Just Ask

Wednesday, April 21st

Bella

I can tell she needs my help.

Brina is jumping up and down, trying to get down the toaster that we barely use and that our parents keep on the top shelf in the cupboard.

She is a year older, but I am five inches taller, and I know she hates it. Hates that she is more likely to be asked for her ID buying alcohol in the store than I, the baby sister, am. Hates that I take after Mum, a candidate for a model due to her impressive 5’10” height and she takes after Dad, who is not the tallest man around. Hates that we’re both often asked which one of us is the older one, and that barely anyone believes us when we tell them it’s Bri.

She hates many things in general.

So yes, I can see Brina’s problem, and I could easily solve it, just stretching a little up onto the tips of my toes to get the toaster down for her.

But she doesn’t ask, so I don’t.

I know she is aware of my presence in the kitchen from the way her shoulders suddenly stiffen under her checkered shirt. Still, Bri doesn’t say anything, so I don’t say anything, either, just grab a yoghurt from the fridge and a spoon from the drawer next to her and leave, retreating back to my room.

Friday, April 23^rd, 5:47 PM

Brina

I know she needs me.

Bella has the nasty habit of leaving everything for the last moment. For that reason, our parents have established a rule in the house: duties first, fun later. Tonight is the tonight of a house party Bell has been waiting for for weeks, but rules say she can’t leave for it before she’s done with her homework, so that’s what she is doing.

She’s sitting at the kitchen table, in the chair closest to the window, tapping the end of her pen on her lip. I never get why she does it. We’re both lucky enough to have separate bedrooms, and she has a desk in hers, so she could do her homework there. Yet, every day, Bella insists on bringing all of her books to the kitchen table, effectively keeping the rest of the family from using the kitchen for what it is actually meant to be used for. God forbid anyone comes in to make themselves a sandwich and ends up making too much noise slicing a tomato.

Bella needs to focus. So we need to starve.

A thud sounds from behind me where I’m staring at the boiling kettle – I’m breaking the rules by making noise but I’ve got a stomach ache and need mint tea – and I know without turning it’s Bella face-planting the table. I've caught a glimpse of what she was doing while entering the kitchen, and it’s her Maths textbook lying open in front of her.

Where I’m good with numbers, Bell is good with words. When we were younger, I would do all of her Maths homework for her, and she would write my English Lit essays for me. God knows she had read all the books I’ve ever had to discuss at school years before they appeared on my syllabus.

In all honesty, I wouldn’t mind doing it for her now, too. I’m a year above her and good with Maths, so whatever she’s having troubles with I could probably solve in minutes, or at least try to explain it to her. All she needs to do is ask.

But I know she won’t, so I won’t, either.

I hear the scraping of a pen behind me – no doubt Bella crossing something out in frustration. The kettle clicks when it stops boiling and I pour the water into my mug and leave.

Saturday, April 24^th, 1:26 AM

Bella

I need her.

The world is spinning and my stomach is churning and my head feels heavy and I don’t like it.

The party around me is still raging, but I’m not having fun anymore. I think I’ve mixed too much because all of a sudden, I went from having the time of my life to wishing I was home.

I could be going home right now, if Sarah, my ride, hasn’t decided that to hell with driving both of us back home and had some drinks, too. At the time, I agreed with her, when I was still feeling good and happy and figured we might as well spend the night here instead of going home, but that was before.

B

efore was a blur of movement and light to the rhythm of loud, fast music. Now my mouth feels dry and my tongue feels swollen and my legs and whole body are moving in slow motion. I don’t want to stay here.

I squint at my phone. The brightness of the screen hurts my eyes, and no matter how hard I try, the dancing letters just won’t come into focus. All I have to do, though, is click on the green phone icon and there, at the very top, is her number, saved as AABri, so that she’d always be the first one on my contact list. She’s a year older so she has a driver’s license already and she doesn’t have a car but it’s late enough into the night that she could take my parents’ car and come get me and make this nightmare end. She is good at sneaking out unnoticed, I know, so Mum and Dad wouldn’t even have to know it wasn’t Sarah that brought me home, if neither I nor Bri told them.

All it would take would be two taps on my phone screen, and she’d be on her way. I know she’d do it, for me. I know she wouldn’t even tell on me or make fun of me or be mad at me.

I consider it, eyes almost pinched shut against the invasive brightness, before I turn off my phone and slide it back into my pocket.

I look around. Something tells me someone should know I’m leaving. I know plenty of people here, but there are also many I’ve never seen before and they’re all moving and dancing and shouting and everything is blurry and it’s just too difficult to recognise faces.

I go through the pain of unlocking my phone once more, and getting the combination right and typing out a going home message to Sarah takes wayyyy too long but I do it and once it’s sent, I’m making my way to the front door, and I leave.

Leave the house, leave the party, leave Sarah, leave the mess and the noise and the chaos behind.

I begin making my way down the pavement. It’s uneven – all the pavements in this town are – and I walk slowly, knowing there’s a good chance that if I fall down, I won’t get back up for a while. Luckily, I’m not wearing heels, I’m too tall for heels, so my trainers offer me some comfort trying to walk down this tricky path.

I’m not that far from home. Far enough that it’s uncomfortable walking back on foot, especially with everything still spinning, but not that it will be impossible to get there without a car. So I walk. I clench my phone in my right hand. I look down at my feet, trying to avoid stepping into the numerous cracks and tripping on the multiple pieces of concrete jutting up.

I don’t hear the whoosh of air and the screeching of tires until it’s too late.

Saturday, April 24^th, 3:52 AM

Bri

I need her.

I need her to wake up.

I need her to wake up like I did, when Mum and Dad got the call from the hospital and Mum’s cries had me rushing downstairs in a frenzy.  Bell’s textbooks were still strewn all over the kitchen table when I found our parents on a phone call, Mum in hysterics and Dad trying to calm her down and hold a conversation with a doctor both at the same time.

She had her ID on her – thank God – so the hospital was able to contact us nearly as soon as she was rushed into A&E, and so we’ve been here for over an hour now, waiting for news.

They’re still fighting for her life, and they still won’t tell us anything, and Mum is still crying, just like she has been for the past two hours.

I haven’t shed a tear yet. I won’t until I hear the verdict. I refuse to mourn prematurely.

I sit in the uncomfortable plastic chair, watching people pass by, watching the staff come and go and unable to help the way my heart tries to leap out of my chest every time someone steps through that door she’s behind, wondering if it’s us they’re looking for.

She’d left the party alone. On her own, in the middle of the night, she’s decided to walk all the way home on foot, for some unknown reason. I know she went and was supposed to come back with Sarah, her friend from school. Whatever the reason for the change of plans – if they’d gotten into a fight, or Sarah had drunk or Bella just hadn’t wanted to be a burden, like she often does – she did not call. She’s chosen walking home alone over swallowing her pride and calling me or our parents to give her a lift home.

The biggest irony of all? The car that hit her was full of kids coming back from that same party. Just after Bell had left, a group of drunk idiots has decided to go for a ride, and another drunk asswipe has agreed to drive the car.

More irony? Ridiculous as it sounds, Bella would have probably been better off if she’d actually gotten into that car with them. All the other participants have suffered minor injuries and some damage to the car. Bella is currently in a critical state, having been the one a car full of people drove into, not the one protected inside the vehicle.

Neither of those things bothers me as much as one other thought, though. They are all what-ifs that serve no purpose other than occupy my spinning mind with questions of “what if she’d gotten into that car?” or “what if they’d never gotten into that car in the first place?”.

No, it’s a different thought that sends sharp pain piercing my heart every time it enters my head – it’s the thought that if she’d just called me, none of this would have happened.

We wouldn’t be here now, Mum crying and Dad shushing her while trying to calm down the trembling of his own hands, his leg jumping up and down. Me, staring at the door Bell had disappeared behind at some point, waiting for someone to step out and for their eyes to settle on us and stay. Her, somewhere behind that door, on an operation table, her body trying to mend injuries that might prove to be unmendable.

This – all of this – wouldn’t be happening.

And I wouldn’t be wondering if I’ll ever get the chance to tell her that I need her, and that I will be there for her whenever she needs me, too. That she can bring her homework to the kitchen table and occupy the space for as long as she needs, as often as she needs. That the next time she needs help with homework, or needs a lift, or needs anything at all, I will do it, and I won’t complain about it.

That’s all I can think about when the door opens, and a doctor steps out, and she heads in our direction.

My head empties when she comes to a halt in front of us and tells us.