I’ve been sitting in my windowsill for days now, just staring out the window. Jesse’s been gone for a week; it seems like it’s been an eternity. My sister and father are downstairs with Jesse’s mom. They’ve all been worried about me; they think I’m holding too much in, they think I need to let it all out before it overwhelms me. I’d say it’s a little too late for that. I keep rethinking the moment I opened the door to two police officers. I knew the moment I saw them what was wrong; they took off their hats and ask if I was Laura Harris. I was apprehensive before I answered, I though maybe for a time being, if I pretended I was someone else then I wouldn’t have to realize what was happening to me. I didn’t want to know what was behind door number one. They told me his car -they estimated- flipped six times; he was gone before the ambulance ever got there. It’s funny how things can all change in a matter of minutes, seconds to be exact. In the blink of an eye everything you cherish, hold dear is gone. Your life as you thought you knew it. Jesse and I were to be married in June. But now I sit by myself wondering if Jesse was ever real? Did he exist? I can still see him when I close my eyes, but was it real?
I can hear my sister Roxi’s footsteps coming down the hall; she tends to stomp when she walks so you can always tell it’s her. She thinks I need to move to Orlando with her and my father, she told me I could move my practice up there and start over from scratch. But the truth is, they’re just scared to leave me alone. I’ve made her feel better by telling her I’d go and stay a couple months, but I have no intention of moving.
“Laura,” Roxi said through the door crack,
“Yeah?” I said without turning around.
“We wanted to know if you wanna eat something?”
“No thanks,” I said continuing to look out the window.
“Laura, you haven’t eaten in two days, unless you want to join Jesse in the cemetery I suggest you eat.” I turned my head to look at her, she had her beautiful coal black hair tied up in a loose ponytail, the black eyeliner that she wore made her blue eyes almost look translucent. She had a ring on every finger and black nail polish. You could say she was a bit eccentric; the total opposite of me, the wildest I got was wearing a miniskirt and painting my nails fire engine red. Roxi had been a backup dancer for the Backstreet Boys for the past few years, it suits her well, she is a modern day gypsy, she inherited it from our father. We had traveled all over the world with him. Our mother had died when Roxi and I were both young. It wrecked our father, I guess you could say he never got over the loss, he just kept running from it. I’m scared that if I leave Miami I’ll do the same.
“Laura,” Roxi said in a more sensitive tone, “please come down,”
I followed my sister down the hall, it had been the same hall I walked up and down everyday, but today it seemed like something I had never seen before. It was longer then usual, the walls seemed to close in around me making me claustrophobic, the wood floors creaked under my feet, and I could hear low murmurs. For a moment I thought I might be dreaming, that this was some kind of nightmare, that I’d wake up drenched and screaming and Jesse would be lying next to me calming me down, telling me it was just a dream. But this wasn’t the first time I thought of it as a dream, it crossed my mind when the policemen were telling me what happened, then again at the funeral, I thought for sure I’d wake up at the cemetery. But I didn’t. This nightmare just goes on and on.
My father is sitting at my kitchen table with his head in his hands. Pondering I’m sure, he’s the only one in this room that could have a single notion of what I’m feeling, he’s been feeling it for the past twenty years. Jesse’s mother Claire is cleaning up the kitchen, I’m not sure what there was to clean, she might just be washing the same dishes over and over again,
“Laura, what can I make you?” Claire said walking over to me and placing a hand on my shoulder.
“I’m not hungry Claire, but thank you,”
“You need to eat Laura,” Dad said putting his hands down
“I’m not…”
“Please Laura,” a voice said coming in through the living room. I turned my head to see who it was,
“Sophie,” I whimpered.
Sophie had been my dad’s second wife; he met her when we moved to France, she had been the only one out of the three my father would marry after her that I truly loved. She had been the closest thing to a mother I had.
“I’m sorry I could not make it to Jesse’s funeral, I couldn’t get a flight out of Paris until now,” she said wrapping her arms around me, “I’ll be staying here for as long as you need me Laura,”
“Thank you Sophie, but I’m leaving for Orlando tomorrow, I’m going back there to be with Roxi and Dad,” I said looking over at my sister and father.
“And that’s where I’ll be too,” she said kissing me on the forehead.
And there it hit me, the reason they were all here, the three people I loved the most minus Jesse. My dad my sister and my ex-step mother who came all the way from France. They were all there looking at me, with pathetic looks on their faces. It dawned on me, they were all worried, that was to be expected, but in a different way, I had done something in my past, something that hung over everyone. And now my family stands in front of me, and I ask the question. Should I be afraid? They all knew something I didn’t realize until now, and now it made me scared…Should I be afraid of myself?
Never Gone by MeG
Author's Chapter Notes:
This Story is told entirely in First Person, By the main Character Laura Harris. it's told from her eyes and her point of views.
