Can't Be Her

They were talking about me again. I know they are. They always are. At least, they are whenever they are near me. They talk about my mental condition, which doesn't exist. They just don't know as much as I do.

They don't know everything. I don't either, but on this subject, I am willing to bet everything. And maybe I am. I don't know. But I hope that is not the case. Because if it is...

They are talking in hushed tones. I know that they are peeking at me out of the corners of their eyes. They're in the kitchen, and I am sitting at the desk in the living room with the TV blaring in the background. They think that they are so secretive and that I can't hear whatever they are saying. More than that, they think that I am too far gone to understand what they are saying, but I do. That means that I am not as insane as they think that I am.

Don't get me wrong, I am slightly insane. I know that. Who else would obsess over someone that was declared dead? A normal person would take what other people say and leave it at that, but I know that she is somewhere out there. That is why I convinced them to book tickets out to Massachusetts to find her. They think that this will provide me with some sort of closure, but I know for a fact that she is still there somewhere. I know that I will walk in there and that I will see her. She has to be there. She has to be.

Mother walks slowly over to me, watching me warily as if she were afraid that I was going to bite. I watch her without allowing anything to find its way onto my face. I have her green eyes, but her black hair was lost in the gene pool. Instead I have my father's flaming red hair. She was always ecstatic about it, but I kind of wish that I had my mother's black hair. It drew less attention. She had always liked how curly it was and had played around with it all the time. Now... No, she was going to do it again. She was there, and everything would go back to normal. Everything will go back to normal...

"Did you pack everything?"

I nod and return my eyes back to her diary. She had been so fun loving and so upbeat. So bold. I want do badly to be her. I wish I was... Maybe when we see each other again...

Two days later...

We made it. We're back at the house. We are walking up the steps. My heart thunders in my chest. I'm excited and... scared. Very scared. Will she like me? Will she like who I have become? Probably not. I don't think that she would be happy to see how I had become. I bite my lip and look down at my shoes.

They were an army green pared with ripped black jeans and a deep burgundy hoodie. I wore a gold choker. The boys at school had called it a dog collar... Among all the other things they had called me.

I was so different from how I used to be... I used to be so care free. I used to not care what other people thought. I used to be... untouched by the world. Now... well.

I view my life as having gone through three stages. What I used to be. The transition. Then who I am now.

When I say transition, I mean that I went through the phase where I was basically Gothic and viewed everything as though through a dark glass. That was when I left her. That was when I left her behind and had to go through everything alone. I had thought her and the way that she had thought of everything as childish. I had thought that she was... That she was useless. Now, I view her as pioneer. As stronger than I could ever be for holding her ground and refusing to allow anything to affect her. She let everything roll off her back and went on with her head high.

I had thrown that aside and had taken everything to the extreme end of the spectrum. I thought that everything and everyone was against me. I had holed myself up in my room, and refused to leave. I read books and decided that they were my only friends. I dressed in overly dark clothes that had looked as if I had gotten them out of a trash can because that was all that I thought that I deserved.

I twist the ring on my thumb. Now... I was a mixture of both. I had the cynical outlook of the in between me, then I had the care free aura of the old me. I was quick to forgive, but less so to forget. I was playful, but careful about who saw that side of me.

I take in a deep breath and realize that I had been standing at the door for some time. Mom and Dad stood off to the side, watching me with grief stricken looks on their faces. The look rankles something in me. She would be there. She had to be. Then we could back to the way that things were. Then I wouldn't have to worry anymore. then I would no longer always be looking over my shoulder and become self-conscious whenever I step out of the house. Because she would be by my side. Because I would have her with me.

With a deep breath in my lungs, I open the door and step across the thresh hold. The house was my childhood. Everything was almost just as we had left it. Only... it was empty and dusty. But the paint colors were still the same! They were still the same vibrant colors. I inhale and... sense something off. It all felt wrong. As if I didn't fit in. But that was insane. I would fit in again. I would go back to who I was, and I would fit in.

I walk up the stares and enter the rooms. First was my brothers. I could remember them having a sleep over with one of their friends and sleeping underneath their bunk-bed. Or throwing everything out their window so they could jump out of it. A small smile flits across my face. Or sitting there and watching the lightning cross the sky in awe and wonder. Or waking up to finding that my cousins had arrived for Christmas.

I turn and head further down the hallway to my own room. Me and my sister's room. She always had me help her clean up the room, even though none of it had been my stuff. It still had the ugly pinky-brown carpet. There were the old purple and white streaks across the opposite wall. Blue painted all the others. It was smaller, but it suited our needs. She and I had made a habit of making forts out of the bunk-bed. I bite my lip to keep back the tears.

I used to try to make perfumes with my dried out roses from one of my concerts. I had worn it out in public, proud of what I had created. I used to play the piano. I had had such a vibrant taste in clothing. All the colors. I had wanted to wear all the colors. I used to plaster my face and my cousins with eye-shadow. I would play dolls with my sister. Would read her stories.

I walk over to the room across the hall from ours and look out into the yard. There was the remnants from the garden that we had used to have. We would eat the green onions and the green onions and tomatoes and peas from it. Anything that we could get our hands on. I had had such an open-minded view of the world.

I tried to find her here as I looked and recalled. We had played in the sandbox between two pine trees. We had made snow forts out of the remnants of snow from the parking lot right next to our yard. We had played cow-boys and Indians out in the remnants of the house behind ours...

She still wasn't there. I couldn't find her. But she had to be. My breathing began to come fast and the tears even faster than those. I rushed to the bathroom and placed my hands shoulder's width apart on the counter. I stare at myself in the mirror, willing for her to appear.

The vivacious little girl that had ridden her bike fearlessly around and around the parking lot. The little girl who had boasted about the perfume that she was making. The little girl who had been so proud of her Dad. The little girl who had one true friend, but had considered everyone to be a part of her family. The little girl who did her cousin's make up. The little girl who had dreamed of becoming an artist. The little girl who ran around bare foot. The little girl who took delight in watching the snow fall and making leaf forts. The little girl who had made cold soup from the vegetables in her garden and mixed them with water.

My mouth dropped open on a wordless cry. Because she wasn't her. Because I couldn't be that little girl anymore. Because I wasn't her. Because I wanted to be her. I dropped to my knees on the tile and clutched at my stomach. Because I couldn't go back and protect myself from what was to come.

My mom kneels down beside me and hugs me.

"Oh, honey..."

I gasp in breath and let it out on a sob.

"I tried so hard to hold on," I whisper.

She nods.

"I know, but we all change."

I shake my head.

"I want to be that way again... but I can't."

She lets me cry. I let everything bleed and scab over. I had been so certain that I would find myself again.

She shakes her head.

"But that isn't who you are anymore. You are you, and you will change. Whether it is for the better or not is up to you."