by Unknown
Lastly, near my window, was a slightly blurry picture of Jack and I moving boxes into our latest house, and Daisy in the back with a pout on her face.
I don't know how it got on my wall. Daisy must've put it there. But I remember when my mom had taken that picture. I was about thirteen, so Daisy would've been nine. She was upset about the moving process, as usual, and my mom was snapping shots of her grumpy face in an effort to make her smile.
"I'm tired of moving so much, Dahlia," she had groaned, out of the blue. "It's easy for you and Jack... You make friends easily, and you're happy, and normal."
I guess I looked pretty shocked because Daisy giggled.
"Yes! She knows how to smile!" My mom had cheered.
"Don't look freaked out, Dahlia! I didn't mean I was mentally ill or something. I just meant that I don't like starting over when it's not going to matter in a couple of years." I was taken aback that a nine year-old even thought that far ahead, but my parents must've understood her distress, because they never mentioned moving again. I knew it made Daisy happy, and when she was happy, so were we.
Despite our differences, Daisy and I had many great memories together. Great memories in that house, and the park across the street. One summer afternoon, not long after we moved, Daisy had knocked on my bedroom door.
"Dahlia? Open up! I really need your help!"
"With what? I'm kind of busy right now." I had been writing a very intriguing letter to a pen-pal of mine from summer camp, and once I had started writing something, I couldn't stop.
"Just open up!"
I did so, and Daisie immediately pounced on my bed, waving a flyer ecstatically in my face.
"I can't see what it says if you don't hold still."
The flyer was for some sort of kite flying contest in a couple of weeks. Daisy wanted me to help her learn how to fly a kite, as I had always loved kites. It took a lot of arguing and bribing on her part, but eventually I had agreed, although it seemed like a waste to me.
We spent much of June and July standing by beach, flying our kites. You'd be surprised how hard it can be.
But when Daisy won the contest, I was officially the "best big sister of all time," and all the time we had "wasted" didn’t seem like such a waste to me anymore.
After that contest, we would fly our kites whenever the weather permitted. It was relaxing and stress relieving. But most importantly, we learned a lot about one another. I learned that Daisy wasn't just some insecure and lazy killjoy, but someone who cared for every little thing. She was a big hearted girl who wanted to make a home for herself. Have her ideal of a proper childhood. Have a place to love and make memories in.
Daisy didn't avoid my room like the devil, as the rest of my family did. Jack and my parents didn't want to be reminded of the tragedy that has befallen them every time they stepped through my door. But not Daisy, because she didn't think of tragedy and loss when she came into my room every night. She thought of the person who the tragedy had befallen. That person was her older sister, and she loved her more than anyone in the world.
To Daisy, I would never be gone. I was alive in her memories forever.
***
Tom Halsey. It was odd how I had never thought about him so much as one time since the day in the grocery store, considering he was always on my mind while I was alive.
What was he up to? Did he miss me? Not in a romantic way, of course, but had he missed my presence at school? Been upset by my death? I hadn't seen him at the funeral, but then again he seemed to be missing from a lot of events.
He would mysteriously be absent from class, and whenever the teachers were told that "Tom Halsey wouldn't be there that day," they would say, "Ah. Gotcha," in a knowing way.
No question as to why he was missing, just a general understanding that he was.
Before high school had started, Tom and I had been tight. It all started in 6th grade.
~September 9th, 2004~
School had started about a week before, and I still knew barely anyone. My mom had signed me up for soccer lessons after school, hoping I would make some friends that way.
"Soccer? But everyone does soccer! It's so lame, mom!"
"Exactly. Everyone does soccer. You'll have no problem finding some friends in your class."
"I can find them on my own-"
"Nope. You're going to the soccer. It will do you good. I'll pick you up in the front parking lot at 5:30!"
It was no use arguing with her. Besides, it wasn't like I had anything else to do. Anything was enjoyable for me if I tried hard enough, and put my whole self into it, and maybe soccer could be too.
***
After school, I dragged myself to the soccer field. I was tired and I just wanted to go home. This was a dumb idea, and I was upset at my mother for putting me through this torture. She needed to stop having ideas.
The field was already crowded with kids, most of whom seemed quite at home and knew exactly what to do and where to go. I just sat on the bleachers.
"Dahlia Adler. Is she here? Dahlia?"
A short woman with a messy bun was shouting my name.
"Here."
"Ah! There you are," she smiled curtly and went back to scrolling her clipboard.
"Pretty name, by the way. My daughter's name is Violet."
"Another flower name."
"Yeah, although she's anything but a flower. She's over there." The woman, who I guessed was the coach, pointed to a fierce looking girl a few feet away.
"I think you're on her team, actually. Have fun!"
Remembering why my mom had put me in soccer in the first place, I got up from the bleachers and headed towards Violet.
"Hi! I'm Dahlia, and apparently I'm on your team?"
"Yeah I guess so." She immediately turned back around to talk to her friends again. Rude. My efforts to be friendly failed, as usual.
Looking back, I still don't understand how some people make friends so easily.
Half the time, it's not even your fault, it's theirs. Or maybe you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I didn't have very many friends in middle school, and it took me a long time to come to terms with the fact that some people just don't make friends very well. Others make them faster than Adam Sandler produces comedies. That's just the way it is.
I didn't make any friends in my soccer team no matter how hard I tried. They had been in soccer forever, knew each other forever, and so on. I was the new kid forced to be there. It wasn't until I stopped trying that I actually got somewhere.
It was October now, and I still had two months of soccer and more than two years of middle school. Violet, who was team captain, made every practice hell. She was a total bully, go figure. I consoled myself by sticking out my tongue at her whenever she turned around. My mother said I was too old to be sticking out my tongue, but I didn't care.
"I wonder what would happen if she caught you."
I spun around to face a boy about my age. "What?"
"You know. If she caught you sticking out your tongue at her," he said.
"Oh. You saw that?" I laughed nervously.
"Everyone does. You're pretty obvious about it, really."
"Well whatever. She deserves it." I turned back around.
"Never said she didn't! But next time, tell me so I can stick out my tongue too." He moved to sit next to me on the bleachers.
"You know her?" Who was this guy, anyway?
"Unfortunately. She sits behind me on the bus, and she bosses everyone around constantly. Just my luck to be forced into soccer and have the Schoolbus Satan as my team captain." He shook his head and laughed.
"Wait- you're in soccer? My team?"
"Yeah! I signed up at the beginning of the year, but I sprained my ankle so I couldn't start until today. They said"- he motioned to the coach- "that I wouldn't be any good, but my mom just wants me to exercise and do something besides play video games."
"Same here. Well, I don't really play vide
o games, but you know. Violet is a jerk. She tripped me at school once, too."
"I thought that only happened in movies?"
"Nope. Violet is very real. Only she doesn't have two follower best friends."
"Ah." He got up off the bleachers. "Hey, I'm going to go because my mom's here. See you tomorrow."
I waved as he walked off.
Later, I realized I didn't even know his name.
***
The next Friday, at soccer practice, Violet finally lost it.
"Dahlia? More like Dally-a. You're too slow. Did your parents drop you on your head when you were a baby?"
There was nothing wrong with me and everyone knew it. Still, how are you supposed to be any good at something when your captain is screaming in your face constantly? And when you don't want to be there at all?
I clenched my fists together, resisting the urge to punch Violet as hard as I could.
"Get your act together, punk. Or I'll punk you out. You know I can kick soccer balls, so I could easily kick your thick head as well!"
"Can I call you Violent?" Someone shouted from behind me.
"What do you want?!?" She yelled, charging at the speaker.
I turned to see the boy from last week's practice standing on the bleachers.
He smirked at Violet, and kicked his soccer ball as hard as he could.
It hit her right in the face, and her nose began to bleed. She stood there in shock, and the boy began laughing hysterically.
"That was amazing! It was just like a movie," I breathed.
"Good. The name's Tom, by the way."
"Dahlia."
From then on, Tom and I were fast friends. We didn't put up with any nonsense, and never let anyone mess with us. Tom and I had the wildest adventures, and no one else was invited. We weren't good enough for them, and they weren't good enough for us.
You're probably thinking that all we had to bond over was our shared dislike of Violet, but there was so much more. When you're twelve, and you have a friend like Tom, you feel invincible. Like you can do anything, be anyone you want. You feel like you're on top of the world. Maybe you are.
Why do we have to grow up? Why does everything have to change?
{Nine}
"I'm stuck here forever," Chris sighed.
We were sitting at the old playground again, and there had been silence until Chris had suddenly blurted this terrible thought out.
"That's an awful thing to say! Why would you think that?"
"Like Em told you- forgiveness plays a role in my passing on. My case involves so many people that the odds of them all forgiving me and/or themselves is unlikely."
"I thought you'd forgiven yourself?"
"I have. But I don't think Val has. And the driver of the car that hit me that night still hasn't forgiven herself."
"That can't be right. Something has to happen eventually." This was more of a question than a statement.
"Until they all die, I'm stuck here. I met a little girl named Erica once," he said quietly. "She used to play on this swing set everyday, just as she did when she was alive. The only difference was that she no longer had anyone to play with. She died by choking on a chicken bone. By the time her mother turned around, it was too late. Her mother never forgave herself and Erica was stuck here with us until her mother died a few years ago."
I stared at him blankly.
"That's so sad.. and I thought things like that were just urban legends. So, she forgave her mother but her mother couldn't forgive herself. Did Erica remember how she had died right away?"
"She did. It never hurt her, so maybe that's why she had no trouble remembering. There wasn't really anything to forgive her mother for in the first place. She only wished that her mother wasn't hurt." Chris sighed and rubbed his forehead.
"I want to remember my death. On the other hand, what if it won't help my case because I don't need to forgive anyone?"
"No way to know unless you know, right?"
"I guess so." I pulled myself off the swing, leaving Chris behind.
The swing set had squeaked as I stood up, sadly and quietly. Kind of like how Erica's life had ended. How all of our lives had ended. We still swing on those swing sets, like nothing has changed, and we're the only ones who know it wasn't the wind.
***
After leaving the park, I walked down the street, and into a neighborhood. Something about it was vaguely familiar, and I didn't question why my feet had led me here. They would always lead me places, places I had never known of, or places I had never known how to get to. As I walked further down the dimly lit sidewalks, I eventually came to a large white cottage. My feet stopped leading me further, and I knew why I was here.
This was Tom's house.
I had been here so many times when I was younger, before everything ended between us. We hadn't got in a fight or anything, our friendship had just gotten awkward and ended. Something was going on with Tom, something bigger than just a little kid drama, and I was here to find out.
I was bombarded with emotions as I went up to one of the house's big windows. I felt slightly creepy to be looking in on someone that I had been estranged from in life, and at the same time it felt good to be back at this place.
I had so many memories here.
Once, when Tom and I were in 7th grade, we had spied on his older brother's 18th birthday party from this very window. Kind of like now, only there was no birthday party and Tom wasn't here with me.
What I saw through the window was anything but a birthday party. There was loud yelling, but not the happy cheers you hear at a party. Tom was standing in the middle of the living room, yelling at his mother, who I couldn't see from my position under the window. Then he smashed a piece of pottery on the coffee table. Tom's father used to make pottery. He even had a kiln. Was Tom angry with his father? I shook my head. Probably just a typical teenage fight, I thought. I should leave.
But then Tom began yelling again, and his mother came into sight, holding a glass of water. His father came into the room, a bottle of pills in hand.
"Tom. You need to take your medication. It's only going to help you."
"No it's not. It hasn't helped me at all after all of these years-"
"Stop being so childish! The medication won't cure you, but it will help you."
"Help me to what? Live this miserable thing called life? You're not me. Don't pretend you know what it feels like!" Tom yelled again, and left the room.
His mother had begun to cry, and the bottle of pills had rolled off the table where Tom's father had set them. I could see the words written on them if I squinted hard enough.
Chlorpromazine. Take twice daily before meals.
I had heard Jack mention Chlorpromazine once when he was talking about one of the courses he was taking in medical school. It was sometimes used to treat migraines. How were migraines ruining Tom's life? Maybe they just put him in a very bad mood? Whatever the case, I didn't want to be here anymore. I didn't like seeing Tom so miserable.
Then again, if you were to look through the windows of everyone on planet earth each night, you would probably see a similar scene in many of them. Just because you hide your problems doesn't mean you don't have them, and it doesn't mean other people don't have them either.
***
"We should go over possible suspects," I told Em a few weeks after the episode at Tom's house.
"We already did. What about that teacher at school who you said everyone was a little creeped out by?"
"Yeah maybe. Hey Em," I said, changing the subject, "do you know anything about medication? Like, prescription medications?"
"A little bit. For one, it's kind of confusing because a lot of them have several different names for the same one. There's generic, and brand name. A lot of times the ending of the name of the drug will be the same for other drugs in that category. Why do you ask?"
I told her about Tom, and what I had seen that night.
"Chlorpromazine? Dahlia,
people can use it for migraines, but it's most commonly used for mood disorders or schizophrenia."
I stared at her.
"How do you know so much about all this? Psychological disorders, I mean."
"I was studying Psychology before-"
"Oh."
"Yeah." She smiled wistfully, the way people do when they've lost something they can never get back.
So, did Tom have schizophrenia? Maybe that's why he acted so strange.