Sunny in darkness

My phone buzzed. Again and again. I wanted to throw it as far as I could, so that no one could ever bother me again. The curtains are drawn, my door is locked. I have cocooned myself in blankets, so the only part of me that’s exposed are my eyes, which are squeezed tightly shut. My name is Sunny, and I live in darkness.

I don’t want to remember, not even the light. For light is brief, and darkness, inevitable. I can’t think about the future, it doesn’t exist. I wish I could imagine but, like the world around me, my mind contains only black. So what then? What can I do but sit here and wallow in the feelings which I cannot control. If only there was a way to remove sadness and fear from the mind, to erase the tightness and pounding in my chest, the short, strained breaths. Mum used to say that crying shows that you care, shows you strength. But if that’s true, why do I feel so small, so helpless, so weak. I am unable to wipe away my tears and smile, like the heroes do in movies. The salt stings and burns my skin. But I can’t make it stop. It never stops.

There’s a knock at my door. It’s him. Wanting to talk, wanting to listen, wanting to open the door and turn on the lights. But I’m not ready, not yet. He waits. I can hear his soft breathing, distant, but there. I roll over. He will leave soon, like before. It feels mean, not to let him in, when he must feel worse than I ever could, but I don’t get up. We’re different. He knows that. He knows to let me have time, to let it all pass. But this isn’t like before. I don’t feel like it can ever pass.

The memories keep seeping in. I’m in the car, in the front seat, even though we both know I’m not big enough yet. She’s singing to a song on the radio. She doesn’t even know the words, but she’s singing anyway, making up new lines to the tune. She’d do this a lot, not even to amuse herself, but me. We would be coming back from the shops, four bags loaded with groceries bumping around in the backseat. I would turn to look at them, and tell her when the bread was about to fall off the seat and she would slow down, so that it wouldn’t. Then she’d ask me if we’d arrived safely when we pulled into the garage, and I would check the bags again and say “Roger”, and we’d both smile.

I’m not smiling now. It’s strange how these memories, the past somehow stored in my mind, can make me feel so many emotions at the same time. At first there’s happiness, as I relive a moment, very brief but still there, to make the sadness which comes next, even worse. Of course there’s also denial, it’s meant to come hand in hand with shock, but I’m not shocked. Not anymore.

I remember reading about it somewhere, or maybe it was in a movie, like everything else. The five stages of grief. Something about anger, I can agree with that. Also bargaining, trying to get out of the pain. I don’t get that one. Why would you want to trade away the pain. The pain is what makes it mean something. It’s how you know you cared. How you know you loved. Depression. What a strange thing. People would say it as if it were another emotion we experience everyday. “I’m so depressed.” My friends would say when they weren’t able to do what they wanted to do. I think I even said it once or twice, though I never actually meant it. Do I mean it now? I would never have thought I could genuinely be depressed, because doesn’t that mean I have nothing to live for? What do I have to live for?

Him. You have to live for him. You have to live for yourself. How could you even start thinking about such a thing? I’m going crazy. My feet and legs are tangled up inside the blankets. It’s uncomfortable. You deserve to be uncomfortable. How can I not stop crying?

“Sunny?” This time he speaks. He must have gotten tired of knocking. I would have got tired of trying if I were him. But I’m not and he persists. “Please, Sunny.” I hate it. I want him to go away. He’s trying to make me give in. Trying to make me open the door. I won’t. I really want to.

“Sunny. It’s eleven. You need to eat. Or go to the toilet.” How can he talk about those things? They seem so trivial now. I forget these necessities exist. They don’t matter.

“Sunny. Don’t give up on me.”

There’s so much pain in his voice. It breaks me. With every bit of willpower I have, I roll off the bed. I don’t want to make a sound, so I tiptoe across the floor, until I’m at the door. I raise my shaking hand and click the lock, as silently as possible. I don’t want him to hear it, or know that I’ve decided to let him in. He’ll be proud of me. I don’t want his pride. I race back to my bed, blanket still wrapped around me, and sit, my knees pulled into my chest. He hears.

I close my eyes, bracing myself for the light. I can hear the handle being pushed down and the slight creak of the door as it opens. I wait until its shut to open them again. He’s almost invisible. His tall dark frame is silhouetted in front of my desk. He comes over and sits on the bed, next to me. We both stare ahead, waiting for the other to say something. He goes first.

“It was autumn. In the afternoon. I had just come from a football game. Which we lost, badly.” I know this story. But only her side. He would never tell me such a thing, it wasn’t like him. “I was angry. I thought if someone, anyone, talked to me, I would rip their head off.” I looked at him. He was smiling. I’m not sure how he could, but he was.

“Then I looked over and I saw her. Looking straight into my eyes, surrounded by her college friends, her hair halfway down her back. I was so embarrassed. I thought she’d realised I was angry and was looking at me in disgust. I felt like the world's biggest idiot.” Something about this pulled at the corners of my mouth. I’m not sure why. “I started walking quicker, so I could escape her, and leave this whole fiasco behind me. Then just like that she was by my side and I was so shocked I just kept walking. So she kept walking too, and she started talking I can’t even remember what it was about because I was too focussed on trying to keep my cheeks from going red.” I smiled. I almost laughed. I never thought I’d hear anything so personal come out of his mouth in my life. He glanced over at me and smiled as well, a sad smile, but a smile all the same. I quickly stopped. How could I feel happy, how could I let go of the sadness so easily. The tears that had ceased for a moment gushed back up and I buried my face in my hands. He put his arms around me. I let him. I needed it. 

“You can be happy you know.” I was afraid of this. “You don’t have to be sad for the rest of your life, or everything she lived for doesn’t matter.”

“How do you know what she lived for?” I shouldn’t have said it, but it just slipped out. He looks down at his shoes, I’ve never seen him so helpless.

“I suppose I don’t.” He said softly. “But I know she was happy. Even when things went wrong she would smile.” There’s a lump in my throat. 

“I’m not like her.” I croak. This realisation hits me in the chest like a bullet. Before I would have thought it to be a good thing, being different to her means I'm my own individual, unique. Now, it just means I can't keep her alive, I've lost her for good.

"That doesn't mean you can give up and it definitely doesn't mean she's not still with us." He knows my thoughts.

"Then what? What can I do? What should I do? Just tell me." Every time I wish for the pain to go away I hate myself. Every time I embrace it I want to die. Every time I try to ignore it I feel guilty and every time I try to move past it, it blocks my way. He takes his arms from around my shoulders and stands up. He offers me his hand. I remember when he used to do this and I would refuse because 'I wasn't a child'. Now I want to be a child again more than anything. I take his hand. 

He pulls me to my feet. My legs feel weak. For a moment I keep the blanket clasped around me, my shield from the rest of the world. I shouldn't hide. The blanket falls softly to the floor. The last stage of grief is meant to be acceptance. I accepted it long ago. For me it should be moving forward taking a step. Which is what I need to do. What I'm going to do. 

"Are you ready?" He asks, one hand on the door handle. I think about how confident she was, how she would always hold her head high with so much determination. I held my tear streaked cheeks high. 

"I'm ready."

He opened the door and I kept my eyes open. Light flooded over me, stinging my eyes, but I didn't blink because, for the first time since we lost her, I felt like I might eventually be alright.