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Clea Dessendre was a creature of habit. A person with routines and peculiarities. For the majority of her life, she’d done everything the same way, each and every time without divergence. If these things worked for her, then why should she change them? It made perfect sense.
But, what didn’t make sense was the day she made the decision to break those routines and step into her brother’s room.
It had been nearly a year already. Since the fire. There were traces of him that still lingered all over the manor. Tiny dents and scratches left from playing indoors, pages and pages of sheet music with his handwriting scribbled across the margins, and even doodles of his favorite little creatures. Sometimes if she looked hard enough, she could still see his face looking back at her in the polished wooden surfaces of furniture, like he was standing just behind her. Or whenever Monoco and Noco came to her begging for treats and wanting to play. As much as Verso lingered in the spaces around her, his absence was felt just as keenly. It was in the way she heard silence in her Atelier instead of soft piano notes drifting in the air; in the way his door was always shut now.
His room hadn’t changed. Everything still remained, staged in its place, just as it had been and would always be from now until the end of time. His bed perfectly made and inviting, but never to be used again. Clea stroked her hand down the soft blanket. That giant plushie, Esquie, he’d always clung to as a boy sat still in the middle of the bed with a perpetual smile, waiting for the friend that would never return. She reached for it but stopped short. No, she should leave things as they lie.
On the other side of the room, tracks and toy trains lay scattered among the other childish things he should have grown out of years ago. A soft smile came to her lips as memories of their canvas playground play out around the toys on her brother’s bedroom floor. She tries not to think of what it’s become now — a portrait of grief and sorrow instead of the whimsical wonderland Verso had always intended it to be.
Clea pushes that unhelpful thought aside. She’s spent enough time and energy being angry with everything that’s transpired since the fire and Verso’s passing. For once, she just wants to be selfish and take a quiet moment to herself to mourn; to reminisce in the peaceful silence of Verso’s room and hold onto the frozen time here before she has to return to reality again because no one else will.
She turns away from it before she can let the rage creep back up on her again. Not now. Just a little while longer.
The wardrobe on the other side of the room is shut tight but Clea can still smell the lingering notes of Verso’s cologne wafting from inside. She remembers when he bought that stupid cologne and how much she teased him about it for no real reason other than to get a rise out of him.
“Ugh, what’s that awful stench!” she’d said
“Awful stench? I’ll have you know this is high quality cologne, dear sister,” he’d replied, with barely contained offense in his tone.
“I think you might have been swindled and sold some water from the seine.”
“Don’t be rude! It’s not my fault you lack taste.”
She laughed and shook her head. It was probably the first time in months she’d actually felt light enough to smile, let alone laugh. But even so, everything inside of her that wasn’t anger or determination felt so hollow. So foreign. Clea opened the wardrobe and the scent became even stronger. She closed her eyes and just for a moment, pretended that Verso was still there. Like he had just walked past her and everything was as it should be. But when she opened them again, only haphazardly folded and stacked clothes met her.
Without giving herself time to reconsider, Clea reached into the pile and pulled out a plain white dress shirt. There was nothing special about it and she couldn’t even recall a time she’d seen Verso wear that particular garment, but she still took it and held it to her face all the same. Inhaling deeply, she let the scent of him envelope her. A sudden sob wracked her chest, unbidden, before she could stop it. Clea hadn’t let herself cry for Verso, not since the night he died. She had only held onto every emotion that wasn’t grief or sorrow or even apathy. Aline had enough of that for all of them.
But for just this small pocket of time, Clea allowed herself to cry, to mourn and to be a hypocrite. It was easier when she was alone. She didn’t think she could actually stand the thought of someone seeing her like this. In her moment of weakness. Emotions didn’t help anything, in fact, they usually tended to make the situation actively worse. She watched emotions rule her mother, rendering her completely useless in the war that was waging outside the manor, in the real world where she was spending less and less time everyday. Clea could not allow herself that escape. She had to think with her head and ignore her heart, no matter how much it ached in her chest.
But now…
Her heart was all that there was. It was like she could feel it breaking in her chest all over again. Clea dropped to her knees on the floor, face still buried in his shirt. She should feel embarrassed or ashamed even, but the only feeling in her at that moment was longing. She wanted her brother back, wanted to tease him and paint with him and take breakfast with him out in the garden with their bare feet and stains on their clothes.
But Verso was gone. And so too were those times along with him.
Clea allowed herself just a few more moments more before gathering herself again. She forced herself to stand and dabbed her tears on his shirt and moved to return it to the wardrobe but stopped short. Her fingers curled around the fabric like the idea of releasing it was a pain worse than death. Instead, she closed the wardrobe, in an attempt to keep as much of the cologne smell lingering there as long as she could. Just in case.
With one last glance around Verso’s room, Clea said goodbye again. As she turned to leave, a little shadow greeted her in the doorway.
Her younger sister said nothing but then again, no spoken words needed to be shared. They both understood the other. They each felt the hollow space between them so keenly, that space where something was missing and would never be whole again. Alicia’s eye drifted to the crumpled fabric pressed against Clea’s chest and the girl’s expression softened ever so slightly in understanding.
“I miss him,” was all Clea could trust herself to say without the wave of emotion threatening to swallow her once more.
Alicia moved closer to her sister and placed a hand on the shirt. The scarring there wasn’t nearly as bad as the ones that now covered her face, an ever present, yet still living reminder of the tragedy that had befallen their family. Clea was intensely grateful to still have her younger sister with her but even so, she loathed Verso’s act of martyrdom all the same.
Clea slid her hand atop Alicia’s as they shared a silent moment there in the hall outside his bedroom, “But, I’m so grateful you’re still here with me, too.” She leaned forward and pressed a small kiss to her sister’s crown, allowing herself to be open and vulnerable for just a little while longer. She could go back to being the rock, the rational and the emotionless again, but for now, it was nice just to feel whole even if it was just for a fleeting moment.