1
AVA
“Do you think if we never move, we can stay this way forever?” Clover mumbles from beside me.
“Probably not forever,” I reply with my eyes closed. “We’d die eventually from starvation or dehydration.” It’s a nice idea, though; wanting to stay in this single moment, never moving forward and never going back.
Never haunted by the past again and never having to face an unknown future.
“I guess so,” she mutters. “But we could exist for a while. Even if our bodies and minds were starving, we’d still breathe. It’s instinct for the lungs to keep seeking oxygen even when every other part of us pleads to give up.”
My eyelids open. We’re lying on the yellowing grass in front of her house, a blanket is underneath us, and the sunlight is warm across our faces. But despite the warmth the sun is trying to whisper across the earth, the air is screaming with a winter chill.
I rotate my head to look at Clover. She has her eyes shut, her blonde hair is spread out around her head, and her hands are resting on her stomach, similar to the pose my grandma was in when she was in her coffin. I’m unsure why I think aboutthat right now. It seems so morbid. But what Clover said about breathing…
“I… Wow, that’s dark, Cloves,” I say with a ball of uneasiness forming in my stomach.
It’s a similar feeling I got when she told me about her diary, and all the dark words she stained upon the pages in permanent ink.
And when she sank underneath the freezing lake water and briefly quit trying to exist.
Without opening her eyes, she gives a lazy shrug. “Then I guess human nature is dark because I’m just stating the truth. Lungs will keep seeking oxygen until the very fucking end, even if we don’t want them to.”
The wind grows quiet as my mind floats backwards to when my lungs almost never breathed again. And yet they kept fighting not to quit.
She cracks her eyes open and looks at me. “Are you okay?”
I nod. “Are you?”
Her lips kick up into a grin. “I’m always okay, my daisy friend.” She closes her eyes again.
So do I.
But I can’t stop thinking about what she said. And not only about the lungs' will to breathe.
She constantly says she’s okay. But that can’t be the truth. No one is always okay. But it’s simple to lie about, like I just did.
I want to press her further, ask her what’s wrong. But like usual, I keep my lips sealed as the fear that she’ll return the favor swallows me up and suffocates me until my lungs stop working?—
My eyelids fly open. I blink repeatedly, attempting to get a grasp on my bearings.
Slowly, my surroundings come into focus.
I’m in a bed, lying on my side. The wall in front of me is decorated with a strip of wallpaper dotted with trees, and the leaves on the branches coordinate with the forest green walls. A door is located near the foot of the bed, and it appears to lead to a bathroom.
Where am I?
How did I get here…
Suddenly, everything comes rushing back to me. Getting drunk. Telling Ellis about the woods and how his sister was there with me. After that, things become murky, but I’m pretty sure I’m in Ellis’ hotel room. I lift the blanket, and relief washes over me. I’m still dressed in the shorts and shirt I had on yesterday. Not that I believe Ellis would’ve had sex with me in the condition I was in, but the holes in my memories are absolutely terrifying.
And where is Clara?
Biting back a groan from the throbbing in my skull, I roll over and glance around the room. Relief cascades through me. She’s on a sofa with a blanket draped across her, and Bailey is curled up by her feet.
So where is Ellis then?
As if reading my mind, the room door swings open, and he enters. He’s cleaned up, his hair is styled, his shirt and pants are wrinkle-free, and he’s recently shaven. He’s also holding a cupholder with three coffees in it and is also carrying a brown paper bag. It’s odd to see him like this after what I confessed last night, or that he’s even here at all.
