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Adhara was woken up by the tiny streams of sunlight flooding in through her window. She didn’t open her eyes yet, but she knew she had slept in. Again.
It was becoming a habit.
When she finally did open her eyes, she habitually checked her phone.
11:26 AM. 2 messages from Sirius. 5 from Barty. She didn’t read them right away, she knew they were likely just checking on her since she had slept in again.
Instead she let herself wake up. She listened to every ache in her body as she sat up. She heard the bed groan as she pushed herself out of it. She heard the floorboards of her tiny, old apartment creak as she walked into the small kitchen, if you could call it a kitchen, and she listened to the pouring of the liquid as she made herself a small cup of coffee.
Only after she had let her brain settle into today’s reality had she checked the messages. And just as she had thought, they were just checking on her.
She replied fast, a simple “Slept in. I’m fine,” before putting her phone back down and sitting to finish her coffee.
She liked the quietness of her small apartment. She liked to sit in the silence, maybe read. It was a stark contrast to the house she had grown up in.
In that house there had been fighting and yelling and shouting. There had been beatings and bruises and crying. Sometimes it came as punishment for obvious wrongdoings she or Sirius may have done. Others, it felt like their parents just wanted to hurt them. It was very rare to have a quiet day in that house.
So when Adhara finally left, which took a considerable amount of courage at the time, she found herself a quiet place to stay. And she liked it that way.
She was also glad, somewhat, that Pandora had pushed her to reach out to Sirius again after she had left that house. She didn’t think he would answer, but he had, and now they were talking again.
Her relationship with her brother hadn’t been the same since he left, and she didn’t think it ever would. But at least they didn’t hate each other anymore. At least they considered each other siblings again, even if they had their share of…disagreements.
Her phone buzzed again. Barty.
She loved Barty. She really did. But sometimes he was…overly excitable. He wasn’t too much. Well, he was. That’s why she liked his company. He reminded her of Sirius. But sometimes she just wanted to be alone.
In all honesty, she just didn’t have the energy to go out and do things like Barty did. She didn’t know why. Even Dorcas and Evan seemed to be fine to go out every day. Adhara didn’t know why she didn’t have the energy when even her most “introverted” friends could have it. Thinking about it made her feel funny.
Lots of things made her feel funny, really.
She had noticed it a long time ago. The funny feelings. The piece in her heart that seemed to be gone. She had felt the pit in her stomach grow as she started to really navigate life, and she didn’t understand why it was there. But no matter if it was her heart, her stomach, or something else entirely, she felt like a part of her was missing. Like a certain part of her was just sitting very far away from her, waiting for her to find it.
She was scared though. Scared of what would happen when she found that part of her, if it was even there to find.
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“C’mon, Addie, it’ll be fun!” Barty had been begging for a while now. Adhara refused to give in.
She had eventually been forced to leave the solitude of her apartment by Barty, who had wanted to hang out. But with one comes another, namely Evan, and with two comes the whole group. Pandora had suggested they go to the shops, which apparently everyone had agreed to.
And then Barty was reminded that theaters exist, and he suddenly wanted to go watch whatever movie was playing.
“No, Bee, you know i don’t watch movies.” Adhara hated movie theaters. They always had too many small children or old men, always had dirty floors, and smelled too much like butter for her to enjoy the experience.
“Awe, but it will be different this time,” he continued. “There’s a horror movie playing.”
That seemed to interest the rest of the group. Pandora’s eyes widened in excitement, while Evan and Dorcas shared a look. Adhara stood her ground.
”I don’t care. I don’t go to the theaters alone, much less with you, as loud as you are.”
Barty frowned. “But—“
”Bee, forget it. She doesn’t want to. Me and you can watch a movie..” Evan quietly offered a solution, to which Barty gave a small shake of his head.
“We always watch movies together, Rosie. I wanna watch one with Addie too.”
Evan sighed, and Barty went on trying to convince Adhara to go. She stayed adamant that she was NOT going to the movies.
But after another 10 minutes of Barty begging, Adhara was tired.
”Fine. I’ll go watch your stupid movie.” She reluctantly agreed. And she wasn’t happy about it.
But she did like the smile it brought to all of her friends faces, so she got over that quickly.
The group decided that they would go watch this movie next Saturday, since they were all free for once, before deciding to head back to their respective homes. Barty and Evan walked back to their flat, while Pandora and Dorcas walked Adhara back to her apartment.
They said their goodbyes at the door and the two other girls walked away, heading to their own places.
Adhara, once inside of her apartment, finally let herself breath.
Why did i let Barty talk me into it? Am i really that weak? she thought to herself. She hated going to the movies. Why had she let Barty’s insistence get to her? It had never happened before.
She could feel the air shift while thinking about it. She couldn’t tell what it felt like, but she knew it was different. She had a sudden feeling that her life was going somewhere she hadn’t even thought about before.
But maybe that was just how tired she was.
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That week leading up to their “friend group movie date,” as Panda had taken to calling, felt too long. Adhara felt more sluggish than ever that week, even canceling her plans with Sirius so that she wouldn’t have to get dressed up.
When the fateful saturday finally came, Adhara was still just as sluggish as she had been that whole week. She took her time putting on a “going out” outfit, a nice black shirt and a green turtleneck underneath, with a simple black skirt she had gotten from Pandora, paired with some tights and black boots. It was a nice outfit, but not too dressy. Classy, as her mother would have put it. God she hated the influence that woman still had on her.
She put on a few rings and a necklace, before grabbing her bag and deciding that she looked “good enough.” Then she walked out the door.
She walked down to the same coffee shop that the group usually met at when they left their homes at different times, ordered herself a coffee, and sat down at a little lonely table in the back. Her favorite table.
She looked at her phone, and at the coffee, but she didn’t drink it. She didn’t feel like she could at the moment. She had started to feel the underlying feeling that she couldn’t breathe. Well, really she had always felt it, the suffocating. It was one of the funny feelings she got. But today it was more prominent.
Definite, almost.
She hated thinking about the definity of her life. Like she’d always have these weird feelings that she couldn’t explain. She hated thinking about the suffocating feeling of her throat, it almost felt like drowning. When she thought about it for too long she started to lose her breath, without even realizing it.
Just as soon as she had started to think about the drowning sensation, it was stopped by the sound of a very loud and happy Barty.
“Adhara~ You actually came!” Barty bounced right up to her, Evan following close behind.
She looked up and gave him a look that very obviously showed how much she DIDNT want to be here.
“Only because I agreed and I don’t break my word, Barty. Dont expect this to become a regular occurrence.”
Barty laughed and threw an arm around her. “I didn’t.”
He let go of her just as Dorcas and Pandora arrived. The two girls walked over to the rest of the group, smiling excitedly as well.
“All right, we’re all here now,” Dorcas started, “Let’s get to the movie before we miss it. What did you say it’s called again, Barty?”
They all stood and as they started walking Barty answered:
”I Saw The TV Glow!”
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The 5 of them secured their tickets for this “TV glow” movie, and Barty insisted on getting popcorn. Adhara refused the idea, and she and Dorcas went ahead into movie room 8 to get the groups’ seats saved.
Luckily, the theater wasn’t too crowded, much to Adhara’s satisfaction. Maybe the experience would be enjoyable this time.
“Cmon Adhara, let’s sit. They’re going to be a while, we can watch the movie ads.”
Adhara nodded, following behind Dorcas and sitting beside her, but where one of the others—probably pandora or barty— could sit next to her.
She was silent for a while. Then, without looking at Dorcas, Adhara asked “So..what’s this movie about?”
She didn’t know what had prompted her to ask the question, she just had the urge to. It was weird. She really didn’t like movies, so being oddly interested in this one that she had no idea what it was about freaked her out a bit. But she didn’t let that show.
Thankfully Dorcas hadn’t noticed the absurdity of Adhara’s question.
“I’m not sure really. Something about two friends who watch a TV show together. But it’s supposed to be a horror movie, so maybe they get trapped in the show or something interesting like that.”
Adhara nodded, and wondered to herself, What could be so scary about this movie if it was about a TV show?
A few minutes later Evan, Barty and Pandora appeared beside the two, and they all sat down. She ended up between Pandora and Barty, having to move down a seat, but it was alright she supposed.
The lights dimmed in the theater and the few people that were there, including her friends, shushed.
The movie was about to start.
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“I didn’t really get it.” Barty was saying as they walked out of the theater. But Adhara could barely here him.
That movie..The ending…Isabel…Owen…
Adhara thought for a while, tuning the rest of the group out. It finally all made sense.
The never feeling quite right. The always wanting to be separate from herself. The pit in her stomach. The suffocating.
The always wanting to look more like Sirius or his friends, hidden somewhere deep inside the soul. The hating looking in the mirror. The never wanting to be seen, because other people would never see her the right way.
It all made sense to him now.
”Hey, Addie, you good? I know you probably didn’t like the movie but i didn’t think it-“
He interrupted Barty. “I’m fine Barty. I..I actually kinda liked that one.”
Barty smiled.
“So, did you get it? Cuz i know i didn’t.”
“I didn’t either. I mean, i got that it was about being trapped, or something, but… I dunno. It didn’t make entire sense.” Dorcas added.
Evan and Pandora both seem to agree that they also didn’t really get the movie.
They didn’t get the obvious show of how Isabel was trapped inside a body that was not her own, and they didn’t get that Owen was afraid of being her. Because you can’t be someone you aren’t born as, can you? His friends didn’t get the message, didn’t understand how the suffocating really felt. How it hurt to breathe in a body that wasn’t you, not fully.
“Yea, i think i got it, actually.”
He felt very sure in his statement. The first thing Regulus Black would ever feel sure of.
They discussed some points in the movie as they walked down the streets, just enjoying each others company. But he kept thinking about how the ending made him feel.
“There is still time.”
Is there? Is there still time for him to figure his true self out? Is there still time to bury this body of his and come back in a different one, one that was more his? One he liked seeing in the mirror? Was there still time to have a life where the suffocating wasn’t all consuming, and if there is, will anyone see him as his true self?
Or will they always see Adhara Rhea Black, the daughter, the one that never was her real self, hiding him away for safety, without even knowing it.
He didn’t know if he still had time.
But as he walked into his apartment that night, saying goodbye to his friends, he new that he was damn well going to make the time he did have left count.
He looked up out of his bedroom window that night and into the stars. His eyes landed on one. Regulus. The heart of the lion. Little King.
He had always liked that star better than Adhara anyway.