Rainbows

"How about mauve?" 

"Nah."

"Navy blue is a nice color."

"Dark tones make rooms look smaller."

"Puce?"

"Ew, Dina, even the name sounds gross," Poppy protests. 

I survey my bedroom, taking in the plain white walls. Decorating is hard. 

"Look, it completely depends on the vibe you want," Poppy says. "But you can only choose one. You can't have conflicting vibes… like this." She walks over to the closed window, fingering the black curtains. "Your windows are dark and edgy, but your desk--" she gestures to the bright yellow desk in the corner "--looks like that of a kindergartener." 

I sigh. I know Poppy is only trying to help, but I like my bedroom just the way it is: mismatched colors and all.  

She's just excited about the move, I think to myself. Now that we finally live in the same neighborhood, we can do everything that best friends usually do--have sleepovers on the weekends, walk to school together, things like that. Of course I'm glad that we live closer together, but there are a few aspects I could do without--such as Poppy trying to decide what my new bedroom should look like, first of all. 

Poppy looks at my face and her expression softens. She walks up to me, her curly black hair bouncing against her shoulders. "I know it's hard," she says softly. 

I look away. "You know I don't like talking about it." 

"Yes, but…" she puts her arm around me. "I want you to be happy. And now that you don't live in that house anymore, maybe the memories won't come back so often. You can make new ones here!" 

I open my mouth, about to argue, say that I don't want to make new memories and that I wish she'd leave me alone. 

Then I exhale. I shouldn't snap at her, not when all she's trying to do is comfort me. So I nod instead. 

"Thanks," I say. 

"No problem!" she removes her arm and walks to the other end of the room. "Now, let's see… some weird things we can get rid of, or, you know, stuff in the closet if you don't wanna throw them away. Like this." She reaches over to my desk and picks up a small potted plant. 

I rush over to her and snatch the pot. She doesn't let go. "Put it down!" I exclaim. "I want it to stay on the desk."

Startled, she stumbles backwards. I let go of the pot, thinking that if I didn't, she'd pull the plant out by the roots. 

She lets go at the same time as I do. 

It seems to happen in slow motion; the pot falls to the floor, then breaks, dark soil spilling all over the lavender carpet. 

My eyes are burning, tears gathering at the corners, my hands shaking in disbelief. 

It's broken. The last thing I have of him is broken. 

"Oops," Poppy says. 

That's all she says. Oops. As if it's nothing. Nothing at all. Just a pot. 

Just a pot… 

I step forward, my bare feet scraping against the broken shards of clay. It hurts, but I don't care. I'm too angry to care. 

"How could you!" I cry. 

"Dina, calm down, it's just a--"

"It's not just a pot!" I raise my voice. "Do you know what that pot meant to me?"

"No, you've never said--" 

"Get out!" I grab Poppy by the shoulders and shove her towards the door. Her hazel eyes are wide, confused. 

"Look, I'm sorry, I didn't--"

"Get out and never come back!" I choke. "I should have never invited you over. All you did was try to change my room, my room, and now you've broken my pot, and--"

"What is wrong with you?" Poppy hisses. "I didn't do anything." 

I cross my arms and glare at her. 

She scoffs. "I can't believe we're arguing over this," she says as she leaves, slamming the door behind her. 

I slide to my knees, pick up the shards off the floor. The only thing I had left of my brother, gone. Broken. Useless. 

It's garbage now. I have to throw it away. 

I rest my head on my knees and cry for a long, long time. 

***

"What's your favorite color?" Rowan asks me. 

"Rainbow!" I giggle. 

"That's not a color, Dina." Rowan rolls his eyes. 

"Just paint it rainbow," I say. "Please?" 

"Fine." My brother dips his paintbrush into the pot of red paint. "But if the colors mix and turn brown it's not my fault." 

"Okay," I respond cheerfully. I dip my own paintbrush into the blue paint, carefully drawing bumpy lines for ocean waves. Rowan loves the ocean. It's all he ever talks about these days. Dolphins this, whales that. He wants to be a marine biologist when he grows up. 

I told him I wanted to be a rainbowologist, but he said that they didn't exist. 

"I'll be the first then," I stated proudly. 

His brow furrowed in thought. "Well, we're only six now," he relented. "Maybe by the time we're grown-ups, they'll have invented rainbowologists." 

I think about this as I paint the sun over the horizon. Maybe when we're adults, we'll be able to afford real gifts for each other, instead of having to make them every year. Because we're twins, we have the same birthday, and a lot of presents we get have to be shared--so we decided to make gifts for each other, gifts for our very own. 

"Done!" I say fifteen minutes later. I hold up the pot and Rowan's face lights up. 

He carefully takes the pot from me. "It's awesome," he says. "Thanks, Dina." 

"Where'sminewhere'sminewhere'smine!" I squeal, excited to see my present. Rowan holds up my pot, rainbow stripes painted all around. Some of the colors bled together, creating odd splotches here and there, but I don't care. It's my very own rainbow pot. 

I hug my brother tightly, even though I know he hates being touched. But it's our birthday, so he lets me. 

Later, our mother helps us put little baby spider plants inside. The days pass, and they grow quickly, their spindly leaves stretching over the edges of the pots. 

That was the last gift Rowan gave me before he died. 

***

"Don't be ridiculous, Rudina," Mom says, handing me a stack of salad plates. "We just moved in five days ago. We can't go anywhere else."

"But--"

"Just because you had an argument with Poppy doesn't mean we have to switch neighborhoods." 

"Mom, I--" 

"We can't keep moving every time something makes you upset!" she says shrilly.

I sigh and lower my eyes. "I know," I say quietly. 

Mom sighs, then plants a kiss on the top of my head. "Just go over to her house," she suggests. "Give her a hug. Best friends argue all the time. What were you even fighting about that was so bad?" 

My hands start to shake. I hastily put the plates on the countertop. 

"It was an accident," I whisper. "She--she broke the pot."

"What pot?"

"The pot that Rowan made," I mumble. Then I freeze. 

The first time I've spoken his name in three years. 

I've forgotten what it felt like to say it. 

It hurts.

A few seconds of silence pass. Then Mom wraps her arms around me, strokes my back. "You should have kept something else," she said. "Something else that reminded you of him."

I sob into the crook of her neck. "I know." 

***

When Rowan died, I threw everything away. His clothes, his toys, his books, everything he had. 

Mom didn't stop me. She was too broken, too lost without her son to care. Dad didn’t do anything either. He was too busy with funeral arrangements, things like that, to care where his son's stuff went. 

I remember tearing up his favorite toy, his stuffed crab. I took a pair of scissors and tore away the fabric, cut off its legs, then threw it in the bin. "Rowan doesn't need you anymore, he's dead!" I screamed at it. 

His books about the ocean, gone. Everything gone. The pot that I made him, gone. 

But the rainbow pot that he made for me stayed. I couldn't throw it away, no matter how much I tried. 

I needed something so that I didn't forget him, so I kept it. For months, whenever I so much as looked at the thing I would cry. 

Now it's gone. Rowan is gone. 

***

"I wanna learn how to swim," was the thing Rowan said every morning when he came down to breakfast. Each time, Mom would reply with "No."

"Why not?" Rowan would complain. "You don't have to pay for lessons, we can use the pool outside."

"That pool hasn't been cleaned for years," Mom had explained time and time again. "We don't use it."

"Then let's clean it."

"No. I'll get you signed up for classes one of these days, I promise."

She never did. Maybe if she had, Rowan could have learned how to swim, and he would still be here. We would still be the same age, would still be able to make each other presents every year. 

I wish Mom hadn't been so busy with her job that she couldn't even take her son for swimming lessons. 

Because one night, when Rowan couldn't stand waiting anymore, he decided to teach himself. 

He woke up in the middle of the night. Didn't even wake me. Maybe if he did, I could have saved him, or stopped him. 

He went downstairs. Opened the patio door. Went outside to the pool. 

He jumped in. 

It was deep. Too deep for him. He went underwater. 

Nobody heard him scream. Nobody heard him struggling to get back up for air. 

I was the one who found him the next morning, who went outside to get the mail and instead found my dead brother in the pool. 

***

Knock, knock.

"Dina?"

It's Poppy. 

I shove my head underneath my pillow. 

Knock, knock. 

"Dina, please let me in. I promise I'm not mad at you." 

I almost start sobbing when she says that. 

I don’t know whether to feel furious at her or to feel bad that I was so angry in the first place. After Rowan died, I shut people out. I didn't tell anyone how I felt, and I never told her about the pot, about how much it meant to me. 

She has every right to hate me. 

But she came back. 

I get off my bed, walk slowly to the door, half-hoping she'd given up and went home so I won't have to face her. When I finally open the door she's still there, her normally picture-perfect hair unbrushed and with dark circles under her eyes, as if she hasn't slept properly since the day I kicked her out. 

She reaches out her arms. 

I don't care anymore. I hug her. 

"I'm so sorry," I say shakily. "I'm so, so sorry."

I lost Rowan, the one person I loved the most. I can't afford to lose Poppy. 

"No, I'm sorry," Poppy says, squeezing me tight. "Your mom told me about the pot."

"She did?"

"Yeah. Here." She lets go of me and reaches into the pocket of her pink hoodie, bringing out a tiny picture frame. She hands it to me and I gasp. 

Inside is a photo of me and Rowan, holding up the pots we made, our faces and hands splattered with paint. The frame is painted rainbow. 

"Where did you get this?" I say in disbelief. I touch the photo, as if to make sure it's solid, that it's real, that I'm not dreaming. 

I haven't seen his face in so long. 

Poppy smiles sheepishly. "He was my friend all those years ago, too," she said. "My parents had a copy of this picture in our family album. I didn't know you threw everything of his away--if I did, I would have given this to you a long time ago." I hear her take in a shaky breath. "Painted the frame myself."

I start crying. She hugs me again. 

I really don't deserve her. 

"Your room is fine just the way it is," she whispers in my ear. "The rainbow vibe is amazing."

I give a watery laugh and hug her tighter. 

"Thank you, Poppy," I say softly. "For everything."

"Of course. Friends again?"

"Best friends. Always."