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Aubrey didn’t want to admit it, but the day she left was the catalyst for everything falling apart, as if Mari was some silent, unspoken glue that held her friend group and the better times together. Ever since the funeral happened, things... changed but not for the better. Her friends had begun to drift away one by one. The screaming matches happened with more frequency than ever before. One kind act during this time was that the Suzuki’s gave Mari’s old clothes to Aubrey since she was the only one who’d fit them best. Aubrey looked at her reflection with her clothes. All she saw was a tired, worn-out version of the girl who wasn’t here anymore. Her room also seemed tired, the paint had begun to peel with the original hue fading away, holes had formed in the ceiling making the room weep on rainy days. Childhood posters hung on the wall with their vivid colors remaining despite the dust that lingered. Her old wooden bat stood silently in place since the day she dreamed of playing softball. Old spruce walls and floors would creak… groan… and sigh.
Despite the dreariness the attic was a place of solace, safety, and life. Her parents could scream at each other down below, but they would never grace her presence here. This was her own slice of Heaven protecting her from the Hell that laid below. The only times her parents did come up was to bring up her bed and set up the rabbit pen for the other living occupant of the room, Bun-bun. The small ball of white fluff was a living testament that life could survive in this harsh home. If it really could be called a home.
Aubrey finally willed herself to move away from the mirror and towards her bed. A few months ago, she bought some hair bleach and pink dye with the allowance she could scrounge up but was too afraid to use it. She was fully aware her father disapproved of dying her hair, but she did promise Mari one day… One day. When would that day come? It remained hidden under the bed, a soft promise waiting to be fulfilled. Just like the room did, the bed creaked and groaned under Aubrey’s weight.
She stared at the walls and absent mindedly reached for her dear friend Mr. Plantegg. Nonchalant hand movements became frantic. Then she looked at her bed and below, the plush was gone, nowhere to be seen. She never noticed this whole time; she didn’t have the urge to hug something for some time until now. Just to feel something. Tired tears began to gently fall from her face, she couldn’t make it stop. Wearily she grabbed her pillow, hugging it tightly to her chest as if it her life depended on it, the pillow absorbing each tear that fell from her weary face. The echoes of an argument reverbed in the room, right on cue Aubrey thought to herself. What a grim thought. She longed, yearned for the times that once were. To have something, someone listen to her, make her pain easier to bear. However, those times had been buried 6 feet under with the cornerstone of her friendships. Mari…
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It’s not that she didn’t care or didn’t try, it just felt impossible. Hero was the first to ‘vanish’, Aubrey could sympathize with him in that regard. He was the one who appeared to be hit the hardest. She recalled Kel telling her that he wouldn’t leave his room or even his bed! When Hero did return to school, he had to prepare to leave for college. It was almost as if he was leaving as soon as he came back. She knew it wasn’t his fault, but the feeling of being abandoned by circumstance still lingered.
Sunny was next to disappear. It was more sudden and unceremonious, just as if he was blipped from existence. He was sitting by his window, daydreaming about who knows what one day, then all that remained was an empty desk. It was never filled that year. Her heart sunk that day; Sunny was someone who listened to her woes in their sacred place of the swing set. He seemed to enjoy her presence and didn’t mind whenever she spilled her thoughts. In some desperate act of having someone to talk to she’d go to the swing sets and wait for Sunny to come. She’d never pay attention to the time but left whenever the streetlights flickered on. She used to count each day but eventually they blurred into weeks, weeks melted into months. Empty desk. Empty swing. No one was coming to take that seat.
Kel left more subtly; he would fluctuate between lunch tables, until one day he didn’t return. Some part of her soul envied Kel; he got to pursue playing basketball. Her parents griped about how they could never afford her playing softball. A pyre in her soul begun to burn, circumstance was the kindling, and envy was the match that set it ablaze. This… was anger. Not a hatred, least not as far as she knew, but a burning anger. She didn’t want to be angry! But her friends left her! They never came back for her, they moved on with life. Did they move on from her too? Did they forget about Mari and how important she was to them? Well… there was one person left in their friend group who kept to himself.
Basil still went to school, but as if a switch was flicked inside of him, he withdrew from everyone. Even more so the day Sunny stopped coming to school. Aubrey didn’t want to abandon anyone the way they abandoned her, so she devised a plan to hang out with him and at least conjure some good times. He seemed afraid of her at first, but reluctantly agreed to a study session at his house. A sigh of relief escaped her, maybe some things remained relatively normal after all…
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That was further from the truth. All Aubrey wanted was to see the happy memories of her friends but instead she was greeted by the crude cancelling of them. White knuckles gripped the binding of the photo album, hot tears streamed down her face. Her breath was shaky, her whole body seemed to be vibrating with that same burning emotion. Anger. Whatever was keeping the anger at bay before shattered with a deep seething rage. It was supposed to be a quick peek as Basil excused himself to the bathroom, so quick he wouldn’t have known. Black sharpie had danced their trails along each photograph, condensing around faces and mindlessly traversing elsewhere. Basil had tried to blot out their memories! No wonder he isolated himself; if people knew how much of a freak he was… the train of thought had been cut short and her eyes darted up at the sound of the creaking door.
If Basil feared her before he was now petrified. He could feel the rage radiating from her body, quick stammers were uttered but fell on deaf ears. She didn’t want to hear it, nothing he could say could make her forgive this. The album was slammed shut with an audible WHUMP! She needed to leave. She needed to get the album out of there. She couldn’t stand to be near this…
“Creep.”
Her mouth uttered the word before her conscience could stop her from saying it. She grabbed her things wordlessly; Aubrey swore she could hear him crying and stuttering but there was no empathy to conjure. Nothing. She slammed the door and made her way back... Home. If you could call it that.
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The day he left was unceremonious, uneventful, as if the house itself was too tired to care anymore. There was no screaming match. No objects were thrown. Just a quiet shuffling and static buzzing on the TV. The door closed. The car in the driveway pulled out. Never to come back. He had left without saying goodbye. Aubrey sat up in her bed and watched the headlights fade away into the predawn light from her window. Her father’s departure left a vacuum. No words. No tears. Mari had left, her friends had left, and now her father left too. Her mother had become so catatonic she wasn’t there either. Aubrey was tired of being left behind and having life barrel on like a runaway train.
It was time to fulfil her lost promises. Aubrey opened the hatch and peered down below, the TV’s static hum and the smell of stale beer slapped her in the face. She gripped onto the small tub of cheap hair bleach, knowing what she wanted to do but was hesitant to do it. She never had her hair bleached prior as the one person who wouldn’t allow it wasn’t there to stop her, or yell at her for trying. She descended into the musky dim light of the hallway, the floor groaning in response to her step. The smell of garbage and beer was pungent. A handful of flies buzzed around congealed junk on the walls. Nervously she peered into the living room to see if her mother heard her descent from the attic. No. There was not a single stir from the woman on the couch, just one hand gripping a bottle of beer the other laid lifelessly on a cushion. The soft movement of her breathing was the only indication that she was still alive. The TV hadn’t been switched off all night, nor was it even on a specific channel, just endless humming static. The sight normally would’ve made her cry, but today it repulsed her, a reminder that there was no one here in this house for her.
Wordlessly she went into the bathroom, the floors sighing with each step. This room had always been disgusting and filled with random trash that no one had the heart to throw away. The sink was all she needed anyway, and it didn’t need to be clean. Aubrey nervously tried reading the instructions in the dim lighting, determined to do it. Once she had an idea how to apply the bleach she began, watching herself through the dirty bathroom mirror. There was a slow searing pain to her scalp as she put the bleach on her hair, murmuring small mantras of encouragement to keep going. It was pointless to deny the burning sensation that grew in a slow agonizing intensity. She bit her lip to muffle her whimpers. However, she was reaching her limit quickly; she couldn’t stand it anymore and desperately needed to wash it out. The pipes moaned and water rushed forth, Aubrey frantically washed her hair, not caring if the sink wasn’t entirely hygienic, she just wanted anything to make the searing pain stop. Eventually it ceased from an intense burning to a throbbing pain. After rinsing she looked at her dirty reflection, a soft gasp escaped her mouth. She hardly recognized her own face staring back, dark hair was burned into a dishwater blonde with an orange tint. It had been washed out too early. But somehow that felt okay, the color seemed to suit her. While the burning pain took some time to subside, the mixed emotions of the morning did not. If anything, the anger she felt when she last saw that… creep… was amplified after her father left. This wasn’t going anywhere any time soon.
Glancing down on the grimy counter she saw a red sharpie that had been carelessly discarded by someone, seemingly untouched by the filth in the bathroom. It felt like a sign from God to pick it up, which led to a new train of thought. If her father left, then their shared last name wasn’t really hers anymore. Was it? Aubrey stormed out of the house, not caring her mother awoke from the loud, sudden movement and walked over to the mailbox. It had seen better days; parts of the metal had rusted in places giving an orange tinge to the cool gray. The placard remained with a clean metallic shine, with her last name engraved-
No.
She didn’t want to see it. She didn’t want to be associated with another person who’d leave without saying goodbye. She uncapped the red sharpie and proceeded to scribble over the name, until all the remained was a red blob making it indistinguishable from what it once was. Staring at her handiwork, she thought it would make her feel better yet that feeling of rage remained. Aubrey wanted to destroy something. More. This was not enough. She returned to Hell and ascended to her piece of Heaven, the morning light trickling softly into the room, the sacred light illuminating the symbol of her lost dreams, her old scuffed up wooden bat leaning against the tired walls. Aubrey grabbed the bat, testing the weight after all these years, the rough wood still feeling right in her hands. It was time to descend. As she made a beeline for front door the shadows of the house blurred together until she reached the blinding morning light outside. Her arms drooped as she paused on the front step. The bat made a soft scraping noise on the concrete as she dragged it behind her on her way to the mailbox.
She stood there motionlessly, looking at the rusted, vandalized mailbox unable to move for a minute. Why was it so hard to move now? Her arms felt like they were made of lead and gravity kept them to her sides. Was it regret? Remorse? Hesitancy? Then she felt it, a single hot tear rolling off her face. It was a silent mental cue as she found the will to raise her arms with the bat well above her head. The next tear that fell was the cue to swing the bat down onto the tired metal mailbox. It made a loud metallic clank that echoed throughout the block, yet not a soul stirred in response. Not even the birds fluttered away. No one was going to stop her. She didn’t need to wait for any more mental cues to hit the mailbox again. Relentlessly she kept swinging, each hit gaining in force. The metal couldn’t stand the force much longer and began to bend to her will. Aubrey didn’t realize she was making a growling noise at the start, but the more she swung the growl crescendoed to a yell. Every ounce of venomous fury was poured out of her with each consecutive swing. She no longer cared if anyone heard or saw her display of raw, hurt emotion. Her arms began to ache, the muscles pleading for her to stop.
She made one last triumphant strike. Her arms drooped to her side like wilted flowers on a hot summer day. The contorted metal creature that remained silently screamed as the lid hung agape from her abuse. Its twisted spine could no longer stand upright. This felt enough. Aubrey slumped onto the curb in between the mailbox and driveway. The bat propped up one of her arms while the other arm carried her chin. Tears streamed down, in a mixture of exhaustion, grief, and rage. All she felt like now was a like wrung-out dishtowel. It was a new day and she felt like a different person, born anew from pain and rage that had been dammed up far too long. No more unfulfilled promises, no more being left behind. Church bells rang in the distance.
Perhaps it was time to seek peace after all. Maybe she could move on, like they did.