i

She was waiting for me when I opened up the bathroom stall. I froze, my agenda book shoved in my armpit.

Tears brimmed dangerously in her eyes, the skin around them crinkled with pride and longing sadness.

My breathing gradually accelerated, my chest heaving, struggling to drag in the suddenly stale air. My mouth was dry, my throat choking on its swallows, and I shook my head, my vision slowly blurring with the obscurity of angry tears.

“Mom.” I croaked, my fingertips yearning to touch her face one more time, shaking as they hovered mere centimeters from her empty skin.

“Listen to me, Ana.” She commanded softly, her voice distant, slanting against the cement blocks of the bathroom. “I love you, baby, and I’m sorry it ended this way.”

“No!” My voice was so hollow, a shrieking whisper, the only sound in my ears. Everything felt like it was bleeding, and beneath my ribs, my heart was racing as I attempted to form any word other than denial.

“I will not follow you, Ana, sweetheart.” My mom slowly shook her head. “I will not appear to you ever again, okay? So, this is my goodbye, baby. I love you with all my heart.”

My hot tears spilled down my cheeks, leaking into my mouth. “And Dad?”

“I’m so sorry.” She softly repeated.

I didn’t even want to know how.

Suddenly, my stomach lurched, and I spun on my heel, tumbling back into the stall, knees cracking into the tile floor, as I sacrificed my lunch.

I rested my sweaty forehead against the stall wall, trying to control my breathing.

Nothing felt real.

I rolled my head back to see Miracle with her knees drawn up under her chin sitting with me, just outside the stall. She didn’t meet my gaze, tear-filled eyes studying the tiles beneath my feet, and that was fine by me.

I flushed the toilet, watching the chunks and spit swirl round and round in the bowl. Eventually, I got to my feet, crammed my agenda book in my back pocket, and gave the corner of the bathroom where my mom had been standing my middle finger. I stalked down the hall, past my classroom, and headed straight out the door at the end of the hallway.

I didn’t stop walking until I hit the crosswalk at the light a block down from the high school. I wasn’t sure where my feet were taking me, and I slouched against the street sign while the light cycled through, the bright white man finally signalling to continue. My feet took off again, and I wound up pushing the glass door open to the convenience store at a gas station, stopping only when I ran out of ground, standing at the counter.

“Marlboro Reds.” My mouth spat out in a voice surprisingly strong and gruff.

The guy screwed up his face in disbelief, fingers fiddling with the hem of his uniform shirt. “How old are you?”

I growled at him. “What does it matter? Gimme the damn pack.”

Then a ten dollar bill was scrunched in my fist — how did that get there?

“Uh,” the guy stuttered, “it’s illegal to sell tobacco to a minor.”

“I just found out my parents are dead, shithead.” I snarled, molars grinding against one another. “Keep the change, or whatever you want, but just gimme a fucking pack of Marlboro Reds.”

His eyes saddened behind the glasses, and he tossed a pack of the cowboy killers on the counter, his lips twisted up, feeling sorry for me.

I snagged a cheap lighter out of the bin in case the one in my pocket decided to be a cockblock and not start. I threw down the ten dollar bill, flashed the guy a smile, and swiped the Reds, disappearing with the tinkling of the bell hanging over the front door.

I rounded the building, heading for the smoker’s corner, where employees and others went since it was right outside the limit of the smoke-free zone. Fucking gas stations.

I packed the cigarettes, slamming the flimsy cardboard against my palm harder than I ever had, tears blinding me, and I tore the packaging off, cramming the plastic and foil in my other back pocket.

The cheap lighter took a few flicks of the flint, but in no time, I was puffing at the heavy cigarette, feeling the smoke burn the back of my throat.

I collapsed on a milk crate, my left palm pressed against my forehead, and I pathetically sniffled back the tears streaking down my cheeks in shame.

I finished the cigarette, stomping the cherry out, and I blew the final breath of smoke out in a long sigh between pursed lips.

I met Miracle’s eyes with a challenge, my chin jutted out. “What do you want?”

She didn’t drop her gaze. She didn’t even respond. She just stood there, staring at me.

I couldn’t read her face, and I didn’t know if it was from the fog in my brain or the buzz — which death was blurring my mind, I didn’t care.

After a while, I got to my feet and headed back to school. It all felt so pointless as I shamefacedly walked back through the halls. I retrieved my backpack, which was still sitting in my fifth period, AP American History, and with a curious suspicion my teacher narrowed his eyes at me, directing me to the principal’s office, ushering me out with an “I’m so sorry.”

I sat in the principal’s office, jaw clenched, my backpack clutched at my chest.

Miracle stood next to the principal’s desk, one hand gently placed on the glossy chestnut, the other dangling uselessly at her side. She had no words, unlike my principal who kept rocking back and forth between consoling me for my loss and fussing at me for leaving school grounds. I tuned her out, hunkering down in the oversized chair.

I didn’t want to talk to a counselor. I didn’t want to talk with someone from Child Services. I didn’t want to talk.

Eventually, she stopped trying to get me to talk and simply patted my shoulder.

“A police officer will be by your house tonight to check on you, okay?” She told me quietly, for the first time appearing like a normal human, the tiredness leaking through the crack in her strong, feminist shield.

I nodded. “Does that mean I can go home now?”

She drew in a deep breath, hesitant. “Why don’t we get an officer to take you home?”

I nodded again. I didn’t really care. I just wanted to be home.

ii

I couldn’t sleep.

I lay on the couch in the family room, staring at the ceiling. I could hear the clock on the mantle tick onward. When I stumbled up to the front door from the police car, fumbling with the lock, I slammed the door behind me and made a beeline for this couch.

I wanted to sleep.

The phone kept ringing, but I never got up once to answer it. I just lay on the couch, memorizing the crown molding.

Miracle appeared at my side, staring down at me. Are you okay?

I rolled my eyes. “They’re dead, Miracle. Okay isn’t exactly something I can be.”

You know what I mean. She crossed her arms.

I sighed, slowly pushing myself into a sitting position. I met her eyes, which were basically at my eye level when I sat down if she were standing. “Yeah, I guess, I’m okay.”

Have you seen Dad yet?

I shook my head. “I probably won’t. Have you?”

Miracle dropped her gaze.

I scooted forward on the fluffy seat cushion. “What’d he say?”

Miracle leveled with me, eyes darting from my left to right and back again.

I frowned. “What?”

Miracle silently swallowed.

“God, Miracle,” I grunted, getting to my feet. The cigarette was between my fingers, my other hand frustratedly shaking the new lighter, before I had even fully processed the desire for one. I lit it and took a drag.

I pushed past Miracle into the kitchen and unlocked the door onto the patio, standing on the edge of the cement, letting the world paint me in the bruised purple of the sunset. I watched the cherry of the cigarette glow, flicking the ash onto the grass.

Miracle materialized beside me, hovering awkwardly at my shoulder. As I grew taller than her, if we were ever standing together, she preferred to float at my side. I think it made her still feel like my equal if she was at least my height.

I glanced at her, offering her the cigarette. Usually Miracle just shook her head, waving her pasty fingers at me, but this time, she accepted. My fingers quickly iced as she brushed her fingertips against mine, taking the cigarette in her hand. She took a drag, and a chill settled into the nape of my neck.

As she blew the smoke out of her already dead lungs, the porch light flickered on and off. My lips twitched into half a smile, and I took the cigarette back from her, finishing it. I stamped it out.

“Now, what did Dad tell you?” I pushed.

Miracle hesitated a moment, so I threatened her, “I’m going to find out eventually. Just fucking tell me before I take a lighter to you.”

Her eyes flashed with disapproval and disdain. She flipped me the bird.

I grinned. “Just tell me already.”

Follow me, she waved.

Her legs folded out of her nightgown, and she settled onto the ground. I fell in step behind her as Miracle led me into Dad’s office. She pointed at the top drawer on the left side. I slid it open and withdrew the top stack of papers, bound by one of those plastic clips.

I frowned. “What are these?”

She shrugged and rocked back in Dad’s office chair, swivelling it back and forth.

I pushed through the legal jargon, hoping the answer I wanted would come decoded already, and that’s when I realized what I was reading.

I looked at Miracle who was contentedly swinging her feet.

“Did you know about this?” My voice inched higher, my fingers curling around the papers.

The sad twist in her lips told me everything.

“For how long?”

Remember that Christmas?

I stared at her. “That’s why you appeared and made us a family again. You thought it was your last chance.”

Miracle guiltily studied the dirty carpet where Dad’s shoes had ground into it for years. I didn’t know it would actually encourage them to salvage their marriage.

I blinked, quietly snorting with shocked laughter. “So Dad told you to tell me that my parents wanted to divorce?”

Miracle shook her head. He knew you would find out eventually, and he wanted you to know that they weren’t splitting because of you.

“Oh, well, thanks.” I spat, throwing the papers back into the drawer and slamming it shut.

I ran my fingers through my hair. “And Dad couldn’t even show up in person.”

Miracle shrugged.

I shook my head in disbelief. “What a dick!”

Miracle leaned on her arm, amused.

I spun around to face her, unaware that I had begun to pace. “Like I would ever blame myself for my parents divorcing. I’m glad they were finally going to end it. They were only holding each other back!”

I caught myself, tears suddenly tugging at my throat. “Not that it matters now.”

Miracle gave me a small smile, trying to be supportive, sympathetic.

I sighed, my toes involuntarily tapping the carpet. “You know what?” I challenged, reaching for the lowest drawer. I could feel Miracle’s eyes tracking me with uncertain disapproval. I tugged the drawer open, the bourbon bottle jostling against the wood. I smiled, fingers curling around the neck of the bottle.

Miracle shook her head at me, but I ignored her, uncapping it and taking a swig.

I coughed a little, instinctively gagging. “Oh, God, that burns!”

Miracle rolled her eyes, slouching into the chair. You’re such an idiot.

I flicked her off, took the bourbon, and left the room, making my way toward the stairs, figuring it would be oddly poetic to get drunk in my parents’ bed.

Then it clicked.

I stormed back into the office, where Miracle was still spinning around in Dad’s chair.

“You fucking killed them, didn’t you?” I screamed, spittle passing right through her.

Miracle blinked, her calm expression too unsettling. She shook her head.

“Yeah, right!” I shouted in her face. “You fucking appeared to them at that Christmas thing to say goodbye, but that ended up prolonging their marriage. This time they were actually going to go through with the divorce, and you couldn’t keep them together any longer, so you killed them!”

Listen to yourself. She signed slowly and deliberately. That’s ridiculous. I didn’t kill my parents.

“Oh, so now they’re your parents!” I jabbed a finger through her nose, strangely satisfied when she flinched. “What were you trying to save me? Some heartache or something stupid and noble or something like that?”

Miracle’s face changed then, her eyes glowing, brow furrowing deeply, her lips curling backward in a silent snarl. Her mouth formed the words, her small frame shaking with the scream that never came.

“Fuck. You.” I spat in her face, swallowing another mouthful of bourbon.

I didn’t fucking kill them, you idiot. Miracle’s fingers entangled themselves in her frustration and anger.

“Yeah?” I challenged. “Where’s your proof?”

I sounded stupid to myself then, demanding physical evidence that a specter didn’t murder my parents, but I didn’t really care. My stomach was so twisted and clenched with hatred at the world, and I knew I was unfairly taking it out on Miracle.

I chugged down a couple more gulps of Dad’s bourbon, capped it, and left it on his desk. Without exchanging another word with Miracle, I climbed the stairs, my brain gathering an alien fog. I stumbled into the master bedroom and crawled between the sheets of my parents’ bed.

I couldn’t hold them back any longer, the tears. I cried. I cried so hard it hurt in my abs and my throat. Salty tears and snot soaked the pillows I bit into to dampen my howls.

Even after I felt so empty from the tears, not a single sob left in my sorry carcass, I still couldn’t sleep. I lay in my parents’ bed, curled into myself, and squeezed my eyes shut tight, praying to a god that never existed.

Nothing.

I screamed in anger. How dare the world take my parents? How dare it?

All I wanted to do was sleep.

iii

The house was uncomfortably cold when the doorbell rang. I was still curled under my parents’ sheets, waiting for death, and I cursed the duties of the policeman patiently standing on the front porch.

I knew I was a mess, fuzzy, raw, and numb all at once. I wasn’t even wearing half my clothes anymore, and I didn’t give a damn when I pulled the door open, the chilly spring evening seeping into the shell of my parents’ house, that the stubble on my legs bristled and my almost legal nipples hardened under the new Junior UFC Champion t-shirt I was sporting.

The officer was a strangled mix of embarrassed, shocked, sympathetic, and entertained.

If I wore make-up, the mascara and eyeliner would have transformed my cheeks into streaked window panes, smudged with shoe polish. I blinked my sluggish, puffy eyes, daring the policeman to comment.

“Just checking on you, miss.” He tipped his hat politely, unnerved.

“Well, I’m alive.” My voice was flat and hard. “Thanks for stopping by.”

He nodded. “Is there anything I can do?”

I stared at him for a moment, deliberating which answer to deliver.

“You can go away,” I settled on, closing the front door in his polite face.

He squeezed between the diminishing gap, “I’ll be back in the morning. Good night.”

“Good night.” I muttered at the locked door.

I studied the thick, smooth slab of wood painted white. Something switched on then, and my fingernails were suddenly digging into my palms as my jaw unhinged, an ungodly, shattering yowl bellowing from my scrunching toes. I screamed until my abs shivered. I screamed, and my fists beat against the door. I screamed, my head squeezed between my fists, and nothing made sense.

So many thoughts, so many things — all so pointless, racing around my mind. I couldn’t make heads or tails of any of it, so I screamed.

iv

Unorganized chattering, the chaos in my mind. Everybody is talking, laughing — seriously passing notes, sharing mutes — smiles.

Declarations of war.

Clutter.

Secondhand attention. Clicking now, purposeful and heavy.

Tilt up your lips, my eyes.

Swallow me whole.

File the noise, align the troops.

Grasping hand tools, instruments — of war, of disorder.

Of beauty.

Play a pretty prelude.

Just for me?

Let’s just watch the ashes smolder. The world must be done burning by now, yes? I’ve got nothing left for kindle, nothing left — I’m so dry.

All I have left is myself.

Raise the bow, prepare for the first slice of broken melody.

A slash. Indefinitely out of tune, a squawk — so searing.

Where did you learn to play?

Why?

Have another go at it. My heart still stands, still beats the clockwork onward, driving the drumming hum of the bass — no strings still attached.

There are no upstrokes; such is this melancholy folly of mine, the heart so decayed.

It hurts.

v

“No.”

vi

Somebody had tackily taped red-tinted glass over my eyes.

All I really saw was red; so surreal it was, then, when the thin trickle of blood raised itself from the hell-bones in my wrist.

I wasn’t sure if I really meant to dig into myself, my teeth biting into my cheeks, my nails pinching my palms — the knife in my hand slicing against my wrist.

I was just so goddamn angry.

“No.”

For a moment, I stared at my chapped lips, smelling my own stale breath — saliva, stomach juices, and that bourbon.

Cold. I was so cold.

I noticed then that my fingers were stiff, chilled down to the bone, and the blade clenched in my right hand felt so empty.

But it wasn’t me, my doing.

My eyes blurred out then, settling into a different depth of field.

What a doll, such a lamb — my shadow, Miracle.

I blinked at her.

For the first time, I was the one without words: I had no idea where to begin.

I knew the question (any, really) would be so pointless, already well aware of the answer (all of them, sadly), but I wanted to ask anyway — already well aware of her response. It was a dance so meaningless, both played out and in the air simultaneously.

I opened my mouth to speak, to say anything, a question, a comment — silence.

Fucking nothing.

I just stared at Miracle, my mouth unhinged in utter shock.

It hurt. This was what it took? All seventeen of these years, and nothing had ever crossed the line before? Not when I decked that girl or the other one. Not when we were struggling through sign language together. Not when she stood on that stage. Never, there had been another time for this?

But I knew she only spoke because she knew it was the only way — to get my attention, to get me to stop, to make me understand. She knew I needed to hear her voice, so soft, resonant. It didn’t sound like she hadn’t spoken for seventeen years. It didn’t seem like her voice was rough, unused.

It just wasn’t ever necessary.

The tears were so thick and choking in my throat, swelling it shut. I struggled against the hard lump, grasping at words.

“Thank you.” I whispered, staring into her face of death. My voice was strangled, raspy and gruff.

Miracle smiled softly at me, her fingers fading against the backdrop of mine.

I carefully cleaned the knife and my wrist and replaced the blade, my head suddenly so clear, every edge so defined.

vii

I found myself back in my parents’ bed, more or less spread eagle as I blew smoke at the ceiling, and the Red had a crispness about it I had never tasted before. Miracle joined me on the mattress, her arms an ectoplasmic pillow.

“I love you.” I heard myself say, tilting my chin over to her.

Her cheeks flushed ever so slightly under the lashes fanning across them, her lips curling upward proudly, uncontrollably — reciprocated. She slowly met my gaze.

I love you, too.

“It’s been a rough day.” I listened to the cigarette fizzle and pop as I drew in another breath, feeling how empty yet overly simplistic of a statement it was — felt it burn in my throat, weigh down my chest.

Miracle nodded.

I rolled over and wrapped my sister in an embrace, an act that often didn’t work out quite the way I wanted it to, but now, as I curled my arms around her intangible figure, her chilling weight relaxed into me, the hair on my arms easing themselves erect, saluting the ice creeping through my veins. She twisted then in my arms, and for a moment, I feared that I would collapse into her, through her. Instead, a coolness settled in the nape of my neck, blossoming into a frost that coated every organ, every inch of me — her permanently seven year old-length arms clasped me, and for the first time in my entire life, I found myself cuddling my dead sister.

It was welcoming and inviting — a feeling I could lose myself in studying. Everything a sister’s hug should be.

“You’re all I have left now.” I whispered in her ghostly ear, guiltily wondering if my lips had phased through the side of her head.

Miracle leaned away from me, not in annoyance but agreement, her fingers gently echoing my sentiment.

You’re all I’ve ever had.

It hurt a little when my lips involuntarily jumped into a grin, but I didn’t care, snorting a little with laughter.

I promisingly murmured in her ear, “Guess it’ll be you and me forever then.”

She smiled, too, lashes fanning across her cheeks once more as she blushed shyly.

I took another puff on the deathstick between my fingers, eyes on the ceiling again, and nothing was ever the same.

At least I was finally able to sleep — oh, how I just wanted to sleep.

Next Chapter: IV. Vanilla Cream