"It's like I'm running away from me,
it's like I've taken the puzzle in me
and left it scrambled for all to see."
__________________________________
When Arden Danvers' parents split when she was eight years old, she moved away with her dad from her...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"Will I ever understand it? Will I make it to the other side?"
Til' My Heart Stops - Too Far Moon
________________________________
XXXVIII. \\ THE LIST //
The next few days that went by were quiet and calm, things were finally starting to settle around Arden. Her mom and Trevor's dad came back, and Arden had a long talk with her mom, telling her the whole truth of everything that had happened. Her mom sat there and listened to everything in it's entirety, not interrupting Arden once. By the end of it, Arden tried to express how sorry she was for keeping everything that had happened from her mom, that she was sorry for lying and not telling her what was happening.
Arden expected for her mom to be angry or disappointed in her. She had every right to yell at her for putting herself in danger over and over again.
But instead, tears formed in her mother's eyes and she pulled Arden into one of the tightest hugs Arden had ever gotten from her mom. Her mom just cried and held her close. As Arden hugged her back, tears slipped down her cheeks as well, not realizing just how much she had needed a hug from her mom, especially after all she had been through. The overwhelming feeling of relief washed over her, knowing that she didn't have to lie or hide anything from the people she cared about anymore.
After the long talk Arden had with her mom, she immediately got herself ready to head to meet her friends. Tessa asked Rowan, Elisia, Arden and Sean if they could all get together because she had something to tell them and to show them.
They all agreed to meet at Elisia's house, and once all of them were there, they all sat on the couch as Tessa and Sean stood before them.
And then after a moment, Tessa started, "I wanted you guys to know it was Sean who interrupted Nicki that night."
"Yeah," Sean nodded, "She was writing a note when I walked in."
"She told him that there was another video. One that could ruin her life." Tessa told them, "That's why she did it."
Arden looked at them sadly, knowing that the video that Nicki had been talking about was the video of her burning Elisia's house down.
"Uh, Nicki's mom gave me her phone so I could look through her pictures." Tessa told them, then sat down on the couch next to them, "She would have wanted you guys to see this. It's a video she made for Hailey, right after Hailey overdosed. When she was in rehab."
Sean leaned against the back of the couch while Tessa, Arden, Rowan and Elisia watched Tessa take out the phone and hold it up for them to see. Arden breathed out slowly, preparing to see Nicki and hear her voice for the first time since her death. As Tessa pressed play, Arden could feel her heart pounding in her chest.
"Hey Hailey, I don't even know why I'm doing this. You've been gone for like a week, but it feels like a year. I don't even know if I'm going to send this to you, but I've been thinking a lot. It's been a strange couple of days, and I don't really feel like myself. You know, obviously I'm totally freaked out because of what happened at my party, but then...you also took all those pills and...I just started wondering: what's the point of it? You know, I wanted to make a video reminding you and also me...what's so great about this stupid life. Um, I actually made a list."
Arden looked up at her friends, and as the video went on, she made her own list from what Nicki said made about the good things in life. Of all the things that made her life worth living, of all people she was lucky to love in this life.
And over the next few weeks, the words in Nicki spoke in her video...they echoed throughout Arden's life as everything started falling back into place.
@ @ @
"When I feel this epic loneliness, which is an awful feeling by the way...I can watch this and remind myself how to be happy."
It was a late night about two weeks later, Arden sat on the couch next to Trevor, with a fresh bowl of popcorn between the two of them as they stared at the screen. Her mom had a night shift at the hospital and his dad was also working late so they had decided to put on a movie. Trevor insisted that they watch his favorite, Trainspotting.
"This movie is a cinematic masterpiece." He said probably for the third or fourth time since they had started watching it, "I mean, the camera angles alone tell you so much about the scene, even more so than the dialogue..."
Arden smiled, enjoying all of Trevor's commentary about cinematic techniques and themes throughout the movie. Over the past few weeks, they had slowly been getting to know each other better, and were actually becoming pretty close.
Arden never would have imagined that Trevor would be the brother she had always wanted growing up. With her mom and dad's jobs leaving her home alone most evenings and nights, it was actually pretty nice coming home to someone being there.
And when Arden found out about Trevor's love for movies, that was something they both did together every couple nights. They'd make dinner and then sit down and watch a movie or a few episodes of a tv show, taking turns picking what they should watch each night.
She did see a visible change in Trevor since that day she found him in the bathroom, pills split all over the counter. He wasn't drinking as much, he was doing homework again, he was making an effort with both her and his friends, he was going to cinema club again, and he seemed happier, more uplifted.
And what Arden had told him that day she found him in the bathroom had rang true. She had always wanted a sibling growing up, and despite the rocky start between them, Arden couldn't have asked for a better brother. Family had always been like a phantom thing to her...barely there.
But now, things were falling into place, with Trevor, with her mom, her step-dad...as well as every other aspect of her life.
