It Doesn’t Matter

tw - this contains brief mentions of a minor dating an adult as well as underaged drinking

Valerie was a different girl now, but she was still haunted by the same ghosts.

The crunch of bones snapping, her reflection in 3-D glasses, teal eyes rolling back white. She found herself reliving the same funeral every night. Blue-black dress, unanswered messages, and the thought that she was all on her own now.

At the time, it didn’t matter. Or at least, that’s what Valerie told herself.

She could beat any game in the arcade by herself, no one could win against her at cards, and she was always the best at puzzles. It didn’t matter if her only company was the screeching voice in the back of her head begging for more, more, more. No one could compete with her. So, she was better off alone.

She found solace in magic 8-balls. They told her what she wanted to hear, that there was hope for her. That she wasn’t going to die here. That everything would smooth over one day, ghosts would rise from the dead and bones would heal and candy red eyes would go back to being teal.

In the end, Valerie hadn’t died in the cold walls of her childhood home, but nothing had fixed itself when she escaped it. The scars still ached at night when sleep evaded her and her number remained blocked. Sometimes she was bitter about it, other times she was blue. Most of the time, she found herself wanting to play a game of pirates that she always won.

The closest thing she could find was a pretty girl who had lived by the beach her whole life. 

Marina smelled of salt and strong perfume. She wore hot pink bikinis and brought Valerie seashells whenever she saw her. Whenever Marina was around, Valerie felt like she had control. She was the captain commanding her ship, and Marina was her first mate.

It didn’t matter that Marina could drink and she was just learning how to drive. She was playing a game with someone on her level for the first time in years. Valerie wasn’t dreaming about funerals and hospitals and shades of blue anymore. So, it didn’t matter that sometimes when glossy lips pressed against hers, she imagined that the acrylic nails sinking into her skin were bitten down and messily painted red.

Nights at Marina’s apartment had made Valerie soft. Her skin smelled of vanilla body wash and her choppy bleached hair was pulled back into two braids. The ocean that ran through her veins had calmed, bright blue had faded into something nicer. The color of the sky or the almost-purple of periwinkle.

It unnerved her to round off her rough edges, to smooth the sharpness of her bones. She had sat in the shower and watched as the last of the blue box-dye washed out of her hair. As the water disappeared down the drain, she couldn’t help but think it was her blood she was letting slip through her fingers. Then, Marina had banged on the bathroom door and told her she was wasting all the hot water.

When she had dried herself off, she couldn’t find the blue veins that ran through her body.

The next day, Valerie found herself in an old arcade. It still smelled like stale popcorn and the neon wallpaper was peeling off the walls. Her name remained undefeated in all of the machines. “T3RRA” hung below it, as it always had.

A ghost with black curls smiled at her from beneath a flickering, red LED light. Its teeth were blunt and its eyes were white. She hadn’t aged a day since Valerie had last seen her. And despite the fact that Valerie felt nothing like the girl she had been when they last met eyes, the ghost knew who she was. Who she used to be, who she would always be.

The aged bulb flickered once more and the girl was gone, lost to time.

Marina had told her stories about her college classes and given her a cream colored shell when she got home. She didn’t bother telling Marina about the arcade. Valerie took a sip from the fruity drink Marina had been nursing the whole evening and got sticky lipgloss all over her mouth. She pulled her braids out and buried her face into Marina’s warm skin. The smell of salt painted over the day. Everything was okay, she told herself.

Things are different, but everything is okay.

She dreamt of spiders and the color teal for the next week. Marina spent the weekend with friends her own age. Valerie had been invited to tag along, but she hated Marina’s friends. They were loud and obnoxious and none of them liked each other. It didn’t help that they bore a striking resemblance to people she used to know.

4:00 am. She was lying in bed. Her mouth tasted like the cheap alcohol she had stolen from the fridge and her limbs ached with a phantom pain. Sleep evaded her like an old friend.

A part of her wondered what Marina was up to, how her skin would glow in the dim light of a bar or the neons of a club. Another part of her longed for someone else. The feeling of her body next to hers as they squished against each other in front of an arcade game. The sound of her voice hissing a challenge in her ear. The sight of her sharp grin, or even her lips pressed together, turned downward in a frown.

The words on her phone screen blurred together as she scrolled through arguments and old photos. How Terra’s number got typed into her phone was beyond her. All she knew was that her thumb pressed down on the call button and her breath caught in her throat.

One ring, two rings, three rings, four.

Eight seconds passed before Terra picked up the phone. “What do you want?” She growled.

Her voice was rough with sleep, the words falling from her mouth slowly. The years had deepened the squeal that Valerie once knew, but that didn’t stop her heart from pounding in her chest.

Valerie fumbled for words. She had never thought that she would get this far, and she had never been one for apologies. How could she even ask for forgiveness for what she had done, when so much time had passed?

“I’m sorry.” 

The words were blue. Blue-black.

Terra scoffed and Valerie could imagine how her old eyes would’ve rolled. She wondered what it looked like when she rolled her eyes now.

“That doesn’t fix anything,” Terra said.

Valerie knew this. She knew that despite what her magic 8-ball had told her, that she had broken everything beyond repair. The dead couldn’t come back, bones would heal wrong, and Terra would never see the same again. She would never see her the same again. The blue that had once mixed so easily with teal had consumed everything and ruined it all.

She swallowed down the bile rising in her throat, the taste of fruit turning sickly sweet in her mouth. “I know. I’m sorry.”

The words spilled out of her before she could drink them back down. “I dreamt of you.” A beat passes. “I dream of you all the time.”

Terra doesn’t say anything, but Valerie fills in the blanks herself. She knows the names she’d call her if she had the energy, the things she’d tell her. ‘I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.’

A bitter laugh rings through the silence. “Sometimes, I can still smell you. Blueberries and bleach and blood. I turn around and think you’re there, but you never are.”

Is that for the better or for the worse?

The question hangs unanswered in the air. Like Terra’s name hanging below Valerie’s on a scoreboard. For a split second, Valerie finds herself wondering what would happen if she was beside Terra right now. If they weren’t worlds apart. Would Terra bury her face in her pale skin? Would she still be able to smell the blue of her veins or would she only be able to smell salt and vanilla?

“Sometimes,” Terra’s serrated voice cuts through her wistful thoughts, “I can still smell her.”

“I still see her,” Is all she can reply, her voice getting harder and harder to find.

“Lucky.”

Terra almost sounds like she’s joking, she almost sounds like she’s bitter. Valerie lets apology after apology tumble from her lips. They don’t matter. She doesn’t feel any better after saying them and nothing is fixed with words alone. But she can’t stop herself.

Maybe it’s the alcohol bubbling in her stomach, maybe it’s the rush of hearing Terra’s breathing. Maybe it’s all that guilt that she’s kept bottled up for years finally pouring out.

It doesn’t matter.

“Don’t call me ever again.” Terra hisses. She sounds like she’s choking down something as well. In the back of her head, Valerie hopes it’s teal tears.

A million goodbyes come to mind. Words she wished she could’ve said the first time around but couldn’t. Another apology rings loudest in her mind, but she whips away the thought and the tears filling her eyes.

‘I love you, I love you, I love you.’

“I won’t.”

Terra hangs up and Valerie swallows down a sob. She buries her face into Marina’s pillow and breathes in the overpowering scent of her perfume. She squeezes her eyes shut and feels closer to Terra than she does in her dreams.

The silence in the room sounds like the cracking of bones and all Valerie wants is for a magic 8-ball to tell her that everything will be alright. Even if it’s a lie.

Valerie stains Marina’s pink pillow with her blue tears. She knows that when Marina gets home, she won’t ask. She’ll talk all about her exciting weekend and Valerie will imagine it’s Terra’s voice babbling in her ear. And then she’ll give her a seashell and Valerie will feel blue again.

Like she did when she was a kid, dressed in blue-black and all alone. But it doesn’t matter, because, in the arcade with the red ghost, she is undefeated. She’s playing a game of pirates she always wins and none of it matters at all.