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The weight sat heavy in her pocket as she laid on her cot, facing the wall. The rest of the crew had gone into the town to gather supplies- and Jay volunteered to stay behind. To ‘watch the ship’, is what she said.
Really, it was to hide the tears that she knew would be coming that day.
The anniversary of Ava’s death.
Her shoulders shook softly as she stared at the splintering wood, eyes tracing the rapidly blurring lines running through the wall. With one hand wrapped around her- a pitiful attempt to hug herself- and the other clutching the small object in her pocket, she had no choice but to let the tears fall, a small patch of damp forming on her pillow.
After what was probably only a few minutes, even if it did feel like it had been hours on the quiet ship with only the sound of the waves softly rocking the Albatross, Jay slowly pulled her hand- and the object from her pocket- and she just stared at it.
A small shell sat in the palm of her hand, off-white with small red splotches on it. Her father had given it to her when she was younger, so that if she was ever in trouble, she could contact him.
Clasping her hands around the shell gently, she willed the magic to activate- to reach out and connect to the only other it was paired with now. She could feel the connection when it was made, and the miniscule beeps as she waited for someone to pick up.
She knew that no one would. She knew that no one ever would again.
When the beeps stopped, and the magic faded, she squeezed her eyes shut as she began to quietly cry again. Jay knew she should get rid of it, really. There was next to no point in keeping hold of a shell that could only call that owned by her dead sister, but the magical signature of the other shell, one that was lost to the world, felt like the warm hugs her sister used to give her when she was a child. She couldn’t get rid of it.
“If you ever need me Jay-Jay, I’m just a call away!”
She wrapped both arms around herself, grasping her shoulders and trying to mimic that warmth. It would never be the same.
Jay wished, more than anything, that her sister was just a call away now.
Several footsteps above her alerted her to the return of the others, and she rushed to stuff the shell back into a pocket and scrub at her face in an attempt to make it look like she hadn’t been crying.
“I’ll always answer when it’s you, Jay. But if I can’t, just know that I’ll call you back as soon as I can!”
She would be fine. She was always fine.
And as the weight sat heavy in her pocket once more, she climbed the ladder to the deck and greeted the others with a fake smile.