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I blink away the tears and turn back around, trying to stare hard at the swing again as it twists and glides back and forth in the wind.
I hear Mirai sniffle and sob quietly behind me, because she knows. She knows what I’m feeling, because she’s been here since the beginning.
After another minute I see her outside the window, walking past me, and I hadn’t even realized she’d left the room.
She carries shears in her hand and charges right up to the tire swing, and as she raises the scissors to the rope, I clench my fists under my arms and watch her press the handles together, working through the rope until the tire hangs by twine and eventually falls to the ground.
A single tear finally falls, and for the first time since I’ve been home all summer, I feel something like love.
Hours later, the sun has set, the house is quiet again, and I’m alone. Almost alone. Reporters are still lingering beyond the gates.
Mirai wanted me to come home with her to the small, one bedroom she was certainly paid more than enough not to have to live in. But since she had always been here night and day and traveling wherever my mother went, it made more sense not to keep an apartment at all, much less rent a bigger one. I politely declined.
She took Toulouse, since that dog gets along with me about as well as he would a wet cat, and said she’d be back first thing in the morning.
I should’ve been nicer to her. When she offered to stay here instead, I just wanted everyone gone. The noise and attention made me nervous, and I don’t want to hear all the phone calls Mirai has to make tonight, which will just be a reminder of how all hell is breaking loose out in the world and on social media.
They’re saying things about my parents.
They’re speculating about me, no doubt.
The pity. The predictions of when I’ll follow my mom and dad, either by overdose or my own suicide. Everyone has an opinion and thinks they know everything. If I thought I lived in a fish bowl before…
I walk back to the stove, letting out a breath. My parents left me to deal with this shit.
Steam rises from the pot, and I turn off the burner and pour the ramen into a bowl. I rub my dry lips together and stare at the yellow broth as my stomach growls. I haven’t eaten or drank anything all day, but I’m not sure I had any intention of eating this when I finally wandered into the kitchen tonight to make it. I just always liked the process of cooking things. The recipe, the procedure… I know what to do. It’s meditative.
I wrap my hands around the bowl, savoring the heat coursing through the ceramic and up my arms. Chills break out over my body, and I almost swallow, but then I realize it’ll take more energy than I have.
They’re dead, and I haven’t cried. I’m just more worried about tomorrow and handling everything.
I don’t know what to do, and the idea of forcing small talk with studio executives or old friends of my parents over the weeks to come as I bury my mother and father and deal with everything I’ve inherited makes the bile rise in my throat. I feel sick. I can’t do it.
I can’t do it.
They knew I didn’t have the skills to deal with situations like this. I can’t smile or fake things I’m not feeling.
Digging chopsticks out of the drawer, I stick them in the bowl and pick it up, carrying it upstairs. I reach the top and don’t pause as I turn away from their bedroom door and head left, toward my own room.
Carrying the bowl to my desk, I pause, the smell of the ramen making my stomach roll. I set it down and move to the wall, sliding down until I’m sitting on the floor. The cool hardwood eases my nerves, and I’m tempted to lie down and rest my face on it.
Is it weird I stayed in the house tonight when they died just down the hall this morning? The coroner estimated the time of death about two a.m. I didn’t wake up until six.
My mind races, caught between wanting to let it go and wanting to process how everything happened. Mirai is here every day. If I didn’t find them, she would’ve. Why didn’t they wait until I’d gone back to school next week? Did they even remember I was in the house?
I let my head fall back against the wall and lay my arms over my bent knees, closing my burning eyes.
They didn’t leave me a note.
They dressed up. They put the dog out. They scheduled Mirai to come late this morning, instead of early.
They didn’t write me a note.
Their closed door looms ahead of me, and I open my eyes, staring across my bedroom, through my open door, down the long hallway, and to their room at the other end of the hall.
The house sounds the same.
Nothing has changed.
