A Day to Mourn

Skylar had an alone day, if there was one day of the year she flipped her energetic, happy personality, it would be today, the seventeenth of June. Skylar always took this one day to mourn her biggest loss, years had passed, for heaven's sake, her children were old enough to have children now, but she, nor anyone else thought the pain of losing Avery would ever go away. It was hardest on Skylar, so most years, everyone left her to recollect her thoughts, remember her. Skylar and Avery had bought a big house together, neither of them ever thought they would get married, they thought they would just grow old alone side by side. They were both wrong, by the age of thirty, they both had found someone, Avery had Sam, and they had one daughter, the poor girl, she was only three when she lost her mother. Safia, she grew up to look exactly like her mother, a gorgeous girl. Skylar met a mama’s boy, Tommy. Like Sky and Ava’s mother, she was blessed with twins, a boy and a girl. Oliver and Luna. They all lived under the same roof, one big happy family. The mother’s loved to do absolutely everything together, just they had as young girls, motherhood and adulting would be no different. Birthdays were the best in their happy home, they all had summer birthdays. Once the kids grew up, they seemed to be more then anxious to leave, skylar never did. By the time Safia was 18, her and Sam moved out, Oliver and Luna were off at university, Skylar and Tommy grew apart, they had been starting to grow distant since Avery had been murdered. Soon enough, before the twins came back home the two had split, they hadn’t got divorced, Tommy always knew Skylar needed her, but they couldn’t stand living together anymore. He came a few times a week with the kids to visit her, to bring groceries, to give her anything else she needed. The twins were still in their early twenties this year, they wanted to visit their mother, she had been getting sick lately, losing her happy energy, but today was the one day they couldn’t visit her because they knew she would rather be alone. 

The day started out like any other, she woke up alone in the huge house, today she stayed in bed for a while longer, not wanting to get up and face another year gone by without her twin. She didn’t want to, but she couldn’t resist, she picked her phone off her side table and scrolled back years upon years to the photos of when they were children, when they were in school living on their own together, when they bought the house she lives in now, the family pictures they took when their children were still young. Skylar looked at family photos until the day she stopped showing up in the family photos. Until the day she was lost to them. Soon enough the tears began streaming down her face like a river. She remembered seeing Avery’s murder run off into the distance, ignoring Skylar, leaving her to cry over her dead sister’s body. It was just the two of them, all alone, with no sign of help on it’s way. Nobody ever came, when the ambulance showed up, they realized they were too late, Avery was declared dead on the scene. 

Eventually, Skylar found it in herself to get out of bed, she shuffled her way down to the kitchen. She turned on the kettle and made herself a green tea jasmine tea, Avery’s favourite. The flavour of the tea was one of the few things the twin girls disagreed on but since Avery’s passing, Skylar learned to like it, and eventually she learned to love it, and drank it often. Avery use to love testing her limits, and that included her taste buds, something Skylar had to lose Avery to try. It was a fight Tommy snd Skylar had at one point, he thought she was becoming too much like her sister, some say it was the beginning of when the marriage started to go down hill. Skylar continued her day on, texting Safia, asking her to take flowers to Avery’s grave on her behalf. Even years later, she couldn’t bring herself to leave the house and visit her own sisters grave, it wasn’t far, but leaving the house now seemed outrageous to her. Skylar had quarantined herself in her home when she witnessed Avery’s murder, she left for her funeral, and arrangements that had to be made, but started leaving the house less and less. Eventually, by the time Tommy left her, she never left the house. 

She asked Tommy if he would bring her some dinner, she wanted to eat out tonight, she wanted to eat Italian, the meal both twins could always agree on and loved. He said he would, but there was something off about him. He sounded nervous, worried, but Skylar just shook the odd feeling off. Maybe she was just shaken up. She walked upstairs to the room Avery used to call her own, it hasn’t been touched since Avery left it last. Skylar always found it calming to sit in her room, it felt like they we’re together again. Like she was whole again. Even if it was for just a scarce few hours. She liked to look out the window while sitting on her bed, sometimes looking through her books, sometimes looking through the murder investigation files left on the side of her desk. They didn’t have much information, her murder had been a dead end. They never found the murder, they only know it had been a man with a knife. They had never found the knife either. It took a long time for Skylar to accept her sisters murder might never be solved, but it was still unsettling, and sometimes it felt like the answer was right there, in the case files, under her nose, but she couldn’t see it, just like the police. Skylar did eventually reach for the files, spreading the papers across Avery’s bed. Hours passed by, Skylar has lost track of time, lost in a book Avery used to love to read. It was their mothers book, and it was given to Avery for her 14th birthday, because she was finally old enough to read murder mysteries, she had always been fascinated by them. Maybe that’s why her death was a murder mystery too. Skylar fell into a deep sleep and was awoken by the door bell. It was odd, everyone knew Skylar wouldn’t see anyone today, they could come visit another day. Getting up from her sister’s bed she walked downstairs once again looking at her phone to find a text from Tommy telling her he was here. It was already six o’clock. When she arrived at the door, she opened it to find her food, nothing more. Maybe Tommy just rang the bell and left. She sent him a thank you text and took the bag of food to her dining room. 

She emptied the contents onto the table and began her dinner when she saw one more thing left in the bag, a note, she began to read it confused. 

Skylar, 

After all these years, I think I am finally ready to tell you the truth. It took me so long, every year, I promised myself I would tell you, but I could never bring myself to say the words. I still can’t, some days, I wonder how I did it. I want you to know I feel awful and think about her every day. I should probably tell you from the beginning so you don’t kill me right away. Or maybe that’s just me stalling. Never the less, you should know the whole story.

When I first met you, I didn’t like you, I guess I used you. I had been pining over Avery for years, when I first met you actually, I spoke to you because I thought you were her. When I realized you weren’t, I used you to get to know her, and the more I learned about her, the more deeply I feel in love with her. But by the time I had the courage to tell her, she had Sam, and you were in love with me. I was full of jealousy. What could Sam possibly have that I didn’t? I was smart, funny, and good looking. I set aside my feelings, and decided maybe I was meant to be with you. Maybe that’s why we were still together, maybe that’s why fate brought me to you and not Avery. I held my place, and never said anything, until just before Safia was born. Avery was just there, all the time, my feelings resurfaced, and I couldn’t stop myself. I kissed her. And for a while, without Sam and your knowledge, things happened. I tried to tell her to leave Sam, I was Better for her, but she ignored me. Safia was born, and she teased me. It felt like she was doing it on purpose and eventually I just couldn’t take it any longer. I covered it up pretty well, didn’t I? Nobody ever knew, at least not until now. You can go to the police, turn me in if you want, but I’m leaving town tonight, and not you, not the police, nor anyone is going to find me until I want to be found. 

-Tommy 

Skylar sucked in a breath. Tommy, her husband, was the murderer she had been looking for all along.