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The next morning, Elijah goes with me to get a new phone in my name. Then he leaves for work, and Louise hands me the keys.
"You're sure you don't need it today?" I ask, just to be sure.
"I'll be fine. This is usually my catch up on my DVR day, so I was going to be in anyway."
"Okay. I won't be long."
"Take as long as you need."
I drive to my house and breathe a sigh of relief when I find the driveway empty. Still, I park the car a little ways away from my house, so that if my parents do come home for something, hopefully I can leave without them noticing I was ever there, and be on my way. I use the spare house key I always keep in my purse to unlock the door and walk into my house. The stillness surrounds me like it usually does. I'm shocked when I reach Callie's room and find the door closed. I put my hand on the knob and slowly turn in, wondering if everything inside the room might finally be gone.
It's not. Everything is still right in its proper place, sheets unruffled, not a speck of dust on any surface. My eyes lock on the bed and before I actually realize what I'm doing, I'm walking towards it, climbing into the bed and fitting my body into the imprint my sister left behind. In the indent her body caused in the mattress from the weight of her constantly laying here, from the weight of her pain and anguish. From the weight of life bearing down on her.
I lay where she laid. I fit myself into the shape of her. I pretend she's embracing me somehow. That her arms are wrapping around me like mine did to her so many times. I pretend that this time she's comforting me. She's trying to protect me from the world.
And then, I let the tears come, the wetness from them falling onto the sheets exactly where hers did. The salt of them mixes with hers as all the emotions I would hold back when I held her body where I lay now fill me. The hopelessness, the sadness, the confusion. The thought, the feeling, that things would never get better, but yet had to, because how could life go on the way it was.
"Why?" I whisper. "Why did you leave me Callie? How could you leave me? Me, Callie. I don't care about anyone else. But how could you leave me?"
A sob leaves me then. Anger bleeding into the sadness racking me.
"I'm so fucking mad at you. It was us, me and you, against the world, and you left me to fend for myself. You left me to deal with it all on my own." I slam my fist against the sheets. "You promised me. You promised that no matter what came, you would fight, that you would tell me when it became too much so I could help you through it. So I could chase those demons away. And you lied. Now, I'm here, crushed under the weight of your broken promise."
I close my eyes against the sight of the dream board on the wall across from me. The one I helped her put together because I thought it might give her some hope. I thought it might make her look forward to the future instead of dreading it. Pictures of the beaches we were going to visit, countries we were going to travel to, the dresses she was going to have on runways once she made it as a big-time designer. She was always such a good drawer. But that's all gone now. Dreams that will never be. Maybe dreams she never actually believed in anyway. What a fool I was to think I could make her want more than she felt she could ever have.
"I get so angry almost every time I think of you, remember you, but memories are all you've left me with. They're all I have of you now, and I hate you for that. I hate that you left me with all these ideas of what you could have become, who you could have become, and I'll never know if any of them were right. Because you stole that from me. You stole the future you and I could have had, and I don't think I can ever forgive you for that. I don't think I should have to."
I have to stop to catch my breath, to stop my chest from heaving with rage and bone deep loss flowing through me.
"But I miss you too. So much that it physically hurts, Callie. It makes me want to crawl out of my skin with how much I want you here. I would do anything to have you lying next to me. But then, I have to realize again and again that it'll never happen. That you won't be there when I graduate. You won't be my maid of honor when I get married. That my kids won't ever get to meet their Aunt Callie, and I'll only get to tell them stories of you. I'll only be able to tell them about all the pranks we played on each other, and how you set the carpet in the basement on fire that time and tried to hide the charred mark." A strangled laugh leaves me, only causing more tears to come.
"I hate you so much for the future you took from me. But I love you so much for all that you gave me while you were here. I'm so angry at you for giving up, but I'm grateful for how long you held on. Because in the end, I know you held on even that long for me. But I have to go now Callie. I have to leave here. I have to leave this house. I have to stop walking past your room every day. I have to stop seeing everything of yours the way it was and see it for the way that it is. Just things left behind by a sister who’s no longer here with me. I can't stay here. I can't breathe here. I've been dying inside since I found you in this room, in this bed, since I held you in my arms.
"But I want to live. I have to live. Not for you, not because you wanted me to promise you that I would. But for me. I found someone who makes me want to live, and live beautifully." I smile then. "You would have liked him. I'm sure of that.
"So goodbye, Callie. I will always remember you, no matter what it makes me feel when I do, I will remember you. You are, and will always be, my sister. I hope you're not in pain anymore. I hope you found peace. I hope you can hear me when I say that I love you more than the world and all that’s in it. And I hope wherever you are, you know that and never forget it."
I turn my head, kissing the wet sheets, letting go of the part of my sister that must remain here. Then I get out of the bed and wipe my cheeks as I walk away from it. I leave the room and go to my own, releasing a shuddering breath as I go. I get the few pairs of pants and shirts that I alternate for my work uniform and don't look at Callie's room again as I pass it. I leave the house and drive back to Elijah's, smiling. I needed to say all that to Callie, needed to let it out to her, and only her. Now, I feel like I can leave that house and not feel like I'm leaving her too. Because, although I don't know where I'm going, I know I'm not coming back here. It's time to move on, from so many things, but definitely this house, and all the feelings trapped within it.
