Page 2 of I'll Look for You, Everywhere
No! my subconscious screams. Oxford is your safe haven. Remember why you left. Who you left. Think of how long you felt sad. I sigh. Maybe I just don’t like parties. I tend to be my most melodramatic in social settings, so it’s difficult to tell when I mean what I think.
Scooting up further on the chair, I look around the flat again. The scratched hardwood floors, the chipped corner of our kitchen countertop from when Emily cracked a beer bottle over the ceramic. The memory makes my eyes involuntarily search for her. Wild curls sway around her as she argues about simple nothings with the man she is in love with. A professor, tricky. But he’s very charming and seems to listen when she speaks. Usually, this would make me smile. But I look at all of these things from outside of myself. Seeing them but feeling nothing.
My ribs burn. The drunk girl is still rubbing her nose until it’s flushed with red irritation. She is nameless, happy, and free. Give me some of that! my mind screams. I want to reach out, grab her carelessness, swallow it, and tread in her stupor. But I can’t.
I think of the walls of Chivasso, permanent and profound with age. Running away has done nothing but drag my blueness to another country. My sister shouldn’t pay the price for something I should have worked out years ago. The air becomes heavy with sadness, and I feel burdensome. My fingers dig into the letter.
Why am I always left behind? So afraid of everything and so tired of being afraid.
A deep exhale escapes me, feeling like my skin itself is deflating from the loss of breath. I have no dress. No shawl for my potentially exposed shoulders.
I feel my heart constrict so tightly I think I’m dying. I wait a moment, trying to feel the action of breath. Waiting for a pulse through the skin of my wrist. My ears fill with white noise as I look down at the letter.
But then I feel it; the rush of blood settles in my fingertips, letting me know I’m not dying, just being a pussy.
My nails slide through the hardened wax seal, fingers gripping the invitation, feeling the raised lettering of my sister’s name, feeling selfish for not wanting to go in the first place.
So I shove my melodrama back into the envelope and seal it shut.
I have a wedding to attend.
2
MAGDALEN
It’s a week later and Emily is still furious. My roommate fucking the professor, angry with me! We have already purchased tickets to backpack across Peru, and she cannot fathom why on earth I would want to go back home. She says ‘home’ with disgust, bitter and resentful of a word that has the potential to mean so much. But not to her.
Emily had her annual falling-out with her mother five months ago, and this trip guaranteed another three months during which she didn’t have to see her again.
‘Ask Professor Cal,’ I giggle.
‘Stop calling him that.’
‘What? He should be proud of his education. Are you not making him feel proud, Emily?’
‘I’m making him feel things, alright.’ She winks.
‘Gross. It’s too early to be this gross!’
She falls to her knees in front of the leather chair, still sticky from last week’s spilt alcohol, and grabs my face in her hands. ‘Ugh, men. They disgust me!’ Her black hair spills around her face in wild curls, casting shadows across our walls.
‘You and home.’ Her eyes search mine and she sighs. ‘I don’t get it with you.’
My cheek warms in her palm as I lean into her touch. ‘You and me both, sister.’ I shrug. ‘I’m complex.’
‘You’re secretive.’
‘I’m not! Remember when I told you about the spot on my ass?’
‘The only reason you told me was because I had to pop it.’
‘Gross again, Emily! Too early for gross.’
Emily pinches my cheek and pouts, standing. ‘No way I can convince you, Maggie? Peruvian boys, Peruvian wine, Machu Picchu? Enlightenment?’
‘I haven’t even met an English boy yet and you’re already handing me over to the Peruvians?’ I laugh, relieved that she has forgiven me. It is always so easy with Emily.
‘What you mean to say is that you’ve never had any boy, Maggie dearest. Which, I will never bloody understand. You just have to get it over with, like the flu shot.’ She pads over to the kitchen, searching for a bottle of wine to open, despite the noon chime minutes away from ringing. ‘You’re so fucking beautiful, and smart and you know, and I bet you’d fuck like a—’
