Her Story

It was raining when Isabella stood in the entryway of the old apartment. It was a small space, enclosed, neither fully inside the apartment, nor outside. Her eyes skimmed absently over the faded posters and lists of resident names while her mind was decades away. It didn’t matter anyways; many of the residents had long since departed, and the lists were more of a snapshot of building’s long history than an accurate list for the present.

The door to actually enter the lounge of the apartment was locked; a preventative measure against unwanted visitors or ill-meaning intruders, though what an intruder would find desirable in this place, where no wealth or youth or kindness could be found in abundance, could only be left to the imagination.

Isabella fingered the keys in her pocket as she peered through the glass doors into that dimly lit sitting area. As a little girl, she had enjoyed pressing her face against the glass to watch the people wander about inside while her mother fumbled with the keys.

-[Alexandra watched too. But they never seemed to be watching the same people.]-

Now there were no people wandering about inside: only ghosts.

Thunder groaned. Isabella cast a longing look behind her, where another set of glass doors stood. The exit, just beyond which her car was parked.

She didn’t have to do this. The car was right there. No one knew she was coming here at all, and no one would have expected her to come. The plane was leaving in a few hours. She could just take a few steps back, and be out those doors again and on her way like she had never entered them in the first place, like she had never come and would never have to come again.

Yet—

-[Alexandra waved at her, but her gaze was a thousand miles away. She was never looking at the same things. What was she looking at?]-

She watched the rain slip down the windows of her car, streak across her reflection as though they were her own tears. But that was ridiculous. She hadn’t cried in years.

She shook her head, as though to shake off her uncertainty. She had already made her decision, and she wouldn’t run away from it. This was her last chance.

Isabella pulled the keys out from her pocket. Their weight was already too familiar; the motion left her side feeling too light and too empty, like she had a somehow left a hole without realizing it.

She fumbled with the keys for a moment, selecting the right one, then carefully slid it into the keyhole and turned it. For a moment, she thought it would get stuck.

But no. The old door slowly swung open, and she stepped inside.

***

She couldn’t say she had missed this place, with its dim lighting and dull colors that leached away what meager light there was. Her footsteps still echoed, despite the carpeted floors, and there were scarcely any windows that faced the sun, even on a sunny day. With the rain clouds, it was as though morning would never arrive.

She found her way to the old elevator, and it took only a few moments for the doors to open. She stepped inside the small space, and waited as it struggled to close again. It seemed to shake and tremble with tremendous effort to just carry its lone occupant to the desired floor.

-[Isabella didn’t remember much of her sister, not nearly enough, but there was one moment engrained in her memory: they were alone, in the elevator, feeling it shudder as it climbed. Alexandra’s grip was unusually tight, clutching Isabella’s own hand as though it was a lifeline.]-

It was only when she had left the elevator, had travelled down the hall and stood in front of the old apartment door, that Isabella hesitated again–just for a moment—before pulling out the keys to unlock it. She had made her decision; there was point dwelling any further. Sometimes, the only way to move forward, was by stepping into the past.

[Alexandra waved. Hand outstretched. Waiting.]

***

The room was just as she remembered, but at the same time, changed. A new layer of dust covered every visible surface, the way wrinkles might line a familiar face. But Alexandra never grew to have wrinkles. She still smiled in those pictures, carefree, basking in her eternal youth like a flower in sunshine. Isabella hadn’t seen those pictures in a very long time.

The kitchen was bare, as to be expected, though the sitting area was a bit more furnished. They hadn’t taken many things with them when they moved. Hadn’t sold place, or rented it out either. Her parents used to justify it by pretending they would come back some day, on vacation or for visiting old friends and relatives, and where would we live then, you know there isn’t a decent hotel anywhere close to this place, but like most things, it eventually just became forgotten. Like a wound left to heal with time, or a stagnant river that let dirt and stones settle rather than pushing forward.

There were only two bedrooms. She found the one she was looking for, and pushed open the door.

-[Alexandra was writing. Bent over her desk, long hair spilling onto the papers, her hand furiously scribbling. She was always writing.]-

The desk was empty. Isabella didn’t know what she was expecting, but it felt like there was supposed to be something there. Like there was something fundamentally wrong with seeing its bare, plastic surface, but she couldn’t explain why.

She walked over to the desk. Hesitantly, she reached out and pulled open a drawer.

Ah, that was it.

The scent of ink and old paper was unmistakable. For a moment, she was eight years old and standing by her sister, watching her write while not understanding the intensity in her eyes. She was so close, Isabella could see the way her brows would furrow, or how her eyes would crinkle when she caught Isabella staring. If she just reached out, she could almost—

She blinked. Her hand met empty air.

She looked down into the drawer, and there she saw it.

Alexandra was gone, but her pages of writing were still there.

***

Isabella didn’t know much about her sister. Their ages were too far apart for common interests, and while Isabella had always preferred exploring the outdoors with her neighborhood friends, Alexandra was always inside their shared room, or else going too far away for Isabella to follow. There were entire facets to her sister’s life that she was never privy to, and perhaps would never come to know.

But here, grasping her words with careful hands, not quite daring to read them as though afraid they would disintegrate before her eyes, here she felt closer to her sister than she had in years.

-[Can you hear me?]-

Gently, she placed them on the desk. Maybe here, she would find what she was looking for. And maybe, she could finally understand.

***

Isabella didn’t know much about her sister, not from her own memory. The few things she did remember left her scavenging for answers. Everything else she knew about her was cobbled together from retellings of her stories, by relatives or old friends of the family. Her parents always got that same tight-lipped smile when they brought her name up, always strained to end the conversation, but Isabella was always listening. Always trying to understand.

It seemed that there was a different version of Alexandra for every person who met her, a different piece to the puzzle amidst memories made fuzzy and fantastical with time. But how could Isabella reconcile the girl in her memory with the girl those people described, so happy and talkative and strange at the same time?

-[It was raining that day. It was always raining. Isabella remembered.]-

Her loss was a sudden one. So unexpected, it left them all reeling. Where were the signs?

-[Isabella was watching from the window, the same as always.]-

-[Her sister, down below. Street crossing. Waiting.]-

-[The rain, the slip, loss of balance, arms flailing.]-

-[The car.]-

There was no one to blame, not really. Or maybe that’s the same as saying, everything could have been to blame. The weather, the timing, the loud noises and distractions. It had been an accident. Pure chance.

-[The stress, the pressure to do well, be well. The anxiety from socializing, the uncertainty of what the future held. It was just a slip.]-

-[A smile.]-

Maybe we were all guilty, Isabella thought, so we all pretended none of us were.

It had seemed kinder to themselves. It’s not your fault, they repeated to each other, you couldn’t have known. No one to blame.

They moved away. Couldn't bear to be in this place anymore, not when a good quarter --the brightest quarter-- of their lives were missing.

But maybe. Maybe they should have looked a little closer. Watched a little longer. Could have seen something sooner. Couldn’t they?

[The elevator. Trembling. Alexandra used to be terrified that one day there would be a terrible snap, and she would be left free-falling with no one to catch her. No one would be there.]

All they had to do was reach.

[No one was there.]

Isabella took the papers. A memento. A lesson.

-[If I tell your story, can someone else be saved?]-