The phone rings. The power may be out, but at least while I’ve still got a bit of battery life I have some contact with the outside world while I’m in my self-imposed exile.
I glance at the screen. Bless her. She’s phoned me every day this week so far. I’ve told her several times that I’m fine — even though I’m not really sure myself if I am — but still she worries. At least someone’s looking out for me.
I let it ring a few times before I answer. I don’t want her to think that I’ve been sitting here all alone waiting for someone to reach out to me, even if that is the case.
“Evie,” comes the excitable, breathy voice on the other end of the phone. “You all right?”
“Yes,” I say. “Fine.”
“You took a while to answer. I wondered if you were all right.”
“I’m fine. Really. Don’t worry.”
“I just miss you, Evie. I wish you hadn’t had to go away. I wish all this hadn’t happened.”
She says this every day. I think it, too, but I gave up giving voice to those thoughts some time ago, because they don’t help anything.
“It did. It happened. And there’s no way to turn back from it now. It’s not your fault. It’s my fault, you know that. You don’t have to tiptoe around it. I know it was my fault.”
“I know, but–”
I cut her off in mid-sentence.
“Did you want something?”
“No, not really,” she says, sounding a little put out. “I just wanted to see how you were.”
I take a breath and close my eyes for a moment. I sniff and wipe away some of the tears that are still dampening my cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” I say after a moment. “It’s just… It’s just all been getting to me a bit, recently. I… I miss him.”
There’s a pause at the other end. She never knows quite what to say when I bring him up directly.
“I know,” she says after a brief silence. “We all do. So why don’t you go see him?”
I flop backwards dejectedly on the bed, the phone still pressed to my ear.
“I’ve tried to reach him,” I say. “I’ve tried. Over and over. But I just can’t. And just trying is exhausting. I don’t know how much longer I can go on like this.”
She pauses again.
“Don’t give up,” she says weakly. “Please don’t give up.”
The weakness and fragility in her voice makes me melt inside, and I feel the tears springing to my eyes again. While she’s looking out for me, I can’t give up.
“I won’t,” I say. “I won’t give up. It’s just difficult.”
“I know,” she says. “I wish I could help you more.”
“You do help,” I say. “You do.”
My battery is starting to die and there’s still no sign of the power coming back, so I make my excuses and end the call. There’s nothing else to say.
She’s right, of course. I shouldn’t give up. Giving up is the worst thing to do. Amid all this chaos and devastation that “it” wrought, the one thing still standing is… me. I’m still here. I’m still alive. And that’s something. I intend to keep it that way.
I decide to go out to clear my head. It’s a bright, sunny day, but the cheerful weather does little to lighten my mood. It’s as if black clouds have gathered around my soul to drain the colour from the world, making it a joyless place.
The street is almost silent as I walk down it. The dilapidated buildings tower over me on either side, oppressive, looming. I walk the familiar path through the streets and pick my way through the discarded rubbish bags and detritus that clutter the pavements. I’ve been this way many times, but the outcome has always been the same. I don’t know if anything will be different this time, but I feel I should keep trying. Eventually, I will reach him. Eventually things will be resolved. And while it’s clear to me that things have gone too far for them to ever be the same again, perhaps at least some of the damage can be repaired.
It’s a hopeful thought, but the black clouds around my heart prevent me from dwelling on the possibilities too much. I’ve always been one for overthinking things, the pessimist of the family, my mother used to call me. I’d always be the one wondering “what would happen if…” and coming up with some implausible combination of dire consequences that we might have to deal with, and none of them ever happening.
Except the one time. The consequences that set in motion the end of everything. With that one time when my pessimism, paranoia — whatever you want to call it — was proven right, everything fell into chaos. And the only person I had to blame was myself. I knew the possibilities that might stem from what I did, and still I pursued it, uncontrollable. I was drawn — or pushed? — ever onwards towards the one inevitable conclusion to everything — this. And here I am now, struggling to pick up the pieces of something which shattered into grains of sand.
I shake my head. No, says her voice in my head. You can’t give up. Never give up.
She always was the positive one. Without her support, I’m not sure what I’d do. With her strength and belief in me, perhaps things can change for the better. Perhaps the scenes I’d seen in my dream — the apple tree coming to life before me — were showing that I really was starting to believe that.
Time would tell, I guessed. For now, there was only one thing to do. I had to try and reach him again. I didn’t hold out hope for any more success than I’d had in the past, but I had to try.
I pushed open the familiar doors now I’d reached my destination, and walked inside.
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