Page 73 of Melancholia

What he had? I don’t even know what that could be. I don’t know any of what he did since he left.

Because he hadn’t wanted me to know.

Anger rises in my chest, turning my stomach inside out with something worse than nausea. I can’t help but think about all the times I wrote to him, begging him to come help me. To not leave me alone with Mom anymore, especially once she started hitting me.

But every call went straight to voicemail. And later, in the hospital, every letter was returned unopened.

“No. No, I can’t—I can’t do this. I’m not doing this.” My voice is barely a whisper as the ringing in my ears gets louder. “No, there’s some mistake. My dad, he’s gone. He abandoned me and⁠—”

“There’s also a letter for you from him. I really think you should come in to read it, Ms. Collins,” the lawyer goes on. “But I know I must have hit you with something you didn’t expect. I’m so sorry. Maybe take some time for yourself, all right?” He hesitates. “You don’t sound well. You aren’t alone, are you?”

“My dad abandoned me,” I whisper again. “This isn’t—he can’t—I really can’t—” The words fall out of my mouth without any kind of filtering, and my hand grips the phone more tightly as my steps pick up in the trees. “I can’t do this.”

“I think you should find someone, Ms. Collins. You sound⁠—”

“I can’t do this right now.” Without even thinking it through, I hang up the phone, barely managing to shove it into the pocket of my leggings instead of dropping it to the ground with my shaking fingers.

Dad is dead.

I turn slowly when I realize I’m no longer in the parking lot or the grass beyond it. The trees don’t look familiar, but my eyes aren’t exactly working well. I don’t know where I am in this forest of pointed fingers and jagged pines. I don’t know where I’ve come from.

I don’t know what’s real right now.

Shapes and shadows dance behind the trees; my vision dims even though it’s only ten in the morning. When I take a step, I trip over a root or maybe just my shock, but when I’m able to look up again, I see that one of the shadows has solidified into a person who steps away from the tree she stands beside.

“No…oh no,” I whisper. “No, please, you can’t do this to me. Not you. Not today.” But my hand comes up as the person steps towards me until Elaina gives me a soft smile and opens her mouth to speak.

“They both wish it was you,” she whispers with anguish in her eyes. “They always wanted it to be you.”

“I know.”

“You’re the only one left.”

“I know.”

“They’re coming next, you know.”

I know.

But I don’t say it out loud as bile rises in my throat. Two more shadows have started turning solid, and I whimper when I see the familiar sneakers my mother loved, and my dad’s running shoes that were worn by the time I could remember them.

“No…” I whimper. “No, no, please—” I can’t do this. I can’t see their faces. Before much of them can swim into existence, I turn, unthinking, and take off running with tears in my eyes and my vision swimming with ghosts. I can’t be here. I can’t do this—I can’t see their faces when⁠—

The tree is hard and unforgiving, and when I fall, my head cracks against a root, sending a sharp pain through me that has me crying out just before the world goes black, saving me from the ghosts of my past.

For now.

27

The apartment is dark, but that’s no surprise anymore. Closing the door behind me, I set my backpack down by it and flip on the light. “Mom?” I call, though I can only hear my voice echoing back at me in the quiet hallway. “Hey Mom, umm. You missed the meeting you were supposed to have with Principal Simpson.”

She still doesn’t answer, but I’m not exactly surprised. I tread down the hallway, bypassing the kitchen, the dining room, and my father’s old den that’s been closed since he left. “Mom, I…I’m really worried about you.”

The apartment is a mess. It’s always a mess, with fast food trash and cans on the floor. Wadded-up paper towels sit like fallen leaves along the edges of the well-worn path, and I sigh as I get closer to my mom’s room at the very end of the apartment.

Her door is closed, which isn’t surprising. But the moment I bring my hand up to knock, the door suddenly opens and my mom appears, causing me to stumble.

She looks lucid for the first time in months. That’s all I can think as my back hits the wall when I move to scramble out of her way. Years of being hurt by her have me tensing and expecting the worst, but she only mumbles something under her breath that I don’t understand and never will. But I trail her anyway like a lost puppy as she walks to the living room in her socks and her robe, never once noticing the trash she walks through or the fact I’m behind her.