Page 74 of Melancholia

“Mom, please…” I reach out for her, trying to grip her fingers as my heart sinks. “Please, I need you to listen to me. I-I can’t keep doing this. I’m fifteen, and—” The moment my hand finds hers, she turns on me, and like she’s done so many times before, she hits me hard in the face.

“Don’t touch me, Eleanor,” she whispers, her eyes bright with fury as I stagger back. “Don’t you fucking touch me. Not when this is your fault. God!” She tugs so hard on her black hair that I worry she’ll rip it out, and I make a small noise of concern in my throat as I press my fingers against my bloody lower lip.

“Mom, don’t. Please, you’re going to hurt yourself. Wait—” I follow her out onto the balcony that holds so many memories. When we were kids, my parents would start little fires on the tabletop fire pit, complete with mini campfire sticks for us to roast marshmallows on.

We’d listen to music, the kind my dad would use as an excuse to sweep my mother into his arms and dip her until she was giggling like a teenager.

Eventually, when Elaina and I would get cold, Dad would wrap us both up in a blanket and sit across from us with Mom, both of them telling us stories or answering any of our questions for that week. It was one of our favorite rituals, and sometimes, our parents would let me and Eleanor stay up late and whisper secrets to one another on the couch, pretending they didn’t notice our giggles or our gasps.

Being out here now just makes me miss it more. The balcony is in as much disrepair as the apartment, if not more. The couch’s cushions are long gone, blown away in some storm after they weren’t put away properly, and the tabletop fire pit is rusted beyond repair. But I follow my mom past those until she stands at the railing and gazes out over the city.

“What are you doing out here?” I reach a hand out to her, fingers shaking, but I don’t touch her. Not with my lip bleeding as a reminder of what she does when touched. But it doesn’t hurt. That’s the only thing that registers in my head to pull me out of this memory-turned-dream.

My mother turns and looks at me, for the first time actually seeming to truly see me. "I wish it was you instead of her,” she sighs conversationally, her eyes holding mine. The words are delivered with such calmness that it somehow makes the ensuing pain in my chest worse.

“Oh, how I wish it was you instead of her. My perfect little girl is gone, and I’m left with you instead. Why couldn’t you have been the one to get sick, Eleanor?”

I can feel myself breaking, cracks forming inside me. My hands go numb at my sides as I stare at her, hopeless.

“But, Mom, please.” I take a step forward, though in my head something screams at me not to. Some part of me is aware this is a dream; the part that knows how this goes. “I’m your daughter too.” Tears run down my cheeks, though in my dream I can’t feel the heat of them like I did that day. “Please! I need you too, Mom. I miss Eleanor too, but I’m still here!”

My mother smiles almost sadly. Like she might actually regret this as she opens her mouth and says, “God, how I wish you weren’t.” I stagger as if I’ve been physically hit, my back hitting the glass of the sliding door.

“Please don’t say that.”

“My poor Elaina.” She’s gone again, in that place between waking and dreams that she fades to in between the wine and sleep. “My poor, perfect girl. Oh, my darling.” She turns back to stare at the horizon, and I can just see her hands tighten on the railing. “I’m coming to find you, Elaina.”

There’s no fanfare. No big lead-up or warning signs. One moment my mom is standing there like she has so many times before, and then…she isn’t. It’s like I blink and between one moment and the next, my mom is just gone.

Until I hear the thud from seven stories below.

Someone screams, then someone else follows. There are voices panicking, calling the cops. Eventually, there will be sirens.

Someone will come find me, but by then, it will be too late. I’m already fracturing along the cracks in my brain, my eyes wide, staring at where my mother once stood, unable to get the words from her mouth out of my skull as they sear into my brain.

“I wish it was you instead of her.”

The world goes black around me, the dream memory fading, but the voices get louder, closer, and more insistent.

But this…isn’t how it went. There weren’t loud voices of people coming to find me. Only the eventual quiet of the horrified officers who pulled me to my feet before depositing me in the social worker’s custody, wanting to get me out of their care before I could take the same jump as my mother.

The voices become one, and it continues to get louder as the dream fades completely, pulling away the absolute darkness black with it. I shift with a soft sound, only for a hand to cup my face.

“There you are, my perfect girl. My gorgeous, troublesome little mortician.” There’s relief in Amir’s voice, even past the worry. “Come back to me. You’re all right. Show me those pretty eyes.”

On command, my eyes drift open of their own accord until I’m meeting Amir’s gaze.

“Hello there,” I whisper, dazed. “Where…” When I try to sit up, he puts a hand on my shoulder and pushes me right back down. Belatedly, I realize he’s put his jacket under my head as a pillow, and he settles down to sit beside me, his gaze on mine.

“You’re not moving yet. Not until you prove to me that you haven’t broken anything. Can you wiggle your fingers and toes for me?”

“This is dumb,” I whisper, but I do it anyway. “I’m fine, okay?” Fine, except for the memories that come flickering back to me. I fight past his hand to sit up sharply, looking around the trees. “Where…they were here and⁠—”

Panic rises in my throat like a physical thing, and I grab Amir’s hand when he moves to touch me. “No, no, you don’t understand. They were here. I had to run.” It doesn’t occur to me that I sound crazy right now. Just like I did when they put me in the hospital for the first time. “I can’t, Amir. I can’t look at them. They’re all gone, and I can’t⁠—”

Suddenly, he pulls me to him and crushes me against his chest. “Breathe with me,” Amir whispers in my ear. “Shhh, shhh. Just breathe with me, darling.”

In the dirt of the woods somewhere outside of Kindred Pines, Amir gently rocks me back and forth as my heart works overtime before slowing down to a more reasonable speed. My hands grip tightly at his shirt, and I burrow into him, my body trembling with both cold and terror.