, I come here nearly every day. Today is the first day I’ve seen someone on top of this hill while a storm will rain down any minute.”

“Oh, didn’t realize.”

She laughs as I sit up. “I’m Graceful, but everyone calls me Aylin.”

“Sara.”

“So what are you doing up here?”

“Thinking.”

“About?”

This woman, Aylin, or whatever she looks like a mom. She carries bags under her eyes just like me. Her hair is a light brown, down to her shoulders. Beautiful blue eyes. In her thirties maybe?

“I don’t know,” I shrug. “Not sure what to think about anymore. What do you care anyway? We just met.”

Aylin shrugs. “Thought I offer.”

You know what? Fuck it. What do I have to lose? I don’t know her, she doesn't know me. What’s the worse that could happen.

I tell her everything that’s going on. I talk about Elizabeth and this guilt I have. I tell her everything about my sadness and she just listened. Aylin doesn’t speak and just lets me ramble. And know what? It’s so relieving to finally say it all out loud. Elizabeth shared to me her darkness and I didn’t do a damn thing about it. How am I supposed to move from that?

But that doesn’t bother me.

What bothers me is what Elizabeth meant to me. She knew and she was okay with it. She was even curious too. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have kissed when we first became friends. But she had an image to keep and she threw me aside and never let me explore that. It bothers me that Elizabeth never told me why she ignored me after that.

And it bothers me that this kiss became a rumor and that my brother started to make fun of me because of it. It bothers me that I started to date this dude who I don’t even like to make him stop. It bothers me that I never looked at a guy and found him attractive. It bothers me that I could see a girl and think she’s hot, or pretty, and then I think about…

“It bothers me that I think I’m gay.”

“And what’s so wrong with that?” Aylin finally speaks.

“I can’t be, I just can’t-”

Aylin cuts me off, “If you open up to your brother, what do you think will happen? So he made fun of you a little, so what? That’s what brothers do. Mine always makes fun of me for being a single mom, but he sticks around because he couldn’t bear not being in my daughter’s life. You just have to have a little more faith in your brother.”

“But-”

“Let me ask you this? Are you really gay?”

“Huh?”

“How long have you known?”

It takes me a while to answer. Maybe because I’ve known for a long time now and I’ve been running away from it all the same. Emily always tries to get me to admit it.

“My mom drew this painting a few weeks before she died. I knew then. It was of this naked woman desperately trying to reach the surface as she was being pulled down the ocean. It was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I knew then.”

“When did your mom pass?”

“I was eight.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

We spend more time talking about Mom. She then talks a bit about hers. Aylin’s mom died when she was young too. Then her father died when she was seventeen so it was up to her to take care of her little brother. She packed up all her things and moved to Colorado. She moved back after the riots and hasn’t left since. Her story is one filled with struggle, just how I’m going through right now. It reminds me that I’m not alone in this world.

At some point in exchanging stories, Emily texts me. She’s having a kickback at her place while her Dad is gone for work.

Fuck it. Why not?

When I take my leave, it starts to pour.