Watching the Stars

The ache of this is enough to kill. She's long since forgotten the feeling of elation, or anything close to it. She could've sworn the sun would be there for another few billion years--it would die long, long after her death, and she was more than okay with that.

But the darkness invades. It invades her home, her mind, her heart. It is relentless and it leaves her broken on the floor.

Oh, realistically she knows the sun isn't really gone, and realistically she knows she can turn on the lamp. It isn't far and all she has to do is tap the switch.

But nothing feels real anymore.

And, she supposes, that's how you know you've hit rock bottom.

...

The bar is loud and the girl she's with is even louder. Rae doesn't know her name, and in her drunken state doesn't really care, either. She's a good kisser and that's the only thing she cares about right now.

And then some guy comes up, looking furious, and Rae knows damn well this is her cue to leave.

"Oops," the woman says dreamily, and giggles. "Forgot my boyfriend is here." She waves him over, and the man's brisk walk turns into a run. "Hey, babe!" she calls.

"Boyfriend?" Rae repeats, and--yes, it is time to leave. She stands and lets the guy catch the woman before she falls.

"What the hell are you doing, making out with my girl?" he demands.

Rae shrugs. "If I'd known she was taken, I wouldn't have done it. I'm no home wrecker. I'll just go and you can take her home."

The man eyes her, suddenly looking concerned. "And are you okay to get home?"

Rae doesn't know this guy at all. "I'm fine," she says, and smiles. It feel fake and maybe it looks it, too, because he looks her over again.

"If you're sure..."

"Yeah. Thanks."

She walks away before he can say anything else, into the night air.

It's her twenty first birthday.

It was supposed to be Xander's, too. She's consumed with anger, has been all day. It was supposed to be his birthday, too.

Damn it all.

She kicks the outside of the bar, making the bouncer look at her in disapproval, but she couldn't care less. She stuffs her hands into the pockets of her jacket. The jacket he made for her, made with who knows how many hours of care. He wanted to be a designer. People laughed at him for it, but she always knew he'd be great at it.

He would've been great at it.

How many years will it be before she can bear to think of anything but "what if" or "could have been"?

As she walks home, to the home they were sharing with their parents, the home she's lived in all her life, she thinks it'll be a very long time indeed. She knows she needs to think of the present, though--the rent is almost due and without any other income, she might not make it.

The stars look down on her, but for once she doesn't look back at them.

Damn it all to hell.

...

"Girl, I'm sorry," April says, looking at her worryingly. "I am so sorry."

"Yeah, me too," she says, and laughs. But nothing about this is funny. How can it be?

"Rae, please. You need--"

"Don't tell me what I need," she snaps, suddenly angry. She's not laughing anymore. Instead, she glares at her best friend, the only person who has always been there for her.

Well. The only person left.

"What I need is for this nightmare to end. I need to wake up."

April kneels next to her on her filthy kitchen floor. She's wearing white pants, but doesn't seem to care that it will stain. Absurdly, Rae wonders when she last cleaned this place. She can't remember, but it had to have been before--

"I know this is a nightmare," April murmurs. "I know. Real life always is. But Xander wouldn't want this. You know he wouldn't. Your parents wouldn't either."

"He wasn't your twin, they weren't your parents, how the hell do you know?"

April tries to answer, but Rae just covers her ears. "I don't wanna hear. Please just leave."

"Rae--"

"Leave."

Looking reluctant and torn, April turns and walks to the front door. As she goes to open it, she looks back. Rae sinks under the weight of her gaze, pitying and anxious. "They'd want you to clean the house, at the very least. Or leave the house. You always loved the stars," April says, and walks out.

For a long time, Rae watches the door. It doesn't move, of course, and it doesn't open. It doesn't give a damn about a twenty year old woman sitting on a filthy kitchen floor in nothing but her underwear. It doesn't care about her family, or her problems. It doesn't know her grief. Even if it did, it has no reason to pay it any mind.

April is right, and Rae knows it. Xander would want the house cleaned. Xander always watched the sky with her.

So why can't she move?

...

She wants it to be raining.

It would be fitting, after all--she's at a funeral for her parents and her twin brother, who were all killed last week in a car accident. Fucker was looking at his phone and not the road. It's not fair he got out with a broken leg and a scar on his face, while her whole family was pushed off the road into the lake.

But it's not raining--the weather doesn't even have the decency to be partly cloudy.

And she's alone. Her mother's sister is god-knows-where, having not spoken to them in at least five years. All of her grandparents are dead. Her father was an only child. And Rae had Xander. Now, she has no one. Xander's friends are here, somewhere, but she has no interest in talking to them. She doesn't want condolences or the "I can't believe he's gone."

They can join the club.

She can't believe it either. She looks to the sky and wonders what she's going to do now.

...

"So what do you two want for your birthday?" her father asks, sitting down at the dinner table. "The big twenty-one. God, honey, can you believe they're twenty-one?"

Her mother laughs, also taking her seat. "No, I can't. Seems like yesterday they were learning how to walk."

"That was a while ago," Xander says, reaching for his drink. "And I have no idea, to answer your question, Dad. No idea at all."

"Does a million dollars work?" Rae jokes.

"Oh! Yeah, let's go with that. A million dollars each." Her twin is quick to join her. "We can actually pay off our student loans with it."

"And then we'll have money left for McDonald's."

Xander glares at her, clearly fighting a laugh. "McDonald's? What are you on? We'd go to Burger King."

They dissolve into laughter then, as their parents roll their eyes. "If we had a million dollars, it wouldn't be going to your student loans," their dad says. "It'd be going to mine."

"Hell, that's dismal," Rae eventually manages.

"Welcome to capitalism." Xander holds his drink up in a mock-toast.

Rae clinks her drink against his and they both drain their glasses.

"The two of you, I swear," their mother says fondly. "Be serious, now. And realistic."

"I was completely serious," Rae defends. "A million dollars."

"That's not realistic."

She shrugs. "We'll think of something, then."

"Eventually," Xander agrees.

...

Xander reaches a hand to the sky. "What do you want to do when you grow up?" he asks.

They're seven years old, in the grass behind their house. They're watching the clouds. Rae hums in thought, but comes up blank--her teacher asked her something similar a month ago and she lied when she said she wanted to be a doctor. She didn't have an answer then and doesn't have one now.

"I want to be an artist," her brother says, when he gets bored of waiting for her answer.

"I know," she says. "I've always known that."

"Really?" he demands, looking over at her. He drops his hand into the grass. "How?"

"You're my brother," she says. "Besides, you're always drawing."

"You're not always doing something. You usually don't do anything," he replies, with all the carelessness of a child. It stings. She doesn't say anything. He watches her, she can tell, even as she's looking at the sky.

"Maybe I don't want to do anything," she says eventually.

"That's boring."

"You're boring," she retorts. "I do everything."

"Liar," he says, but the word is lacking any bite.

"Am not."

"Are too."

She hates this game, so she lets him have the last word. "Maybe I'll just watch the sky," she says. "I know people make a living watching the stars."