Lost

Emilia blinks slowly, as if it would help slow down her brain from the rocket speed it was currently operating at. She leans forward, carefully watching. To her it seems the two are in a race, of which could make it’s way down her arm faster, the grape juice from the popsicle, or the blood leaking from the cut on her palm. The two liquids settle in the crook of her arm, mixing to make a deep pink, darker than the blood, but lighter than the artificially sweetened fruit juice. She tilts her head, narrowing her eyes at the puddle, partly wanting to reach out and dip her finger in it, drag it across the surface like one would at the lake to watch it ripple outwards from the movement, or if only to answer a few of the questions swirling around in her head.

Jeremy reaches forward, knocking the small wooden stick out of her grasp, pressing his shirt against the bleeding wound, muttering curses under his breath. Emilia flexes her hand, pressing the fabric further into the wound, the white fabric slowly absorbing the red. “What is wrong with you?” Jeremy grunts, wrapping his hand around her wrist, pulling her along with him, moving past the decrepit wood fence that borders the back of the property, too fragile to actually keep anything out, now serving simply as a marker to where their backyard ends and the back neighbor’s begins. “Probably gonna need a tetanus shot, how the hell am I supposed to explain this to mom?”

“I cut open my hand on a rusty nail climbing a fence I could’ve gone around because I’m stupid,” she remarks, pulling her wrist out of his grip, which quiet frankly hurt more than the cut.

Jeremy spins on his heels, his jaw clenching tight enough Emilia’s won’t be surprised if his teeth don’t shatter. “Why?”

“Because I wanted to prove I could, that’s nothing changed,” she mutters, subconsciously attempting to rub at her wrist, stopping at the sight of the space between the remaining right arm, where her right hand should be overlapping her left wrist.

He steps forward, reaching out and rubbing her wrist, a silent apology for being too rough, his fear getting the better part of him. “You lost your right arm, a lot’s changed,” he sighs.

Emilia pulls her remaining arm out of his grip, shrugging off his attempt at making peace. She pushes past him, purposely knocking her shoulder into him. “You don’t think I know that?”

“And wha, you want to lose the left one now?”

“I want things back to normal,” she sighs, stopping to peel the fabric of his shirt away from her hand, tossing the bloody item back at him, landing near his feet. 

Jeremy reaches up, tugging her headband off, undoing the double knot. She extends her hand to him, gritting her teeth as he ties the black fabric around her hand, looping it between her fingers to keep it secure. “This is your new normal, no matching gloves, one wrist for bracelets, relearning to write, get over it before you do something to make everything worse.”

“Worse than losing my best friend and my dominant arm?” Emilia scoffs, “No more skateboarding, no more guitar, no more piano, just fucking PT three days a week.”

“You’ll get there, it’ll just take time,” he promises, pushing her towards the house. “You know, people at school think you died, you did drop off social media with no warning.”

“What was I supposed to post? ‘Hey Emmy here, thought I’d update everyone on the freak show,’ yeah because that’d be so much better,” she jokes, wiggling her nub at him. 

“They’re gonna find out next week.”

She shrugs, “Then they find out in a week, and I’ll ignore the questions and the stares.”

“You’re not capable of ignoring anything, let alone people,” he says, a knowing look on his young face.

The patio door closes behind the pair, just in time for their mom to release a scream worthy of a horror movie. Emilia looks at Jeremy, shirtless, holding his shirt in his hand, blood and dirt caking the once white shirt. Ironically, between the two of them, Emilia looks better off. 

“Mom,” Jeremy warns, always the mediator, even at fourteen. “We’re fine, Em just had a small accident, barely a scratch.”

She rushes forward, smushing Emilia’s face between her palms, her eyes rapidly moving over every inch of visible skin, searching for the wound. Emilia shakes herself loose from her mom’s grip, holding her hand out for her. Their mom’s eyes go wide, carefully unwrapping the makeshift bandage. She huffs heavily, dismissing Jeremy with a wave of her hand. She pulls Emilia along with her, sticking her hand under the faucet, flipping the water on. As the dried blood washes away, Emilia leans forward, resting her chin on the edge of the counter.

Emilia withdraws her hands, shaking it, water droplets covering her shirt. “You need to quit telling Jeremy to follow me.” 

“He cares,” she says dismissively, carefully patting the surrounding area dry.

“He needs a life,” Emilia says, adding silently that at least one of them does.

“You’ll get yours back,” her mom reassures her, applying a creamy ointment to the cut, so small that she’s surprised that much blood was capable of escaping it.

“In time,” Emilia finishes for her, the phrase seeming to come out of everyone around her mouths. Before the accident, she had constantly wished time would slow down, give her time to actually enjoy her last year of freedom before the pressure of exams and college then real life, as adults so often like to put it. But now, she was down an arm, Riley, and everything she’d been planning to do with both. “Can I go now?” she sighs, planning her escape to her room.

“No more climbing,” her mom warns, gently tapping her cheek as she often did in exchange for words.

“Stop sending Jeremy to spy on me,” Emilia counters. 

Climbing the stairs two at a time, she jumps on the landing, jolting forward on the rug, sliding right past Jeremy’s open door. He opens his mouth to say something, but Emilia shakes her head, silencing him before he can get words out. Scurrying into her room, she closes the door behind her, relishing in the solitude that only her sanctuary can offer her, at least one thing that hasn’t changed. She flops onto her bed, an open book falling to the floor with a light thud, landing pages down. Emilia rolls over, dangling her arm over the side of her bed, grabbing for the book. She closes it, looking at the cover of two girls, holding hands as they walk across a bridge, a photo that she and Riley had replicated more than once, one of the attempts stapled to the wall above her desk. “How am I supposed to do this without you?” Emilia questions, asking the open air of her room, partly hoping the pictures of Riley would come to life and give her answers, but like she was often in life, the images of Riley remain silent, and Emilia will have to figure it out on her own. She rolls over, a breeze passing through the window, sending a piece of paper her way, the tiny slip of pink paper landing on her pillow. “You’re never as alone as you think,” she reads, smiling at the note, the first one she’d ever received from Riley, three years ago, and her entire body and soul, hopes it won’t be the last.