To See Hawaii

-Donna’s POV- 

I walked through the random assortment of tress with the sun beating down on my skin in intermittent bursts through the leaves. I turned to see Colm admiring, what most people would consider just an ordinary crack in the ground. I sauntered on over to just outside arms reach of Colm when he urged me to wait. “Look at them all,” He gestured with his index finger outstretched to just in front of my shoes. Tens of tiny ants crawling around in perfect lines between us. Colm always appreciated things in a way I could never understand. He found beauty in the most abstract things, or at least they seemed abstract to me. I watched him observe the little workers for a short while. His pale eyes shining as they dart around the floor, soaking up this moment in hopes of bringing him a tiny smile later on, his hair disarrayed from running through the fields to get here, the soft expression on his face- “Ouch!” I exclaimed, grabbing my ankle. His attention was now completely on me. “What happened?” He dashed around the colony, towards me. “Your stupid new friends bit me,” I remarked, aware of the red bubbles appearing on my skin in clusters. He giggled. That was it, he just giggled. But that was all it took. 

-Colm’s POV- 

“Come on, we better head back and put some cream on that or something. They got you good.” Donna looked up from her ankle and nodded. This girl. She could never make it more than twenty steps out her front door before getting hurt in one way or the other. Even at Orla’s birthday party last month. Everything was fine, until Donna decided to walk on the garden patio in heels, which of course, ended with her in the pool. That day always makes me chuckle. Seeing Orla dive in after her, dress and all. Things like that just make me love her so much more. We talked about moving to Hawaii that night, a nice thought. Which is going to make next week so much harder than it needs to be. “Hey! Earth to Colm,” Donna’s hand waved in front of my face. I brought myself back to the present to realise I was just about to walk down the wrong street but then I realise which street I’m on. “Donna,” I almost whisper. My throat feels so dry all of a sudden. Donna looks past me for a brief moment. Her eyes meet mine and soon after, her hand is clasping my forearm and pulling me away from “her” house. We get around the corner and I blurt out,” I’m leaving on Monday.”  

-Donna’s POV-  

I stand next to Colm, noting the effect that woman’s mere existence had on him. His form from the forest contrasting his now hunched over posture, his eyes that once shone with curiosity now glisten with the promise of tears, his lips tremble, mirroring his hands. I want to tell him it’s going to be okay. I want to tell him that she can’t hurt him anymore. I want to. I really do. But he’s not a child anymore. “Colm.” He slowly looks me in the eye, both of his now brimming with tears. “This Monday.” A look of relief spread across his face that forced out a single tear. 

-Colm’s POV- 

I wonder at how people say things, say things like “can’t hurt you anymore”. I wonder at it all, all the hurt she’s caused me. All that hurt that’s starting to fill up in me again. She can hurt me; she hurts me with every thought about her. I think to myself “she can’t hurt you anymore”, as if what she did was some sort of little thing that’s in the past. And suddenly I’m getting angry. I look up at Donna, and that anger is demolished by the sympathetic look she gives me, and I know I’m about to cry. But fuck it, this girl’s been through everything with me. Yet, a childish little part of me wants so bad to stay strong for her. Or maybe that part’s for me, because now memories are rising from that big pit inside of me, where all that bad stuff lives. They are crawling out like a million little spiders, they're legs precise in every motion, they're small eyes watching my every move, they're malignant bodies on their way to send me into hysteria. I close my eyes. “I’m leaving this Monday”, I repeat. 

-Donna’s POV- 

The world is suddenly crushing me as he repeats the words, “this Monday”. As I look at his glassy eyes, I feel the weight compress my body. My throat starts to close and I get that feeling that Colm gives me, when he talks about leaving. And I’m happy for him, I am, truly. Just there is no space for that happiness as I lie under the ruins of what was my world. Just today we were on our way to our place in the forest. And the forest was ours, all of its delicate sounds and light and shadow. It was ours; the world was ours. And his brother was back in town, and I was going to tell him, and he was going to be so damn excited. And maybe a little mad because I had kept it from him for a whole day, but he would forgive me. My thoughts race and race. They clog up my throat and I struggle to get air in past them. Orange spots start to appear at the edge of my vision. It’s happening again, I think. It’s happening all over again. “Hey, are you...” says Colm, but his voice is drowned out by the voice inside of me. They are all leaving, it screams and screams. It throbs at the back of my head and in my stomach, that feeling. 

-Colm’s POV- 

“Hey, hey, hey” I say as I begin to put Donna’s arms behind her head and instruct her to take deep breaths. But that feels stupid, “take deep breaths” as if I’m the hysteria expert. As if I know what I’m doing here. But nevertheless, she begins to calm down. “Your brother” she begins, exasperated, “he’s back in town”. What. I scan her face and, in the moment, I realise I didn’t say that out loud, I see it in her, in the way the left side of her mouth always smiles before the right side. I see it in how her hair falls over just her right eye. And in how she gleams up at me, as if this was something good. I love her, and she’s just destroyed my life’s plan. 

-Donna’s POV-  

The next day was dark and dreary as if the heavens were mocking me with my own feelings. I kept it hidden that day. Today was about Colm and Steven. This would be a secret me and the heavens shared. Just for a little while. I looked out at the sky, from my bed. I was rarely in my room anymore. I reached for the dress that I had promised Orla I would wear for the party today. This isn’t really my thing. Not the dress, the dress is beautiful. Everything Orla picks out always is but the party is going to be huge. Filled with people who don’t know anything about Steven or Colm. Not that they would want to know. Know that their beloved perfect member of society, a mother no less, on every ‘look at me and how perfect I am’ committee in town, took away Colm’s innocence like that. I’m not religious. But I know. I know, deep down that woman is going to die alone, a painful death and wherever she’s going, Colm wouldn’t wish that on anyone. But I would. And I wish it on her every day. There are people I don’t blame for not knowing. Orla had been Colm’s girlfriend for two years now and I couldn’t imagine either of them with anyone else. It’s not one of those flings where nobody can stand being in the same room as them either. I love them both. If there was ever a time where neither of them knew where I was, something would be wrong. Growing up without a mom or any sisters, Orla took over teaching me girly things I apparently “had to know”. Just how to; shave, pluck your eyebrows and do my hair properly but it was nice to have something that was only ours. It never clicked to me that she liked him. He still hasn’t told her much about his childhood which isn’t her fault at all, he is a locked safe with her about it. Don’t get me wrong. I get it. But she would understand. I know she would. I don’t think it’s fair for Colm to keep this from her. Especially knowing how close she is with... her.  

-Colm’s POV- 

Today was the party. Little did everyone know it was really a going away party. I wished I could just leave, without saying anything. Donna really wanted me to tell Orla, she gave me the talk yesterday on our way home. She seems to think I should tell Orla everything. But me and Orla were perfect right then, why would I do anything to risk that? I got to Donna’s before Orla, and as I sat in the sitting room staring out the window Donna began again. “I know it’s a sensitive topic but...”. That feeling came over me, that nauseous feeling, but you know you’re not going to puke. Now I wasn’t staring out the window now but at it. At the rain drops that erratically slid down the glass pane. Slow then fast then slow again. Sporadic and radical, with no rhyme nor reason to their movements. I followed one until it collided with another, like my secrets that Donna was still talking about.  I know she only wanted to help, but in that moment, I was as close to hating her as I could be. Well, hate is a word I reserve for only one person. I guess you could say I was as close to not loving Donna as I could ever be. Me and Donna had always been best friends, and would always be. There was none of that “oh you have a girl best friend?” from Orla. She knew Donna and I. Donna and I, that’s just how it was, nothing romantic. Just the best friendship I had ever had. Yet here she was, telling me what I should do with my secrets. And if Donna was saying it, she must have good intentions. Maybe I should’ve listened and considered it. But that feeling was getting stronger and stronger, and she seemed to get more distant and distant. I just couldn't take it.   

-Donna’s POV- 

I know it’s selfish of me. But holding onto Colm’s secrets was starting to weigh me down. Colm was perfect, any secret he had was only something that had happened to him. He had none of those “I did this” secrets. Colm was truly a good person and I wished I could just bubble wrap him and protect him from everything. That’s what I was trying to do, protect him from his secrets. Because no one should have to hold that on their own, that terrible thing. Orla had to know, and as I offered to tell her...he just left. Strong, brave Colm just left. And as he was leaving the room Orla came in. And the look she gave me let me know I wasn’t getting out without an explanation. Now was the moment I could tell her. Tell her everything, that Colm was even more spectacular than she knew. That he had survived this terrible thing. That he was still here, still hanging on. Maybe he was only hanging on by a thread. But that’s more than anyone else could say. Spectacular. That’s the word she always used to describe him. And she didn’t even know that he did all this while battling with the darkness of his past. I could end it all now, and my fingers itched so bad to just grab her and tell her, that I had to clasp my hands behind my back, digging my nails into my skin so hard that I thought I would draw blood.  

-Colm’s POV- 

The cool air of Donna’s backyard stung my throat, but it was refreshing after the small rooms of Donna’s house, the walls closing in with each of her words. Secrets, why did they have to be so complicated. They aren’t inherently malicious, they aren't some beast that hunts our friends and family, so why does Donna treat them so. As if she isn’t careful enough that beast might just latch onto her leg and drag her viciously through the forest that we once called ours. Her hair getting caught on the thorns I held down for her and the ants we once studied attacking her entire body as she reaches the den. The den of the beast, littered with the bones of the dreams and hopes that those secrets have killed. I looked into the ominous abyss of the den, wondering what lay beyond. Do I dare take a step, I thought. Did I dare investigate that darkness inside me? Are any of us meant to wander into the den of the beast like this, so unprepared. Donna knows, she knows my secrets. All of them, my past, my future. But she doesn’t know. If she knew, then she wouldn’t ask such a thing of me, practically begging me to tell Orla. No, Donna is a great friend, my best friend. She wouldn’t, not if she knew. But that’s just it, no one knows but me. That’s who the beast really wants. It stalks me through the night, and I can almost make out it’s beady eyes as I stare into that part of myself. Watching from the darkness, waiting. I get the shivers and decide to go back inside, I turn away from the beast. And as I feel the relief of leaving the den, I know I am turning my back on a dangerous, dangerous thing. I guess I did believe in the beast after all. 

-Donna’s POV- 

“Well,” said Orla, “you going to tell me what all that was about, cause our Colm doesn’t stomp out over anything”. My mouth was so dry it almost didn’t come out. What did come out was horse and raspy. “Colm” I whispered, and as I did, I adverted my gaze. This could be it, all of it over, all the secrets and lies, done. But another part of me screamed at what I was doing, horrified by the word that had just escaped my mouth. This was the most important part of me, the “I love you Colm” part. It saw Colm for who he really was, pure and stronger than anyone else I knew. I loved him, like really loved. None of that we are 17 and in love bullshit. But none of that rom-com love either, where both characters giggle and blush and talk about children and houses and the fact that they love each other so much. With me and Colm, it wasn’t like that. We simply knew, and that was enough. I loved every little bit of him, I loved how he saw the world, and I loved the fact that he ate with only a fork. I loved both parts the same, because my love consumed him. Him and me both really, it’s not something I had for him but something we shared. Like our forest, it grew and grew and we weaved our way through it each day. “Well,” prodded Orla again, she wasn’t letting this one go. I couldn’t do it, “Colm and I were just talking” ... talking, great story Donna, you were just talking. And all of a sudden, I felt the guilt of a child, as if she had caught me half way through painting the wall in multicolour Crayola, a rare choice, as my mother would say. I only have that one memory of her, I had coloured half the wall yellow, and instead of getting angry or annoyed, she simple went “yellow? Out of all the colours...why yellow?”. It’s all I have of hers, her simple humour. Sometimes, when I get lonely thinking about her, I use that memory to wrap myself in and its cosy heat makes me feel better. “Yellow is my favourite colour” I blurted out. “What?” I asked myself, just before Orla could get to it. “What” she exclaimed, just as shocked as I was, “Donna are you alright?”. She sounded distant, and before I knew it, I was speaking, except I sounded distant too. I felt like I was eavesdropping on my own conversation through the door. “I found her” I was saying. And as I went on about how I had found my mother after all of these years and had that all important phone number, I slowly drifted back into my body just in time to see Colm’s shocked face as he barged through the door. 

-Colm’s POV- 

I stood in the doorway, mouth agape as I realised how ignorant I had been. Donna had gone through so much with me and handled all of it so much better than me... and I never bothered to ask how. I never asked, not once, not about her childhood. And before I knew it, the words fell from my mouth, “After me telling you that I’m leaving. You don’t even bother to tell me about your mother?” 

-Orla’s POV- 

“I guess it was naïve of me, to think you still wanted to see Hawaii with me.”