Pieces of a Mending Heart (11 page)

Skylar was my best friend, my baby sister, and my whole world. I would sit through hours of tea-parties, hair and makeup days where she would put a whole tube of gel in my long hair, making it stick up in all directions. I would walk her to the park where we would fly kites and chase each other with water balloons. I would take her to the pet store where we would play with the dogs and cats that weren’t being adopted, even though we could never take them home because our mother was very allergic.

My
mother was
also
clinically depressed, smiling when necessary and encourag
ing us to leave the house often, but leaving me to raise my sister alone.
She never wanted us to see her break, but I was old enough to see the signs. One day, I had to physically pour every drop of alcohol we had in the house down the drain. While Skylar and I were at school, she would be home, drinking, and we thought she was working.

My mother was laid off from her job at a foreclosure company, forcing her to take a “temporary leave” with very little
pay. With the money she did have, she began to spend frivolously, leaving next to nothing for bare necessities. She became much less “mom” and much more “mother.” Our grandfather did everything possible to keep her from falling apart, but the day I came home from a camping trip and found her sprawled on the couch, naked, next to a random shady-looking guy and a whiskey bottle, I had had enough.

I grabbed whatever clothes I could fit into my backpack, and one-hundred dollars from the emergency fund- which was selfish of me- and ran out of the house, car keys in hand. I had my license for barely a month, but I was so lost in a fit of rage I didn’t care. Slamming the car door, I saw nothing but red flames of anger pulsing behind my eyes and the wide, open highway that stretched in front of me.

In the oblivion I slipped into, it was easy not to notice Skylar climb into the back seat. In the corner of my mind, I felt her tiny fingers wrap around my shoulder, but I threw them off, fighting the tears that threatened to trickle down my cheeks. I had had enough of our mother, and in my despair, I was accelerating towards
eighty
miles an hour.

Barely five minutes into my drive is when it happened; a Ford truck lost control and spun in my direction. Frozen, I stared as the hundred-thousand pound piece of
metal continued flying towards
the side
of my vehicle
. My foot couldn’t find the gas
pedal, and I found myself coming back into my body. Anger completely faded, I noticed Sky in the car for the first time. She was looking at me, eyes wide, not seeing Death barreling towards us.

The last thing I heard was her scream before everything went black. One week later, I woke from the coma in the hospital, feeling scared and alone. No one was visiting me, but there was a lone card on the desk next to me. It wasn’t signed, so I couldn’t tell who had left it here. The doctors told me that I was lucky to be alive; that the car had been so destroyed that the “jaws of life” were used to get me out.

Then I remembered Skylar. Frantic, I started to interrupt
Doctor Colson’s
spiel on how lucky I was and how his quick thinking saved my life. My head was thumping, and he urged me to lie back down, but I refused. The doctor was too
pleased with himself
to feign sympathy for my condition, so he left the room in haste, sending in a young nurse that had a tattoo on the side of her neck. I remember thinking about how wrong the ink looked on the kind woman, but her next words shattered everyth
ing insignificant in my brain.

I killed my sister
. Baby Skylar, so young, so full of life, was lying dead in the ground because of me. Hell, I wasn’t even at her funeral! That explains why my mother isn’t here; she probably never wants to see me again. I remember feeling no pain, no shock;
I remember feeling nothing at all. Simply numb, I lied down on the hard bed in the hospital, staring at the holes in the ceiling tile, counting them aimlessly.

Two months later, feeling hadn’t yet returned to my left leg, or my brain. I walked around in a shell, completely cut-off from the person I used to be. The scars on my body were already beginning to fade, but those in my memory were as fresh as ever. I remember thinking to myself, “She’s dead. You killed her. It’s your
fault entirely
,” over and over again, but feeling nothing.

They say people grieve in different ways, but I would have preferred to be a sobbing mess of a boy instead of being the empty cloud I was. Literally, I remember nothing in those two months. I passed every test I took in school, but retained none of the information. My “friends” were no help or comfort, and the only thing I had left in this world was… nothing.

My hopes, my dreams, my thriving ambition all died that night S
kylar was plucked from my hands
. She was gone, and our mother soon followed. Not in the literal sense, but my mother became an even more distant stranger when Skylar died. From the outside, we seemed like a struggling family; on the inside, we were already broken beyond repair.

This is the time I spent with Rachel. She took me in, helped me get off the drugs I clung to like a baby. She helped me dump
the nameless, faceless girls and try to find my way again. But I never was able to on my own.

I decided to end my
soulless existence on July 4
th
2010.
Now, it seems like a foolish mistake; “a permanent solution to a temporary problem,” they say. At the time, it seemed like the easiest way to avoid the unavoidable. Everywhere I looked, Skylar’s presence screamed at me, “Why did you do this? Why are you so selfish? Wasn’t my life important to you?”

Her bedroom remained untouched, like a tomb of sorrow in the middle of our house. Her school pictures remained on the walls, her drawings on the refrigerator were collecting dust and becoming shriveled, and her closet was still filled with the dress-up clothes we played with so many times.

I had come home- from where, I don’t remember, - and found my mother’s car gone and the house eerily silent. At one time, there would have been a dancing little girl bounding around the living room, calling my name before running into my arms. I
can almost see it for a moment
until
her ghostly memory fades from my mind.

I used to be able to tell you exactly what she looked like; every freckle on her pixie face, every miss-matched pair of socks in her closet… But with time, my memory faded, and I found myself slowly cracking.
This is what you need, Tristan. You need some closure
, my mind sang, but I didn’t want closure.

I wanted Skylar. I wanted my grandmother, my father, my mother back, my
life
back. Waiting for the dead to be reborn is like waiting for snow to fall in the Sahara; a fruitless, pointless effort. I didn’t want to feel. I didn’t want to be unfeeling. I didn’t want to be at all. The decision was made unconsciously, like all my decisions were those days.

Walking up the stairs, I grabbed Skylar’s photo off the wall, and that is when I broke.
I didn’t just break, I shattered. The unfeeling glass
wall that was my soul
exploded
, but I tried to force it back, afraid that regaining feeling again would weaken my resolve. With each step I took, I felt the crash of emotions overtake my body, turning a depression-ridden, wreck of a man into a blubbering mess of a boy.

Our tea parties, cookies at grandma’s, her laughter, my laughter, mom’s laughter, dad’s smi
le, grandpa’s hugs, my lacrosse
career, Skylar’s singing, mom dancing with dad, me dancing with Skylar… Skylar, Mom, Dad, Grandma, Grandpa… dead, dead, dead, dead…

My heart broke, pou
ring out sorrow as if it were physical
blood. I screamed, filling the house with the horrible sound until I reached my destination; my moms’ bathroom. I paced, letting the despair fill me more, as a punishment to myself. A punishment for killing my sister. A punishment for not coping with her loss. A punishment for losing myself when I was supposed to be strong.

I opened the cabinet and pulled out my mom’s bottle of prescription pills, poured them in my mouth, and chugged water to chase them down before I lost my nerve. I took another bottle out and repeated the motions, tears streaming down my face. Unable to control it any longer, I lied down in the cold, tile bathroom floor and waited for Death to find me.

My eyes sprung open, and I found myself sitting on the edge of the bathtub. Looking at my hands, I saw that the scars from the car accident were gone; the long,
snake-like one that once ran
up my forearm had disappeared. I smirk
ed, pleased that I was
once again unmarked.

“Tristan,” said
a voice I couldn’t place, but sounded vaguely familiar. Looking up from my
fresh hands, I saw
a tall man standing beside… me. My eyes grow wide, realization flooding my mind. I’m dead. I killed myself. Now what?

“Tristan, do you realize now how foolish you ha
ve been, son?” The man continued
, looking at me with such disappointment that I feel the need to bow my head.

“You had so much in store, Tristan. I would ask why you performed this act, but I already know. You and I are no
t as close as we should be,” he continued
.

For a flash of a moment, I wonder if the man is my father, but he looks nothing like the man who perished in the fire all those
years ago. Confusion settles in, twisting the world into a contorted mess.

“Who are you?” I ask
ed
, my voice deeper than it had been when I was alive, which shocks me.

“You should know that, Tristan.
You do know. Who am I?” he asked
, holding his arms out to his sides.

My mouth opens of its own accord, voice escaping
through my lips. “God,” it said. Mouth snapped
shut, my eyes widen, hand flying to my throat in surprise.

God smiled, and I felt a peace flow through my heart. Around his head rested a halo of green light, and his entire body seemed to be emitting a str
ange green glow. With long blonde
hair, styled like mine was, his blue eyes were kind and inviting. His clothes were the only thing that would signify him as from a different era, a different country. The white robe he had was dotted with green specks, and his bare feet seemed to barely touch the ground as he stepped closer to me.

“Yes, Tristan, you do know me. You also know that you have made a mistake,” he says, walking towards my body lying on the floor, crumpled into a ball. “Do you feel that,
my child? Your mistake?” he asked
, looking up at me.

I
did
feel it. My
soul
felt it; that it was not right for me to be standing here. It wasn’t my time to die, and it wasn’t my
decision to make. It was His; He gave me life, and I foolishly took it away.

I began to feel like I was choking, so I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. I began to grow panicked, but God looked unalarmed. Without warning, black smoke rose out of my throat and wafted through the air like mist, hovering for a few seconds before making a rapid descend towards the floor.

An enormous weight lifted from my heart, and I began to see something playing behind my eyes. They fought to close, but I refused to look away from the man standing before me.

“Close them, Tristan,” he said
calmly, walking towards me and placing his hand on my head.

I closed my eyes, but they still saw.
A scene played behind my lids like a movie, and I watched with fascination.
A beautiful girl with blonde hair emerged from a doorway, a look of pain and extreme sorrow painted on her face. She set a notebook on the counter before turning around and pulling off her shoes. Suddenly, she walked towards a bathtub and calmly turned on the water, which was so hot the steam floated to the ceiling almost immediately.

I saw myself in the mirror, standing beside the girl in the bathroom. She looked at our reflections for a moment, and I could see the dullness in her sea-foam-green eyes; a dullness that told the
story of a tortured soul. The pain in them made me ache, and I reached forward, trying to touch her, to console the beautiful girl. She pulled a small
pocket
knife out of the drawer and climbed into the bathtub, fully clothed.

Wincing, I was forced to watch her slice her wrists open, cutting so deep blood spurted out and dropped into the bathwater like food-coloring. She didn’t cry out, she simply w
atched with a bored expression as her blood left
her veins. I reached out, wanting to help her, but my hand hit the notebook that was resting on the corner of the sink and i
t fell to the floor with a thwack. Time passed and eventually
she looked up, eyes hazy and face drained of color; I stood there, helplessly watching the girl die in front of me.

“Is this what you want?” says God, who appeared right beside me. He gestures to the girl in the tub, each word hanging in the thick air like the steam around us.