“What are you staring at, runt?” Amelia teased. Sounding firm.
“Who is that?” I asked, pointing at the car that still sat there. Unmoving. In front of our house.
Mom and Dad never saw it. They were never home. Just Amelia and me.
And her many, many secrets.
“He’s special,” she smiled. Waving. He waved back.
Then he drove away. Having gotten what he came for.
“Go to sleep, Elian. Then when you wake up we’ll be there.” Layna coaxed me to sleep. Into oblivion.
It’s what she did best.
Hours.
Days.
They all blended together.
And through it all I heard her.
Her dead, dead voice. Over and over again in my head.
Layna didn’t stay. She left me alone.
I cried when she left but she went anyway.
“I’ll be back soon.” Promises. Empty, forgotten promises.
She left me by the quarry. In the sun. But I couldn’t feel it on my skin. I was cold.
“Talk to me, Amelia! Please!”
I knew she’d come when I needed her. She’d been doing it for years.
Layna. Amelia. Layna.
Blending together.
Little, Elian. Tiny, little Elian. Always running. Never getting anywhere.
She mocked me. I could hear the teasing. But what she said was true.
I tried to run so far and so fast but I never escaped. The past kept finding me.
Amelia kept finding me.
When would it be over?
I was so tired. Bone weary. Exhausted. I was sick of running. Layna said I should stop. That she could free me of it all. I wanted to let her. It would be so easy to give in.
And I wanted her. My Layna. But never really mine.
I missed her.
She had left me alone with the voice of my long dead sister. My only company.
She said she’d be back. But would she? Maybe she left for good.
I couldn’t bear the thought.
Layna was my breath.
She was my heartbeat.
She was never ending.
On and on.
Forever.
She had kissed me softly. Deeply. I had pushed my tongue into her mouth. Trying to take. Just this once. But she never let me. Only parts. What she thought I should have.
“I’ll be back,” she promised. Empty, forgotten promises.
“Amelia,” I whispered. The wind picked up her name and carried it away. To wherever she was.
Posttraumatic stress. That’s what I had been told.
Posttraumatic collapse was more like it.
I stumbled my way into the house. It was filthy.
Like Layna’s house.
I imagined Amelia as Layna described her. Terrified. Tied to a chair. Her blood everywhere. I tried to picture Layna as she had once been. A little girl, no more than eight, watching her father do the most despicable of things.
That changes a person. Completely.
It traumatizes them.
They are altered forever.
I wondered how Layna was before. Before her father destroyed her.
Did she ever have a chance?
I didn’t think so.
That made me love her so much more.
That made me fear her all over again.
Layna.
My Layna.
But not really mine.
All your fault…
It wasn’t Amelia’s voice that played on my guilt. It was my own. I had hated myself for years.
With Layna I had hoped to find peace with it all.
But with her I found something else.
I found my way into the bathroom and ran the water in the sink. I splashed my face. The cold waking me up just enough to see the reflection of the man who stared back at me.
I didn’t know him at all.
The person with the sallow skin and dark circles beneath his eyes. Lids puffy and red. Green irises dull and lifeless.
Who was this person with the burden of a haunted spirit?
Who was this person so ready to curl into a ball and let the ghosts have him?
I touched my neck. Running fingers over the scars. So many scars.
Talk to me, Elian! I told you I’d always be here!
When had the calls started?
Had they ever really stopped?
I had been healthy. I had been sane. For years I had been functioning.
What happened to me?
To Elian Beyer?
No more friends. No more job. No more music or guitars. I had nothing. I once had everything.
So, so empty.
Then and now.