December air. The dark of night tints the fog a light purple color, to match the nighttime sky. People scuttle this way and that, effulgent with the excitement of New Year’s Eve. Street lamps whisper their light onto the young faces, tinting the skin yellow and illuminating the eyes to a fiery amber color.
Tonight there will be plenty of accidents, plenty of young lives taken. From just taking a glance at the buildings, you can see hundreds of little windows with light seeping out from the glass. Behind most of the windows, people young and old are partying and dancing before midnight comes and before the new year begins.
Finally, if you look hard enough through the fog and around the streets, you will see several skinny alleyways, swallowed up in the dark, too scary for many people to enter. People laugh and talk, but their voices sink to a low murmur as they pass this spot; the third cross lights from the local high school, five blocks away from where Elora used to live. At this spot, the thick layer of mist is blanketing the busy city highway, dulling the bright yellow car lights to a soft fulvous glow. The towering city buildings loom overhead, exposing only a small piece of the night sky. Today, it doesn’t really matter, because the clouds are suffocating the light of the stars and the moon anyhow.
December air. Most people know the feeling of breathing on a -30 winter night; each inhale feels like a sharp knife slicing through your very lungs, but tonight, it doesn’t matter. Every gust of wind slices at everyone’s face, but no one minds. The cold leaves behind a strange prickly feeling- that is, until the skin finally goes numb. Then no one will have to worry anymore- because after all, it’s better to be numb than to have to feel pain all the time.
The street full of people whisper and murmur to each other depressing words, leaving behind the usual cheerful New Year’s chatter. December snow drizzling down onto the street. Little white specks dot everyone’s eyelashes and noses, and their faces are tinged pink from the ice air. Their breath turns into a thin mist as they laugh and talk. Across the street, three bouquets of flowers tied to a lamp pots sway feebly in the wind. The blood’s all soaked into the pavement by now- it’s been a year already, so now their story is just another bit of gossip for the city to share. Anyhow, this is the end of the story. So let’s go back to the beginningYou know how, your whole life, you have that one person who sticks with you, no matter what? The person who joins you when you are sitting alone, the person who knows exactly what to say and the person who you spend all your time with. Your best friend. For Elora, that person was the most important, because he was all she had. They never fought; she had her dysfunctional family and teachers to fight with. So why would she fight with her best friend? Sometimes, she thought, the only reason she didn’t fight was because she didn’t want to leave him while they were still fighting; She was too scared she’d lose him and he would leave or die. After all, she had already lost her other best friend.
Her sister was born with a special disease, one Elora was too young to understand. She figured it was some type of stomach cancer. The little girl had always been thin and quiet, but she rarely complained, so her family decided she was fine. Secretly, she was dying inside. Her frequent little stomach aches weren’t normal. Elora could remember her last night living as though it were yesterday. They were nearly broke, living on welfare with a bare kitchen. The electricity was going to go soon, too. Elora figured that was the reason why her mother wouldn’t take Melody to the hospital- the cost would be much too high. And when the police saw the condition they were living in, they’d take the kids away, because they were malnourished and sickly.
That last night was the end of the line. Melody went to bed early, complaining of a bad stomach ache, and her mother came with her. Her face showed nothing but pure misery. After about half an hour, their mother left the room, crying uncontrollably. The other kids knew she had been saying goodbye. With shaky, fumbling fingers, she locked the door to the room and took a deep breath, her grief-stricken face changing to look as though it was made of stone. No emotion. Elora and her brother cried silently, paced in front of Melody’s door and tried to call their father. He was working late and wouldn’t pick up. Their mother went to her room, locking the door behind her so Elora couldn’t get in. Soon the crying started. Melody rarely cried, and when she did, it was because she was badly hurt. The cry was soft at first, then slowly turned to loud moans and screams. Elora sat outside the door and screamed, too, trying to drown out her sister’s shrieks. Trying to drown out the sound of her five year old sister dying.
The next morning, the screams had stopped. Their father had arrived early that morning, and he silently unlocked Melody’s door as Elora and James looked on. There was a gaping bloody hole in her stomach, torn straight through her tiny soft pyjamas. She had dug through her stomach with anything sharp she could find, trying to get the pain in her stomach to go away. She looked so little, so soft, and it reminded Elora of when she held Melody first as a tiny baby, in her little fuzzy onesie outfit. Her eyes stared straight through Elora, as though she was looking at something no one else could see. Only hours later, their father came back and reported that their mother had died. “of a broken heart,” he had said. Elora decided she deserved it.
After that, she stopped caring. No one to love meant no one to lose- and that was the best thing to live by, she decided. Until middle school. Elora kept any person she’d become friendly with safely oblivious from her real life, and held a firm boundary of how far she could push it until she had become too close to any person. Then she backed off, watched them find new friends, but stayed strong inside.
Then came Hunter. He was put next to her in class, and she couldn’t help but notice him. His deep brown eyes, almond shaped, which lit up and crinkled up when he laughed. She didn’t really know much about him, but she knew his basic character because she had been in his class since kindergarten. Spontaneous, outgoing and daring. He lived life to the fullest, never wasting a moment to worry or reconsider his actions. He never regretted anything. Everyone loved his charm and charisma, and Elora fell in love with this unusual person who was so unlike her. He forced her to talk when the sat together in class, although they never talked outside of class or school. Soon he would join her for lunch, and sometimes they would walk home together. She knew that she couldn’t risk falling in love with another person, but she let him slip past her boundary and became closer to this person than she had anyone before- aside from Melody. When she realized that she had become much too close to Hunter, she made a new promise- to always keep him safe. At Christmastime, he always bought her a little present. He would give her that smile that melted her heart then leave to find his friends, yelling to them and joking merrily in the white Christmas air. She never bought him anything except for their last year, when she noticed a necklace with an little angel pendant on the end. It was hanging in her favorite store, with all the other cool necklaces and rings. It was a golden-bronze color, with the flawless little angel face carved perfectly into the head. It made her feel better to think that just maybe, if magic did exist, that the angel would keep him safe.
“I promise,” she’d said, in her small, monotone voice, “this’ll keep you safe forever.” He just smiled, not understanding her logic, but promising to keep it with him. It meant more to her than he ever knew.
For fun one day, they slit their fingertips and pressed them together, laughing and saying that they were now siblings because they shared blood. They sat behind the school, where it was quiet and empty but sunny and warm, and were happier than they’d ever been before. The thought of having a new sibling made Elora get that strange melancholy feeling in her stomach. Had she really moved on from her little sister so much as to the point where she could replace her? Now she had someone new to protect, and she swore to do a better job than she had with her sister. They laughed and chatted as normal for the rest of the recess, but Elora was everlastingly aware of the miserable feeling in her stomach. “I’ll do a better job this time,” she whispered. “I’ll never let anything happen to him.” She had to keep him safe, to keep her sanity. For her sake.
For Melody’s sake.
She flinched when he was hit too hard with a ball in gym, and cringed when he jay-walked across the street. He’d laugh and tease, saying she was much too protective. For a long time, years even, she never let him see past her school reputation; the quiet, timorous girl who kept to herself. Slowly, as years passed, she opened up to him and fell deeper in love. Not a romantic kind of love, but a love that could never be broken, a love that made Elora hope he would always be happy, no matter what he did with his life.
“Hey, Elora,” He’d say, almost every Friday. “We’ll meet tomorrow, right? Usual spot.” That Friday was no different. He sat down next to her, in their usual hangout behind the school.
“Of course,” Elora said, smiling serenely. He sat next to her and opened his lunch bag. He dropped his school bag on the ground, unaware of the few papers fluttering out.
“Why do you never eat? You’ll starve to death,” he said, picking up his sandwich.
“Never,” she answered simply.
“It’s such a beautiful winter day,” he commented. “Everything’s perfect. If you were... a day, you’d be today.” Elora looked around. The snow glittered like a thousand diamonds scattered on the ground, and the sky was a crisp azure blue, with a light wisp of cloud mist here and there. The sun blinded anyone who dared to look up. There was a refreshing breeze licking at their faces, to gentle to be a nuisance.
“No, I’d be my birthday. And you’d be yours.”
“My mother said it stormed on my birthday. Hail and snow. She told me it was a bad sign.” He laughed. She gave in and let out a chuckle. “I gotta go,” he said, standing and looking over to his other friends, who were calling and beckoning.
“Alright,” she sighed.
“I know we didn’t have that long. Tomorrow.” She gave a small smile and leaned back onto the brick wall holding her. Suddenly he did something he’s never done before. He reached down, pulled her up and gave her a hug. Surprised, she rested stiffly in his arms, not used to human contact. She felt her cheeks redden and turned her head to his shoulder. “Bye.” He let go of her and scurried after his friends, not phased at all. Elora, on the other hand, stood in shock for a moment before gathering her books and her bag and skipping off home.
It was a sunny afternoon. There was snow on the edge of the road, brown and slushy, but most of it had melted from the sidewalks and roads. Elora scuffled her feet along the pavement, head down, watching her late-afternoon shadow slink sullenly along amongst other shadows. She held a paper bag close to her chest, filled with Hunter’s favorite kind of brownies. It crinkled and crunched every time she took a step, and Elora scrunched it as hard as she could so it wouldn’t break the silence on this perfect afternoon. She hoped they would had a good time- but of course they would.
She also hoped he wouldn’t hug her again.
People hurried this way and that, clothed in perfectly crisp suits and other work outfits, briefcases or purses in hand. They were too focused and unfriendly to smile, let alone say “hello” or “good day”. Elora was just about to arrive at their usual meeting spot- a quiet little alleyway where no one would notice them, yet a place where they could have a beautiful view of the busy streets and people- when sirens sounded from a distance away. Goosebumps prickled her skin, and she began to shake slightly. The sound of a siren always meant something bad. The sirens neared, and she forced herself to take deep breaths and stay calm. At the cross lights ahead of her, the ambulance had arrived, followed by two police cars. Their sirens continued to blare for a few minutes, then stopped. Elora’s heart turned to stone and dropped to her feet, along with the paper bag of brownies. That could only mean one thing. Someone was dead. As she crouched to pick the brownies from the ground, people continued to stomp by furiously, stomping on her brownies as they went. Forcing herself to breathe normally, she held her head on her knees and closed her eyes, trying to regain her composure. Finally she left the brownies and made her way to the accident, pinching the palm of her hand with her nails so she wouldn’t cry. Snaking her way through the steady stream of people crossing the road, she tried to calm herself. It’s probably not Hunter. She repeated this in her head so it would come true. It can’t be Hunter. He would never leave. A small crowd had circled around the accident, although most had pressed on, indifferent to the death right in front of them. They didn’t care. Every nasty word Elora knew whirred through her head, her fear switching to anger. Then it happened. Her worst nightmare came true. The bloody heap on the ground wasn’t moving and was soaked in red. Without a moment’s hesitation, Elora shoved through the crowd and grabbed the corpse’s hoodie from the back, rolling it so she could see the face.
“Hey!” a police officer hollered from behind the ambulance. It was too late. In a second, Elora fell to the ground and shook the lifeless figure, embruing her hands in his blood. His arm twisted backwards as he rolled, startling Elora. His head rocked to the side feebly, as though it was the loose head of a barbie doll that was about to pop off.
“Wake up!” she screamed to his face. After that, everything seemed to move in slow motion, as though it was a dream. His brown eyes were gone; lifeless, uncaring. He would never come back. He would never smile again. Her eyes darted down to the hollow in his throat, where his angel pendant rested peacefully. Elora tried to focus her eyes on its tiny smiling face. She squinted, but her vision blurred. It seemed as though a mist was sitting in front of her eyes, and she shook her head to clear her thoughts. She reached for his hand and sure enough, a pink scar stretched out across the tip of his index finger. Slowly, she laid herself down next to him and stole a glance at his face. Crimson red stained his upper lip from his nose to his gaping mouth, and his hair was tousled. His lips shone with a layer of silky garnet blood and dyed his teeth a light pink color. She wondered absent- mindedly if his braces had pierced through his lip when he fell. She took her last moments to remember his face, to see what she would never have noticed any other day. He had a slight dimple in his chin and his nose was a bit too long. His eyes were the darkest brown with flecks of black, surrounded by a light fringe of black eyelashes. Weakly, she used her finger to try make his lips into a smile. It didn’t work. Elora entwined her hand in his and tried not to look at his mangled body, instead pretending they were laying in their alleyway. Beautiful, she thought. I’m happy. When I join you, I’ll be even happier. I love you.
Everyone around her decided she died of a broken heart. She was the only one who would ever know that she died because her heart was finally complete.