It started with you

01. Goodbye

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          Her eyes, the ones that were always happy, look at me petrified. The same ones that calm me when I am upset, are now a dull flickering of life. I watch them slowly fade to an ice-cold brown. The last movement of life is a nod of the head, a goodbye to me. 'No, don't.' I beg as I begin to run. I reach my hand towards her as the room darkens, shadows engulf her body, and she is ripped into oblivion of darkness. 'No!' I scream as the world turns black and my knees dig into the ground beneath me.

"Bay! Baylor, wake up!" My eyes flicker open to the shaking of my body and a panicked voice. My brother sits in my bed, hair folded chaotically from sleep, hands still gripping each of my arms. His eyes are wide as they dart between mine. Those damn eyes, they're identical to hers. Sun gold circles glowing against the black of his pupil cascading into an enriching earthy brown and a deep mocha ring lining the edge of the iris. I can't look at him, he's a mirror of her reflection.

"I'm sorry I woke you. You can go back to sleep, I'm okay." I lie to Cameron as I turn my back and tug the covers to my chest. A few moments pass before he gets up and walks out of my room and shuts my door. I stare at the picture of my sister in the window seal the rest of the night, picking apart my dream until I have to get ready for my first day back at school.

The morning sun begins to rise behind the photo, light illuminates the picture making her appear almost transparent as if a halo has encircled her body. I get up and put it in one of the boxes in my closet.

This room is bare, cold, void of personality. The walls are painted the slate gray color I use to love, now it just incessantly reminds me of the malicious sky on July 27th.

The red comforter I overpaid for is now a bed of blood, drowning me every night I dream. The only tincture of who I was is in the boxes I've packed away, or in the ones that never had the chance to be unpacked. I can't wrap my head around this.

"Bay, are you up? I have to go to work." Cameron hollers outside my door. I stare at the dresser in front of me, it belonged to my grandmother. It's made of dark oak wood with sterling silver accent handles on all six drawers. I run my hand across the smooth surface hoping it will engulf me in a sense of warmth and love that I haven't felt in a while.

Instead, I'm consumed with a gut-wrenching, heart shredding, dark abyss of loneliness. There're no words to fathom how alone I feel. How hollow my entire body feels like there's nothing inside but a winter storm spiraling me into the same oblivion of darkness that I watch my sister being ripped to every night.

I grab the stupid snow globe off my dresser with four figurines inside, two girls, a boy, and a woman. I don't have to look at the bottom to remember what my grandma engraved on it, "To my grandkids, I love you to the moon and back." It was the last thing my grandma bought us before she died last year, I pick it up and shake it. The white stars float around the moon and fall to the family again. A numb tear falls down my cheek as I walk to my closet and pack it away. Nothing of mine deserves to be unpacked in this apartment.

"Bay?' Cameron knocks at my door. I grab a Nirvana shirt and a pair of jeans from my drawer. "I'm coming".

✽✽✽

"Oh my gosh! Bay? You're back!" Hannah yells from across the hallway, her pink heels clank like nails on a chalkboard with every step she takes towards me. My eyes widen when she wraps me in a hug, I can feel her forced sincerity oozing down my body.