Every Cloud in the Skies

Chapter 4

As I watch the sun rise, I realize that I really didn't sleep for even a second. After a restless night and a lot of fighting with myself, I decided to go back to the cemetery in the hopes that the girl will be waiting for me. On the way there, thoughts of Beth creeped into my mind, how I haven't seen her in weeks even though she lives down the street from me. Ever since my incident 6 months ago, she's been distancing herself from me until finally, she was gone. Her brother sometimes goes out to get groceries but besides that, I haven't seen anyone going in or out of that house. I've honestly lost count of the days since I've seen her. Maybe she blamed herself for what happened, possibly still does. I'll have to remind myself to check up on her at some point.

Arriving at the cemetery, I hold my breath. Something about the possibility of seeing that girl makes my chest tighten. I feel weighted and heavy but I've already made up my mind. I open the door and walk over to their graves. To my surprise, the girl was sitting on her knees looking as though she may be praying. I didn't want to interrupt her so I sat on the bench nearby and waited for her to get back up. It took a little while of me just looking around and waiting, but finally, she rose.

"Ethan." she said, looking at me with a welcoming smile.

"Hi" I responded.

"You're late." she smirked as she walked over to me.

"I know. I'm sorry. I didn't know what to say to you so I just sort of stayed home."

"That's okay. I had a feeling you would be here today." she responded. All of a sudden, I felt awkward thinking about how long she might've waited yesterday only for me not to come. Looking at her, she didn't seem angry or even annoyed. Instead, she looked happy that I was there at all and I started to feel that familiar feeling of warmth again.

"I was hoping that...maybe we could continue our conversation from Wednesday?" she suggested. All of a sudden, my throat felt dry again. I bit the inside of my cheek and ran a hand through my hair feeling my face flush. It was silly of me to come all the way here and not talk to her. The whole point of doing this was to communicate.

"Yeah...sure." I forced myself to say as she was already positioning herself in the grass facing me.

"I believe you and Sky were meeting the two potential band mates."

"Right," I said.

"So Sky and I were asking the girls questions about who they were and how they came to know each other. The blue haired girl was named Beth, and like Sky said, she was doing virtual school and occasionally picked up her brother from our school. She actually ended up living a few houses down from me. The red head was Taskin, but we all called her Ski."

"Taskin, huh? That's an unusual name." she said.

"Huh? Oh! Yeah, It's an Arabic name. She told us that her grandfather was actually Arabic."

"Peace and Satisfaction." she said, looking off into the distance.

"What?" I asked, shocked at her realization.

"That's what Taskin means, it means peace and satisfaction."

All of a sudden, overwhelming deja vu flooded into me. My mind flashed back to when Ski had told us that very same thing. At first she didn't want to tell us her real name but when one of the teacher assistants called out her name during a class I had with her, it became inevitable. She looked like the world had just died and frozen over but it had missed her along the way; and she wished it would come back to sweep her away.

"So your name is Taskin?" I asked

"Yes, my birth name is Taskin but please, I really prefer that you call me Ski." she said, blushing and twirling her fingers.