“What? No,” I shook my head again. “It’s nothing to do with this stupid school.”
“Then what the hell is going on, Lily? You’re worrying me.”
I stared directly into my best friend’s eyes. I told him everything, and I meant everything. Nothing is too much for our friendship, no secret could affect us. I trusted him with everything, and he never told anyone, never judged me on anything, and I never judged him. If I was going to tell anyone, then it was him.
“Okay,” I swallowed. “I didn’t… I didn’t notice it straight away but I’ve been drawing all these symbols…all day. Look.”
I found myself again desperately flipping through my books and pointing to where I had drawn any one of the symbols. At one point I saw Rhys glance at me but he took one of the books out of my hand and he kind of frowned at the pages as he slowly flipped through them.
“You didn’t know you were drawing them?” Rhys said softly.
“No, I didn’t notice until like ten minutes ago,” I answered him softly. “There are heaps of them, Rhys and I don’t know where they came from, what they are. I haven’t seen them before; I don’t even know what they mean or anything.”
“So you have no clue what they are?”
“Well…okay, I’ve seen one of them before,” I said as I then proceeded to start rummage through my bag to pull out the little piece of paper. “At the party on the weekend…that room you found in me it was covered in these things. Ah, here…I took this.”
I handed the piece of paper to Rhys and as I did I was completely ready for the ‘you’re crazy’ look that he would give me. So when I watched him just stare at the piece of paper for a long time and not speak I actually felt myself calming down.
“That’s why you wouldn’t let me in to room?” Rhys frowned.
I nodded my head a little. “I don’t know what it is…I don’t know what they are…they have this hold on me.”
“I knew you were acting strange lately…but this…” Rhys shrugged a little.
“I know I’m crazy,” I said to him quickly, “and I know this just stupid-.”
“It’s not,” Rhys said immediately.
“What?”
“It’s weird yeah…but I don’t think you’re crazy, Lily. Whatever they are…they interest you or something,” Rhys told me with a slight shrug. “I can look them up for you?”
“You can just look it up?” I frowned at him in surprise.
“Yeah, sure, if you don’t mind me taking these I’ll just scan them into my computer and do my thing and something should pop up,” Rhys said like it wasn’t a big deal.
“You’re taking my mental breakdown thing quite well,” I noted.
“You’d do the same for me,” he smiled slightly at me, shutting my book. “I’ll call you later, promise.”
I felt a lot calmer now. It definitely helped that Rhys’ approach to me just pouring out all my crazy on him, didn’t make me feel any crazier than I already was. In fact, for a moment there, he made me feel sane. I walked home about ten times slower than I had walked to school this morning. I held my shoulder bag close to me, like I had to keep the bag safe, but it’s not really the bag I was clinging onto. I had given Rhys some of my school books to use for his search, but that stupid little piece of paper was still safely in my bag. I couldn’t give it to Rhys, I couldn’t let go of it and I had no idea why either.
My Uncle was never home when I got back from school. He found it easier to work the week days so he could be home sometimes for me on the weekends. It didn’t really bother me to be honest. I mean, I get home, I chucked my bag near the door and collapsed on the couch and flicked through the TV channels and then decided to do homework, and it had become my routine. Today however, I didn’t even pick up the remote. How could I when I had so much running through my head?
I think I spent a whole hour walking around the house pouring myself some water and then never drinking it. Then I even decided to take the notepad of the fridge- a notepad that we mainly used to compile a grocery list- and proceed to draw the symbols all over it. I think I hoped that if I drew them enough times that I would be able to get them out of my head, but it was having the opposite effect. I found that with each new symbol I drew, my own hand knew how to sketch the curves of the lines so perfectly every time. I had to have seen these before… surely. There was no way I could draw something this perfect and have no previous memory of it.
That was when I got the idea. The idea that I could in fact have supressed the memory of seeing something like this. If therapy had taught me anything it had taught me that that was possible for me to forget something that involved my parents, well that’s what my therapist told me anyway, and right now, it made a lot of sense to me.
We didn’t keep a lot of my parent’s things when they died. It was hard for me to look at a lot of it and neither I nor my uncle wanted a constant reminder of them in our house. We only kept a few things that felt meaningful enough to both of us, like photos and my mother’s jewellery, small things like that, but it all stayed in these boxes that we kept hidden in the cupboard at the end of the hall. I didn’t look in the boxes often, but I had looked enough through them enough times to have a clear idea of what was in them. I had memorised most of these photos and the looks on my parent’s faces, and each time I looked through all of these I think it’ll be easier to see their faces, but it’s usually not. It’s not easy to imagine that they were once alive and that now they’re not, but for the first time ever as I glance at everything in the box I don’t feel anything, and it’s not because I can’t feel anything, I know it’s because I’m so focused on finding answers I don’t have time to feel anything.
“Lily?”
The sound of Rhys’ voice made me jump on the spot. I had sprawled myself out through the kitchen to our kind of dining room. There was stuff everywhere at the moment. I had left stuff on the kitchen bench and stuff covering most of the dining table while I left the boxes on the floor. I barely realised that up until this point how much of a mess I had made.
“I thought you were going to call?” I frowned at Rhys as I pushed my hair from my face and flattened my clothes to make it seem like I’m not so frazzled.
“I did,” Rhys answered, frowning back at me as he looked around me. “I texted you too. Have you even checked your phone?”
“Oh…no, my phone is still in my school bag,” I said to him as I realised my bag was on the couch. “Sorry.”
“What are you doing?” Rhys asked as he put his bag on the kitchen bench.
“I thought maybe… I had seen the symbol somewhere before,” I muttered breathing out.
“So you’re going through your parent’s stuff?” Rhys said slowly.
“I thought I could’ve seen it when I was younger or something,” I shook my head at him. “No luck though…obviously.”
“Lily,” Rhys said softly as he stepped closer towards me so he could put his hand onto my arm. “You went through your parent’s stuff.”
I sighed as I brushed my hair from my face again. “I know. This is literally driving me crazy. Please tell me you found something. I need to get this out of my head.”
“Um… yeah,” he said quickly as he picked his bag back up and unzipped it. “It’s all really weird though.”
“Weird how?”
Rhys paused to give me a little look before he ended up pulling a few pieces of paper out his bag that, from this trip from his house to here, were now crumpled. If he didn’t think I was crazy before, he was definitely going think I was crazy now. I looked around both of us and at how I had treated all of this. I went through my parent’s stuff like it didn’t belong to my dead parents.
“I found…not much, that I think is real anyway. I did find this,” Rhys shrugged, handing me a piece of paper.
I frowned slightly at the pieces of paper he had put in my hand before I looked back up at him with a now confused look on my face.
“Is this a joke, Rhys?
It looks like one of your gaming map thingies,” I said accenting my words slightly.
“It’s not a joke, it’s what I found,” Rhys said sighing a little, “but I agree with you. I mean it looks…kind of animated and I thought it was just a pointless result… but then I found this too.”
He handed me a page full of words, but all I needed to do was look at the large bold title at the top to know what he was talking about.
“Demons?” I asked surprised, looking up at him.
“I know,” Rhys mirrored my look slightly.
“These symbols are about demons?” I frowned at him.
“Not exactly,” Rhys shook his head. “The article talks about the symbols protecting the world from demons or something totally weird like that. There wasn’t much else on it honestly. It kind of does seem like some game when I say it out loud.”
“Whoa, whoa… this map,” I said suddenly, ignoring his last comment, “I saw this on the wall of the study at that party. I mean I think I did, I didn’t really pay too much attention to it.”
“You remember that?” Rhys frowned.
“I don’t know,” I shook my head, pushing my hand through my hair. “Is that all there was?”
“Every time I ran a symbol through I got the same results,” he admitted. “I got them in the exact same order and everything.”
“And that’s odd?” I frowned at him.
“Yeah, it is,” Rhys nodded at me. “Nah, look it doesn’t matter. Can you let it go now? There’s nothing.”
“There can’t just be nothing,” I moaned slightly. “I saw dozens of these. The whole room was dedicated to whatever these are. They had tons of research.”
“Okay and maybe this person does know more,” Rhys agreed. “But you don’t need to worry about it this. It’s just something you found, not something you have to really look for. Lily, you have to let this go. Look at you. Your parents stuff is sitting on the floor like its junk you kept. I know how you feel about this stuff and you’re letting this control you.”
I sighed at him as I look back down at the state I have managed to put the apartment in. The pictures of us, pictures of us as a family, the only pictures that existed of us were completely thrown around the room. My mum had this obsession with these antique décors and we used to always go to the markets together and search for them, well at least that’s the memory I thought I had of them. We had kept so many of them and I had literally thrown one across the room and possibly even broken it and I hadn’t even cared at the time. This stuff wasn’t just nothing and right now I was treating it like it was.
“Lily, is there something else going on?” Rhys said softly, picking up some pictures of me.
“Like what?” I frowned at him as he handed me the pictures.
“I don’t know. You just… you haven’t acted like this for a long time,” Rhys shrugged.
“Oh… no,” I said quickly, shaking my head at him as I started to gather everything on the dining table. “I’m fine, okay? I…I don’t know what this to be honest.”
“I’ve never seen you just…look at your parent’s stuff like it was just… stuff,” Rhys told me slowly.
“Ah, you know what? Just forget about it,” I said shaking my head at him but also giving him a comforting smile.
I picked up one the boxes so I could start putting everything back in it. Rhys stood there watching me for a moment, and all I could see across his face was complete concern. He was right. This was all irrational behaviour. It was all completely crazy and I was losing my mind and I had to let it go before I turned into a completely irrational psychopath.
“I can keep digging,” Rhys said suddenly with a shrug.
“No, no, you’re right,” I said immediately, barely looking at him. “This is pointless and stupid and so completely unnecessary. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“Are you sure there isn’t anything else going on?” Rhys asked me as he touched my arm lightly to stop me from picking anything else up.
“I’m sure,” I nodded at him.
“Lily.”
“Rhys.”
We both just stared at each other for a moment and neither of us even moved and right there and then I really wondered why he was even my friend. I knew why he is worried about me; I mean similar things happened when I was younger, especially when I started high school. I easily become obsessed with things that really weren’t necessary to obsess over. Growing up without my parents really hadn’t made any aspects of my life easy, and truthfully my life isn’t exactly smooth sailing.
“Alright then,” he nodded, zipping up his bag. “I’ve got to pick up dinner stuff for mum…and if you’re sure you are okay, I should go.”
“I’m fine,” I promised him again with a small smile. “I don’t know what came over me to be honest. It was a crazed moment. You’d better go, seriously.”
“Fine, I’ll see you tomorrow then?”
“Yeah, course.”
I spent the rest of the afternoon making sure I put everything away before my Uncle got home. I couldn’t even imagine what he’d say to me if he saw the stuff spread out in the apartment was like it is just…stuff. I had gone too far with all of this. Going through my parent’s stuff was crossing a line. Nothing in the world should make me act like that, especially not some stupid symbol that had no meaning what-so-ever.
Once I had put the boxes back away into our storage closest I went back into the dining room to deal with the last pieces of information I had. Rhys had left all the research he had found and also everything I had drawn all over my note books on the kitchen bench. I made sure all the stuff was gathered up into one pile and then reached into my pocket to get one last piece of information. It was that stupid little piece of paper that started all of this. I put it into the pile and then gathered it all up into my arms and chucked it all into the trashcan.
I had to get it all out of my head and the only way to do that is by getting rid of everything that would remind me of all of it. It was completely stupid and crazy and I didn’t need more crazy in my life.
“Hey, I’m home. Where are you?”
“In the kitchen,” I replied to my Uncle as I heard him come through the front door. “Please tell me you brought dinner. We have no food.”
I saw my Uncle smiling as he rounded the corner to the kitchen. “Pizza.”
“Thank you,” I smiled slightly as he handed me the pizza box.
“How was your first day of school?” My Uncle asked me walking over to the dining table with his box of pizza.
“Like every other first day of school,” I shrugged at him. “Nothing special, never is. It’s school.”
“Your mother loved school, you know?”
“What?”
I jumped slightly and turned to face him. My Uncle wasn’t looking at me directly and when I looked at him I realised he was holding a photo in his hand. I cursed myself silently as I realised I must’ve missed it when I was clearing up everything.
“Did you get this out?” he asked, looking at me and holding up the photo of my mother.
“Ah, yeah I did,” I nodded. “Um… I was looking for something. I must’ve just forgotten to put it away.”
“You don’t ever look at that stuff,” my Uncle said softly.
“I know,” I agreed. “I don’t ever really have to. Are you okay? I’m sorry I didn’t mean to get it out.”
“No, its fine,” he shrugged, putting it down.
“You remember it better than me.”
My Uncle sighed as he turned away from me and I couldn’t help but sigh too. I grabbed the pizza and some plates and walked over to the dining table and put it down for us. It was easy to avoid the topic of my parents with my Uncle. He didn’t like to talk about them just as much I didn’t want to talk about them. It was his sister that died, the sister he grew up with, the sister I reminded him of.
“You don’t remember that day, do you?” he asked me suddenly as he sat down at the dining ta
ble after I had.
I curled my lips together and shook my head a little. “I don’t remember much.”
“They were picking you up, from day care. Your first day, actually,” he said to me. “I had I seen her that day too. I’ve never told you this but they were fighting that day. Your father thought you were still too young for preschool, but your mother said that they both didn’t have enough time to watch you constantly. That was the thing about them though. Their love for you was so strong for you…no fighting was ever going to affect them. They died loving you and each other.”
I found myself unable to talk and I suddenly felt sick to my stomach. I suddenly felt so guilty for how I had treated their stuff today. They were my parents even if they were dead or alive.
“Sorry,” my Uncle said suddenly as he looked away from me. “I know you don’t like to talk about it.”
“It’s fine,” I said quickly. “She was your sister…you’re allowed to talk about it.”
He nodded at me a little. “I think I might keep this then.”
“It’s probably better off than being in that box.”
I didn’t eat much in the end; I couldn’t eat much now. I felt guilty and I felt sad and I felt sick. I remembered the way Rhys looked at me today when he saw me going through my parent’s stuff. He knew how much I cared about them, about how much they meant to me because they were still my parents and they still did everything they could for me while they were alive.
The symbols weren’t important. That boy I saw wasn’t important. None of it was important when it came to my parents. I don’t know why I let it control me, just because I thought I had seen it before, because I thought it meant something to me or my parents, nothing is so important that I need to disrespect my parent’s memories.
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