The Place Where the Sky Wasn’t Blue

I was thirteen the last time I saw my sister’s face, but I still wake up to it most nights. Sometimes she’s smiling. Sometimes she’s crying. Most nights, she’s quiet. Just staring. Like she’s trying to remember me.

When I wake, I have to remind myself I’m not in that house anymore. Not in that city. Not thirteen. The bed beneath me is soft. The ceiling above is clean and uncracked. There’s a hum of distant traffic, not drones. A neighbor’s dog barking, not sirens.

Still, the first thing I do every morning is check the window—just to make sure the sky isn’t blackened with smoke.

I live in a small apartment above a bakery now. Mornings smell like cinnamon and yeast, and that should be comforting. But cinnamon is dangerous. Cinnamon was in the tea my mother made the morning of the shelling. That scent lives somewhere deeper than memory. I smell it and my body tightens before my brain knows why.

Some mornings, when the bakery’s ovens fire too hot, the scent burns. For a moment, I’m back in the kitchen—my mother humming, her hands moving slowly, the tension in her shoulders betraying the calm on her face. My sister humming along. My father checking the radio. Me, pretending I wasn’t afraid.

There was always something in the air during those days. Something heavy. Like the sky itself was holding its breath.

Now, I shelve books in a quiet secondhand shop two blocks from home. I restock shelves. I sweep floors. I greet people and say thank you and ring up their purchases. I smile with my mouth, not my eyes. Most people think I’m shy. I’m not. I’m just tired in a way that language can’t fix.

There’s a boy who comes in every Thursday. Ten, maybe. Blue backpack. Messy hair. Bright eyes. He reminds me of my brother.

My brother, who once let go of my hand to chase a stray dog in the alley behind our building. Just for a second. Just long enough.

He never came back.

I remember screaming for him, my voice shredding. I remember how loud everything was that day, how the world cracked open and swallowed him whole.

The boy in the bookstore hums to himself when he reads. I pretend to rearrange shelves so I can stay near him. Sometimes, I forget where I am. He'll ask where the dragon books are, and I’ll point, my hand shaking, heart in my throat. Then I’ll excuse myself, go into the stockroom, and fall apart for a few minutes.

I tell no one about this. Who would understand?

My therapist calls it "disassociation." I call it remembering.

She asks me what I dream about.

I never answer truthfully. But if I did, I’d say this:

Sometimes I dream of the kitchen. Whole. Warm.

My mother is humming.

My sister is coloring.

My brother is laughing.

And I walk in, older than I was then, but somehow still small.

They look up.

They smile.

They say nothing.

And then I wake up with my fists clenched and their names stuck behind my teeth.

She says it wasn’t my fault.

That’s her favorite thing to say: It wasn’t your fault.

I nod. I thank her. I don’t believe her.

I was the oldest. I was supposed to hold on.

I was supposed to protect them.

I was supposed to know.

Some nights, I sleep on the floor. Beds feel too soft. Too far from the ground. Too much like a luxury I never earned.

The war taught me not to trust comfort.

Once, a woman asked me to dinner. Her eyes were kind. Her voice soft. She smelled like citrus and new beginnings. I wanted to say yes. I wanted to hold her hand across a table, to let her tell me jokes I didn’t understand and teach me how to smile without guilt.

But I didn’t know how to explain that I still keep my sister’s shoes by the front door.

That I still listen for sirens when the wind shifts.

That I still sleep with the bathroom light on, because that’s what we did—so we could find each other in the dark if we had to run.

So I told her I was busy. She nodded. I watched her walk away and imagined her humming.

Sometimes, I write my siblings' names on paper. I don’t do anything with them. I just write them down. Over and over. As if seeing them again will keep them real.

I write my mother’s name too, though I still can’t say it out loud.

I remember the night she told me, “If anything happens, you take them and run.”

I said, “Nothing’s going to happen.”

She didn’t say anything back. Just kissed my forehead like she already knew.

I’ve built something here. A life. A routine. I pay rent. I show up. I smile. But I’ve become very good at not taking up space. I pass through rooms without leaving footprints. I make coffee too quietly. I fold my sadness into the seams of my clothing.

War teaches you how to disappear without dying.

The hardest part is that I no longer know what’s real.

I walk into rooms that don’t exist. Smell smoke when there’s none. Answer voices that haven’t spoken in years. I once spent an entire morning convinced my sister was asleep in the next room. I made her tea. Left it by the door. Then spent the rest of the day hating myself for forgetting she was gone.

Sometimes I worry I never really left.

That the war lives inside me so deeply

I’ve become a ruin no one can rebuild.

The last time I dreamed of my sister, we were sitting under the table. She was drawing a sun with too many rays. Her face was dusty. Her voice was small.

She looked up and asked, “Did we make it?”

And I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t tell her the truth—that only I did. That I am here, and she is not, and that the sky still turns blue without her.

So I lied.

I said, “Yes.”

She smiled. And the world shook.

But only a little.

I woke with her name in my mouth and tears soaking the pillow. My hands shaking. My chest hollow.

I got up. I made tea. Cinnamon.

I opened the window.

The sky was blue.

But I didn’t trust it.