41Disclaimer: I do not own anything that is not my own. :P The lyrics are from Avril Lavigne's song, When You're Gone.
A/N: This is my newest story, Endings. I was going to write all of it before posting, but I decided to see if get a little feedback before going too far into it. This is the story of a fifteen-year old girl, Evelyn Coleman, who lost her father to cancer at twelve and at the time of Chapter 1 is about to lose her comatose mother to a car accident. Her step-father, Thomas, is a sick man (as you have probably guessed), and nothing like her parents. She is diagnosed with bipolar disorder, which, in addition to her current situation, makes it difficult to life her life like any other normal teenager.
This is a romance, but be forewarned - they're not going to get together instantly and have this perfect relationship. Evelyn's condition and past history makes it hard for her to trust others, and besides that when are relationships ever trouble-free?
This is rated T for now, but it's bordering on M for uncomfortable topics, such as self-injury, implied (non-explicit) sexual-assault, and death. THERE ARE NO LEMONS, SMUT, OR EXPLICIT MATERIAL IN THIS STORY. If I get complaints the the rating is too low, I will change it.
Lastly, my updating will depend on reviews. I will usually have chapters in advance, but at most I'll only be updating every week. Please take a minute to tell me what you think! Thanks -
~Katalina Tomas :)
Prologue
When you're gone
The pieces of my heart are missing you
And when you're gone
The face I came to know is missing too. . .
Thursday, December 22, 2005
The room was cold. She had always had a somewhat annoying habit of keeping the temperature wherever she was a few degrees lower than the rest of the house and never wore anything thicker than an old t-shirt and shorts. The fact that it was the middle of December only added to the artificially created chill.
However, that cold day in December, no one cared to argue with her over the reading on the thermostat. Recent events, she thought, gave her the right to mess with the temperature all she wished. Especially given that the one person who would have complained the most wasn't around at the moment, and wouldn't ever be again.
She briefly contemplated jacking the temperature up a bit, not liking the memories it brought her, and decided to turn it lower instead, hoping to give herself a reason to show at least a little emotion. She had seen too much to continue acting like the stony person she portrayed. However, it wouldn't happen on its own. Her eyes landed on the onion sitting on the counter., spotting the knife gleaming innocently next to it. Onions equaled tears. In a heartbeat she was standing in front of the vegetable.
She chopped it, absentmindedly peeling away its layers. Her eyes stung at the gas it was giving off, but she wouldn't stop to relieve them of their pain. She didn't want to eat them. She had never cared for the taste. The only reason she cared to cut the foul food was for the tears. Without them, the act lost all its purpose.
Her father deserved her tears, needed them. She hadn't cried when she was first called to the hospital. She hadn't shed a single tear when she held his hand as he slept. She hadn't allowed any emotion to cloud her thought, not even that last day.
Chop.
With an angry slice, she cut her hand, causing the blood to seep out of her palm. Swearing, she grabbed the paper towel roll on the counter and wrapped it around the injury, not caring to wipe the trail of blood away. It was just blood.
It wasn't like she had never seen it before.
Using her impaired hand, she held the remainder of the bulb and resumed her assault of the onion. The tears never came. She cut that into smithereens and reached for another. Why did they not come? She could feel the pressure of the liquid behind her eyes, but the dam holding them back never broke. Her movements became more erratic, and before long all that remained of the second onion was a pile of slices, varying greatly in width and size and stained a watery red.
She still couldn't cry.
She abandoned the pile of stained onion and wrenched the fridge door open, suppressing the pain that flared in her hand. The smell of rotten food from days ago hit her hard, but she ignored it, heading straight for the bag of onions. Only one left. But surely one would dissolve that barrier blocking her tears?
The bag fell to the floor, forgotten, and the onion lay on the cutting board, gleaming in the weak sunlight coming from the half-open blinds. Quickly, urgently, she took the knife in her hand and sliced it, not stopping for a breath. With an expectant breath she waited.
Her eyes stayed as dry as ever.
Eerily calm, she laid the knife down on the counter. The mutilated onions she pushed to the far side, giving the impression of a neat and tidy kitchen. She swept the debris on the floor away and propped the broom next to the trash can before sitting down on a chair, the stony expression back on her face.
Wednesday, January 4, 2006
"I don't believe I've met you yet, Evelyn."
Her head jerked upwards, taking in the surreal sight in front of her. She backed away and frowned, instinctively, gripping the book in her hands.
Her mother, hanging all over her boyfriend's arm, scowled at her daughter's reaction. She sighed, probably confused at her lack of enthusiasm. She was, after all, getting a father again. "This is Thomas, my -"
"Fiancé," he finished, kissing her on the cheek, a goofy and lovestruck expression on his face.
It was also completely fake.
"Pleased to meet you," Evelyn replied, rather stiffly.
Thomas reached for her hand and gently pried it off the book, stooping down to kiss it. "I'm sure we'll get along well." His voice made her shudder, and she yanked her arm away from him, nodding as politely as she could. Something was very off about this man, but she pushed her doubts aside, focusing instead on the possibility that her mother had fallen in love two weeks after declaring her undying devotion to her dead husband.
The chances? Next to none.
She hadn't known he was more than one of her mother's many one-night stands. Was it his money? Influence? Surely she had more sense than to marry so soon after seeing her previous husband lowered in the ground?
It was probably the money.
She studied them, flinching imperceptibly at their blatant show of affection. There was an impressionable twelve year old in the room, for goodness sakes. Besides that, they were far from hormonal teenagers, yet they were making out not two yards away from her. She felt an inexplicable urge to tell them to get a room, but she figured her mother wouldn't respond so well to her impertinence.
She coughed, intending it to be fake but choking on her spit a second after glancing at her to-be stepfather. She stared at him, a blush rising in her cheeks, and abruptly looked away. She did not need to know. "I'm right here, if you hadn't noticed, Mom."
"Of course, dear. Sorry," she said, not sounding sorry at all. She leaned into Thomas' and let him plant a chaste kiss on her forehead. "We're going out for dinner, by the way. Make yourself presentable by six. Preferably a dress, if you can manage it." With that both of them swept out of the room, the door slamming behind them, not caring to hear her reply.
"Okay, Mom."
Evelyn turned her attention back to her book after they left, probably for the bedroom. She felt her eyes burn, but when it was clear that even after half a month she wasn't going to cry she shrugged, accepting it as fact and moving on.
Sunday, May 7, 2006
It was a clear spring day. People were bustling about, running to and from the house. Every so often, a kindly woman would approach her and ask her nicely if she needed anything, smiling and patting her hand after she shook her head. The temperature was a comfortable 63 degrees, and not single cloud was visible in the sky. Evelyn could even hear the sweet sound of a bird's song.
All in all, it was the perfect day for a wedding.
She stared at her reflection in the lake, enjoying the way the pale purple dress looked on her. It was sleeveless and cascaded down to her feet, showing only the tips of her silver heels. She didn't approve of the occasion she was wearing it for, but that didn't mean she had to hate dressing up for it. Smiling, she twirled, momentarily forgetting the current situation.
"You look beautiful in that dress."
Evelyn spotted Thomas' - she refused to call him by any other name, despite her mother's insistence - face in the water and she clenched her fists at her sides. "Thank you," she replied, purposely not turning around. "Aren't you supposed to be somewhere?"
He chuckled, rather darkly in Evelyn's opinion. "I'm where I want to be." She could feel his eyes boring holes in her skull.
"What happened to your fiancé?" she asked, bluntly.
"She's getting ready, and I'm not allowed to see her until she walks down the aisle. You know a woman's most special day is the day she gets married."
She's had her day. The image in the water blurred, and she stepped back, a flood of memories threatening to overwhelm her. Hesitantly, she put her hand to her face, disappointed that after all this time she hadn't been able to show her father how much she missed him. "Don't you have other things to do besides stand there uselessly?" It came out much more harshly than she had planned, but she didn't care.
He put a hand on her shoulder, ignoring her resistance. "It's fine to mourn, Evelyn."
"Can you please stop?" She gritted her teeth to avoid a scene. This was her mother's wedding, and no matter how she felt about her choice in husbands she loved her enough to try to act like she cared.
"Stop what?" he asked, tightening his grip.
She pulled away, almost toppling over into the lake. "Please leave me alone."
Surprisingly, he listened and let go. "Just be forewarned, you'll be seeing much more of me later on."
That simple statement sent shivers down her spine. There were so many ways to interpret that, but she chose to understand it the way she hoped he meant it as. "Of course, seeing as you're to be my new dad and all that."
He smiled, looking at her in such a way that she became uncomfortable, and left.
Saturday, August 19, 2006
Books, she decided, were among the most reliable things in the world. They never changed, never left you, and usually had a happy ending.
Evelyn turned the page in her latest conquest, feeling partly elated that she had finally reached the end and partly sad because yet another story was over. The words stared at her from the middle of the page, in bold block letters. The End. The end of what? She had seen many ends in her twelve years of living. The end of books, the end of games, the end of people. She had never liked those two words, never liked the thought of ending anything. The end had always been followed by something worse.
"It's not really the end, Evelyn. It's the beginning of something new."
"Go away, Dad. You never told me it meant the start of something new and terrible." She banished his voice from her head and threw the book on her bed.
"Were you talking to me?" She didn't need to turn around to know who was standing in her doorway, an unsettling smirk on his face.
She forced herself to grin and looked at him. "Actually, no." Standing up, she made her way to him, fully intending to go downstairs to ask her mother something. Anything to get away. "I'm getting something to eat," she informed him.
"She's shopping all day today, with some of her friends from work."
For the first time she felt a hint of panic. Her mother had always been her protection from the something she didn't even know, a shield between her and her stepfather. And now her guard was down.
Unconvincingly she smiled at him and took a step back. "Oh. Then I think I'll get started on one of those books I was planning on reading this summer. . ." She stepped back again, not liking the expression on his face. She couldn't place it, although she had a vague suspicion that it was the same one she saw every night before they sat down to eat.
He walked around her and sat down on her bed, causing her to spin around, her back to the hallway outside her room. "You know, Evelyn, I know I haven't been the best father, but I think I can be."
Another step towards the wall. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"You're a smart girl, Evie -"
"I'd prefer you not call me that -"
"- even if you lack any kind of street smarts. Which, by the way, I plan on teaching you."
One more step. There was a chance she could run for the phone and put her mother on the line. "Teaching me what?"
He got up abruptly and pulled her towards the bed.
"This, my dear Evie..."
After months of holding back, she began to cry.