Forget me lots (Completed)

2. Dawn🌿

It's two in the morning and I can't sleep. I smack my pillow, then toss and turn for the tenth time. The room ticks over in the dark and the faded white curtains sway their ethereal dance as if in anticipation. In the eerie silence, they wait for his voice too. All I have for company right now is the rush of my thoughts. A trillion words clashing like ocean waves against my drained brain.

My muscles ache from the strain of the heavy boxes I had to carry off the U-Haul truck. Mom said we could afford one, but I doubt it. I said nothing because my brother Tommy and my sister Bree were so excited. A real, humongous moving truck parked outside our old home. They asked the driver if they could sit behind the wheel for a bit. Mom laughed,—and I missed that sound so much I saved my thoughts one more time.

I couldn't find the strength to tell her we should've bought a less expensive house, that she shouldn't be leaving our lives behind, depriving my younger siblings of the life, school and friends they adore because of me. Tommy and Bree barely knew Dad. They don't miss him like I do. They weren't sharded by his sudden absence.

This new light-blue clad home has a white front double door. It rests on a street wallpapered with trees, nothing fancy. She insisted I needed a room for myself and my siblings would each have their own. I couldn't crush her hopes for a better today. I didn't have the heart to do it.

So, it's two fifteen now, and my mind drifts once more and thinks of hearts.

Wooden hearts carved in trees. They belong to lovers who trust the world will be their oyster, and they are each other's pearls. Chocolate hearts, behind a window shop, ready to become a gift for any occasion. Softening the edges of life through moments with a pull of their colorful wrapping.

My thoughts settle on my heart. A human heart. Pumping red blood to all other parts of my body. This body that has gained so much weight I don't recognize myself every time I dare a glance in the mirror. These bones are now carrying a ton more of me. Why? Because of hearts.

Two years ago, my dad's heart exploded while driving back from work, leaving me to eat all the contents of all the cereal boxes—and some other boxes I could find—to fill the void he left inside me.

It's two forty-five am and I think about myocardial ruptures, and the rhythm of Dad's heart ending. We can't choose when we don't beat anymore, right? His heart, hidden under his ribs, just like mine. Wanting what it wants. Did he want to leave us behind? I need to believe he didn't.

I place my hand over my chest and find its beating melody.

Thump Daddy. Thump pain.

In the strange shape of this first night in this new place, I want to keep believing we are more than an arrangement of tissues, muscles and bones. There has to be more of a person than an accidental array of molecules and atoms. That his love for his family—for me and mine for him—was more than a mess of nerves and impulses. That the force pulling me to him was something other than gravity.

It's two fifty and despite the wind gushing in, I seem to be breathing only carbon dioxide. Maybe I'm bound to become a plant. Given the last couple of months and the way my life has spiralled out of control, I might be decomposing. That's it. I should disappear, slide down a hole in the dirt of this new, unkempt backyard and grow into a fern. That way my roots would taper out in something other than my grief. That way I would connect to the same soil my father sleeps in. Maybe the seeds and tiny insects that crawl underneath can teach me to understand why his heart gave up on our time together. Perhaps they could let me in on the secrets buried deep in the forlorn gravel.

My name is Dawn Gray Brooks. I'm a sixteen-year-old mess who hears her dead dad's voice in her head and somehow finds it normal. I'm broken and weird and nobody knows it.

I laugh at this thought because it is terrifying and addictive altogether. To tell the truth, I need it. I need this crazy like I'll need water for my plant roots.

Then it happens, as it always happens. As it has happened for a long time now. Scaring me witless at first, soothing a second after.

"Dawn?" His voice is a whisper in the dark.

Time stands still and all I care for is to hear my name on his lips one more time.

"Dawn?" It's here, in my room and inside of my heart.

Thump Daddy. Thump pain.

Yes, Daddy?

"Why do you do this to yourself?" His questions, so kind, summon the ever-near sting of tears.

What's that, Daddy?

"The hurting. I can hear it in the thumping of your heart. It's skipping beats. It hurts when you breathe."

Impossible, I'm transitioning to a plant, so I can hide under the gravel as you do.

"Don't be silly, now. Baby bee, you weren't born to be a plant. You were born to pollinate them. Bring life into this stupid world—"

The same one you left me in? I regret my thoughts a second later, for I won't get an answer from him on this one. He might not even want to talk anymore tonight.

I hold my breath. Outside, the crickets stop their chirpy conversation and tsk at my reckless words. "What?" I want to yell at them, but they are right. So I wait some more.

"You should sleep like when you were a baby." His voice floods my chest with relief. He goes on, "Remember how you used to make me tell you endless fairytale stories? You'd ask about the characters and their adventures and, a second later, you'd lose consciousness and drift into your own personal wonderland..." Dad chuckles and the warm sound squeezes my ribs, crushing the air out of my lungs like toothpaste out of a tube.

You were my personal wonderland, Dad.

"Do you remember that, baby bee?"

Yes, Daddy. I do.

"I knew you would." By the cadence of his voice, he's smiling. I know he wants to reach out and touch my cheek the way he used to. I want him to.

I want my dad to come and rescue me from the fact that my father is dead. He cannot. So, I take our thick fairytale book from underneath my pillow and hug it tight.

My heaving chest lifts it to an uneven rhythm. Up, up, down. Up, up, up, down. I press it harder than I should until it feels like it might squash me.

"Care to tell me a story, Dad?" I whisper into the darkness of my room.

Silence.

Dad?

There's no answer but the rustling of the trees outside. Taken, stolen with a sweep of the wind, leaving me without warning once more.

I blink my tears away. Dad's gone. My bedroom is empty but for me, this new squeaky wooden bed, my walls, my thoughts and my things that are still in unmarked brown cardboard boxes.

It's what, three in the morning? I have classes at my new school at eight.

He's right. This silence hurts. His absence hurts. My ribs hurt. Behind them, my heavy heart hurts as it keeps on composing new chords to an endless, empty melody.

Thump Daddy. Thump pain.