VI

I’ve not heard anything else from Blake today about the continuation of his plans with Rosemary, actually, I’ve not heard anything else from Blake today. It’s worrisome, not because I had any sort of certainty that this was a ‘tonight’ thing but because I think part of me thinks I wanted to hear from him. Part of me wanted to have plans tonight: I’d much prefer doing anything than being in my house right now. Mom putters about downstairs doing little tasks to keep herself busy, Dad sits on the armchair in the master bedroom reading a book. I, unlike my parents, can’t seem to find solace in any task right now.

I’m bored and I don’t like it. I had dinner upstairs and I’ve only left the confines of my room to brush my teeth and go to the washroom twice since I got home from school. I’ve done a lot of nothing in the six hours I’ve stuck to my bedroom.

I resign myself to mulling about my room, as I know Mom is doing downstairs. I reorganize my closet by type of garment with a coloured subsection and throw a pile of clothes the size of a body onto my bed that I don’t want anymore. Then I sift through my make-up, hair, and face care supplies until I’m left with only a third of what I had before. I, by the time the sun had set, had given up on checking my phone. I wasn’t going to hear from anyone.

I leave my room, this time to grab anti-bacterial wipes from the hall closet to wipe down my desk and bedside table from the grime it had accumulated over the last few days. The trip back to my room isn’t as fast as it was there: I take about four steps before I halt. I’m in front of Ava’s door.

I check around me: the master bedroom door is still closed, and the lights are still on downstairs. I’m alone, at least from Mom.

I want to deny the moment of hesitation I feel before I continue to walk back to my room but I can’t. Away from her room and back to mine, I put down the wipe container. Then, without thinking, or really even breathing, I am striding back to Ava’s room, slamming my door behind me in the process.

I barge into her room, moving quickly enough that I can’t talk myself out of it before I’m even positioned in there.

Go back.

Stop.

This is what Mom wants.

I close Ava’s door behind me and keep the brightness to the natural light streaming through her window with the curtains pulled back: I don’t need to make anyone suspicious of my whereabouts.

There has always been a deep part of me that didn’t like Ava’s room: the gray walls were too gray, the hardwood too hard, the blackout curtains leaving the room too black. It was never lived in, and a small side of me⸺the side that’s still Ava’s little sister⸺is upset that she didn’t take advantage of having the best room with it’s north facing windows for plants and its spacious closets and its ceiling fan.

Then, when I really look at the state of her room, I slide down the side of the wall; it’s actually clean: nothing on the ground, bed’s made, no dishes left behind. Nothing is out of place. I hate it. Not lived in, never lived in. There’s no evidence that this room, what once was our nurseries, is anything more than a guest room now.

My nose burns, my eyes fog, and I remain balled up on the ground.

There’s a thin layer of dust over most of the furniture: I can smell it in the air. It chokes me. I don’t gag.

I think it takes at least a full three minutes for me to stand. Then another two for me to sit down. And once the five minutes have passed, I’m curled up on Ava’s bed, above her covers, head on her pillow.

It was always a rite of passage for Ava and me to get our rooms repainted and furnished. It would happen when we turned about six or seven, then again during middle school, then again during high school. My last ‘update’ was in middle school: we upsized my bed from a single to a full, we changed the walls from a deep pink to a light pink wallpaper Mom found and liked. I understand things got busy when I hit grade ten and there was no time to redo my room. One year later, it sits immaculately in its portal to 2014.

Ava, however, got hers redone when she was transitioning from grade nine to ten. Just a friend at the time, Noah paid for it primarily and supplied most of the aid in the furniture construction. Ava went from pale blue walls to a cold gray. From a full bed to a Queen. From knick-knack filled shelves and surfaces to empty. Necessity-based.

That is how it remains to this day.

I decide it’s time for me to go to bed. My bed. I leave Ava’s room, imagining her sitting at her desk behind me.

I don’t imagine it for long. The door clicks shut.

“Find anything interesting? Surely there must be something.”

Mom’s voice is stony from where she stands behind me. Tall and slender, Mom is built like Ava, so her breath hits my ear. I shiver. Turning around to face her, I’m surprised to see how she’s dressed: she’s in her night clothes, something I’ve not seen from her in a very long time; normally, Mom just waits until Ava and I, then just me, are settled in our bedrooms for the night before she begins her nighttime routine. Oh, how Mom must wish she had an ensuite.

“No,” I say after a moment of hesitation, “nothing’s out of place.” My hand still lingers behind me on the doorknob, holding it tight. My knuckles strain.

Mom huffs and purses her lips. She had moisturizer on her face, a thick layer of petroleum jelly slathered across her skin. It glows in the dim light of the hallway. “Check again when you’re not so tired.”

I want to argue, tell her I’m not tired like she means, but tired in a different way. I want to grab her wrist and bring her into Ava’s room and demand she show remorse for her missing daughter. I want he to hug me. I do none of that, ask for none of it because before I can work up the nerve to, Mom is already back in her bedroom.

I slam my head against Ava’s door with a thud. I storm back to my room after a second, muttering to myself. “Anything interesting… it’s all in place… shit.”

I stop right outside the closed door to the master bedroom.

“Shit,” I repeat. Nothing’s out of place, almost as if she didn’t pack anything.

With one last glance to the shifting light under the master bedroom door, I open my door and decide I’m best off to just sleep now.

I’m dreaming, that’s the only explanation as to why I’m in the shower, naked, with Amelia, Blake, and Ethan on the outside of the glass door. I reach for the doorknob. It doesn’t budge when I tug on it; I pull harder but all that happens is my hand loses its grip under the steamy flow of water. No, not steamy, scalding.

“Hey!” I call, my voice breaking. “Hey, guys!” I pound my fists on the door. No one notices: they’re all too engrossed in their own conversations.

With one more tug on the door, I switch my attention away from it to the faucet. The handle is all the way to the left, it’s as hot as it will go.

This time, I can change it: I yank the handle back so it’ll turn off.

It doesn’t. I try to make it cold.

It stays at the same temperature.

I’m crying, the cool tears land in my mouth.

I turn back to the rest of the washroom: they’re still all talking.

Ava’s there now.

Before I’ve even taken a breath, I’m pounding on the door again. “Ava!” I’m screaming. “Ava, please! Help me!”

The door doesn’t budge. The temperature doesn’t change. They don’t look at me. The tub is filling up.

“Please!” I think I’m going to vomit.

Then their calm expressions change. The moving of their mouths stops and for once, they’re actually looking at each other.

Eyes wide and lips parted, I think they’ve noticed me.

I’m very wrong: first, it’s Ava who melts to a black bubbling sludge; then it’s Amelia; then Blake.

“Ethan!” There’s vomit in my throat.

Something cold hits me from above: the water’s gone. Now it’s the sludge from Ava. And Amelia. And Blake. And…

“Ethan! Ethan, please! Run!”

Then for a second, I swear Ethan’s eyes meet mine and he cocks his head. Before he can form a word, his mouth spills the black stuff. He’s throwing it up, and it runs down his face and onto his chest.

Then, Ethan’s gone and the pressure of the sludge spilling around me increases.

I slip and fall into it.

I breathe so heavily when I wake up that I cough until I throw up in my throat. My hand comes to my mouth as tears crest my eyes and spill onto my cheeks.

I turn and set my feet on the ground as I try to calm down my coughing and crying before I wake up my mom just on the other side of the wall. I would really appreciate it if she didn’t come here. I imagine her swinging my door open and I have to look her in the eyes with my face red and my cheeks wet. I imagine she’d look at me with a disappointed look in her eyes, then she goes right back to bed and I’m alone again.

I exhale, my cheeks puffing out as I rub at my eyes to try and dry off my lashes so I can actually see again. Standing, I begin to pace my room: my footsteps stay light but deliberate enough to avoid any floorboards I know will creak under the pressure of my body.

My phone buzzes aggressively on the table to the point that it rattles the glass coasters. I snatch it up quickly before the noise persists too long only then to look down and see who was calling me after midnight.

It’s Amelia.

I don’t hesitate to pick up.

“Hey,” I say, my voice breathy and weak. It’s glaringly obvious that I’ve been crying. “Um⸺What’s up?”

“Can you come and pick me up, please?” I take back my previous statement: my voice is level and strong compared to hers. “I, uh⸺my mom can’t drive me right now and I need you to come and get me.”

“Amelia, what is going on? Where are you?” I splutter.

“I’m at home.” There’s noise in the background: it’s loud and obnoxious and I know what it is. “My house is on fire.”

Yeah, I knew it, fire trucks.

I’m nodding dumbly, my mouth gaping. My head is already running rampant with thoughts and questions I want to release but I know Amelia is not deserving of that right now.

I bite my tongue until it burns.

“Yes, yeah,” I say as I’m already moving through my room: I grab a hoodie, grab flip-flops from my closet and an extra blanket in case Amelia needs it. “I need a few minutes then I’ll be there.”

“Okay. Thanks.” Amelia hangs up.

I run down the stairs as quiet as I can, careful to not trip over my own feet as I make my way to the foyer. If even possible, I quietly rummage through coat pockets and bins of hats and mittens looking for Mom’s or Dad’s keys. Nothing in the closet. Nothing in pockets.

Shit. They must be upstairs.

There’s a moment where I pause and clamp my eyes shut, it, however, doesn’t last long. I’m pulling my phone out of my hoodie pocket and rifling through my contacts.

Mark doesn’t have a car.

Carmen lives on the edge of town.

I don’t want Blake near Amelia.

Ethan it is. I press on the call button and press my shoulder to my left ear to hold it in place while I try to return the foyer to any semblance of clean and organized like it was before I ransacked it.

It rings, and rings, and rinds, and I don’t notice myself chanting into the receiver: “pick up, pick up, pick up” until it stops ringing. I almost shed a tear when I hear Ethan’s voice, deeply and rumbling as it should be coming out of sleep.

“What?” he groans.

“I need you to come and pick me up,” I insist into the phone. I turn of the light in the foyer and hesitate. “Please.”

“Why?” He sounds like he might be falling back asleep.

“Amelia’s house is on fire. I need to pick her up and I can’t find the damn car keys!” I’ve resorted back to my original plan for fear that Ethan will fall asleep before this conversation is even over. “Shit!”

This seems to make him perk up. There’s a creaking noise of his bed as I assume he sits up. “Fire?” He sounds more alert and I stop my searching for what I hope is the final time. “Okay. I’ll be at your house in ten minutes. I’ll get you on the curbe so the headlights don’t shine on the house.”

“Okay,” I whisper. “Okay, thank you, thanks, yeah.” He’s coming. Ethan will bring me to help Amelia.

“Be ready for me.” Ethan hangs up on me before I can give him meaningful and not gibberish thanks.

I didn’t even have to ask.