The Illusion of Annabella

  I trip over a lip in the flooring and brace my hands on the wall to stop myself from falling on my face. I grind my teeth in frustration. God, I hate this.

  “I’ve been knocking for, like, ten minutes,” Nikoli whines. “I’m going to be late now.”

  “Good for you,” I snap, squeezing my eyes shut.

  After a night of partying, I’m too drained to hash anything out with anyone. My head feels like it’s been drilled into, and my stomach is temperamental, every movement making it churn. I’m hungover, worn out, and in so much physical pain that I can barely focus on anything else, including the grief, anger, and sadness inside me, which is exactly how I want to feel.

  Pushing away from the wall, I limp down the hall toward the stairway.

  Nikoli yells after me. “Nice outfit! Halloween was two months ago!? You’re seriously getting creepier by the day!”

  He’s right. In all black clothes, except for a neon pink belt, I stand out like a cloud in a sky covered in rainbows. But that’s okay. Rainbows suck. Lie. Disappear when you really need them.

  I flip him the middle finger from over my shoulder then begin the excruciating journey downstairs. By the time I make it to the kitchen, I’m panting, my leg is throbbing, and my brain is pounding from all the memories hiding in every nook and cranny of the house, reminding me of what was and what will never be.

  We received enough insurance money from the accident to pay off the house, and Loki decided to keep it because he thought it would help us all cope better. Same house, same lives, right? Despite that the walls, floors, doors, and counters all look the same, everything feels different. Colder. Emptier. Hollow, like an empty grave.

  Zhara and Alexis are lounging at the table. Alexis, who used to be as cheery as me, now is the biggest downer I know. She never smiles. Never says anything positive. The girl who loved expressing her emotions through art has died.

  Zhara decided to go the opposite route, to the point where you can’t even tell they’re twins anymore. She’s upbeat all the time, like sunshine on crack. She’s always been a little extreme on the positivity, but she’s even more intense now. I think she believes she’s supposed to take on the role of our mother or something. She looks a lot like my mom, too, with brown curls and cat-shaped eyes. Sometimes it’s hard to look at her.

  “You look like shit,” Alexis says to me. “No. I take that back. You look like someone who had way too much fun last night.”

  “I look like I always do.” I get a few painkillers from the cupboard to take for my hangover and leg.

  Zhara glances up at me with a cheerful smile plastered across her face. “Are you feeling any better than you did last night?

  “I’m fine,” I mumble.

  “Anna, you’re not fine. Your screaming woke me up again. I think your nightmares are happening more often . . . Maybe you should tell Loki about them.”

  “You need to chill out and stop worrying about me.” I swallow the pills then rest against the counter, waiting for them to kick in.

  “Oh, all right then.” She fights to keep the smile on her face. “Did I tell you Jessamine called last night and said she’s coming home this summer? Isn’t that exciting? An entire summer with all of us together. It’ll almost be like old times.”

  I turn my back to her so I don’t have to watch her pretend she’s okay when she’s not. “No it won’t.”

  Even when Jessamine is here, the life we knew no longer exists. So she might as well stay off at college where she doesn’t have to be around the fighting and stress and complete and utter chaos our lives have turned into.

  “I don’t know why she’s coming back,” Alexis mutters. “She chose to leave us.”

  “She didn’t choose to leave us,” Zhara insists. “She just didn’t want to drop out of school. You can’t blame her for that.”

  I turn around, knowing they’re going to be at it for a while.

  “I’m not blaming her for anything. You’re just freaking out.” Alexis rolls her eyes then violently flips the page of the book she’s reading. “Have you been snorting crack again or something?”

  “Hey, I don’t do drugs,” Zhara gripes, slumping back in the chair. “God, I can’t even be nice without you insulting me.”

  “Maybe you should stop being nice then,” Alexis suggests, flipping her hair off her shoulder and smirking. “There. Problem solved.”

  They start arguing. Alexis says something mean and Zhara bursts into tears and runs out of the room.

  “Good riddance,” Alexis mutters under her breath then redirects her attention back to the book in front of her.

  I should probably tell her to be nice. It’s kind of depressing to see them this way when they used to be so close, but I don’t—can’t—find the will to care anymore. Just like I don’t care enough to bother waking Loki up even though he’ll be late opening the store if I don’t. Waking him up means talking to him, and if I had my way, I’d be a ghost in this family, dead with my parents, where I sometimes feel like I belong.

  After grabbing a granola bar from the pantry, I leave the house without making a sound.

  It’s a late Saturday morning. The cool December breeze nips at my skin, and the cloudy sky above me makes silent promises of rain. I’m supposed to be going to physical therapy to help regain more mobility in my knee, but I’m not feeling it, just like I wasn’t last weekend. It doesn’t really matter if I go. Yeah, maybe I’ll be able to walk better, but because of the injures to my thigh that deteriorated my muscles, I’ll never be able to dance again, at least not like I used to, and therapy reminds me that my dancing, ballerina, dreamer life is over.

  I trudge down the driveway, noting a large yellow moving truck parked next door. I’m curious what kind of people they’re going to be. If they have kids. If it’s a family.

  A woman in her mid forties wearing a hot pink dress and a leather jacket suddenly appears at the back of the moving truck. Her outfit reminds me a lot of my mom, and I momentarily feel angry as a web of memories spin around me. She lied to me and made me lie for her and part of me hates her for that, which only makes me hate myself even more. She’s dead. I shouldn’t hate her—shouldn’t be angry with her—yet I am.

  The woman jogs down the ramp with a box in her hand and a huge nice-to-meet-you smile on her face. “Hi there,” she says. She sets down the box and rounds the chain link fence.

  I contemplate bolting back to my house, but not wanting to go back inside there either, I pick up the pace and make a beeline for the sidewalk.

  She blindsides me at the end of the driveway and sticks out her hand. “I’m Tammy Benton, your new neighbor.”

  Begrudgingly, I shake her hand.

  “And you are?” she asks as I pull away.

  “Annabella,” I reply dryly, hoping she’ll take the hint to leave me alone. I’m not in the mood to talk, never am.

  “Annabella. What a pretty name,” she says thoughtfully. She stands on her toes, waving at someone over by the moving truck. “Luca, come meet our new neighbor. She looks about your age,” she looks back at me, “seventeen . . . or eighteen?”

  I almost say twenty-one so she won’t try to force her son to be my friend. But she reminds me so much of my mom that I get a little lost in the moment and end up uttering the truth for the first time in months. “Seventeen.”

  “What a crazy coincidence. Luca’s seventeen, too.” She seems so elated about the fact that I have to question if maybe she’s blind, since, right now, I look like the kind of girl mothers definitely don’t want around their sons.

  Luca walks toward us with his hands stuffed in his pockets. He’s tall and lean, with softly tousled brown hair. He’s rocking a plaid shirt and jeans with square framed glasses. He’s cute, sure. Completely crush worthy for someone normal. And I’m sure my parents would approve of him, that is, if they were here.

  I clear my throat at the painful reminder, ignoring the way my chest constricts.

  “Luca, this is Annab
ella,” Tammy says. “Our new neighbor.”

  When he gets a good look at me, shock flashes across Luca’s face, but I tend to have that effect on people. But the look promptly erases and he offers me a lopsided smile and a tentative wave. “It’s nice to meet you.”

  I force a grin that’s as fake as my dyed hair. “Sure.”

  “So, you’re a junior at Honeyton High?” he asks, crossing his arms, seeming the slightest bit nervous.

  Even with the painkiller I took, my leg is still killing me, and I have to readjust my weight. “Yep.”

  “That’s cool. I’ve heard it was a small school,” he says. “Like, maybe five hundred people, which seems crazy to me considering the school I used to go to had triple that.”

  “Triple?” I ask, taken aback. “Where the fuck did you move here from?”

  Tammy winces at the f-bomb.

  There you go. You can see me now. See me for who I really am.

  But her wince hastily shifts to a smile again.

  Seriously, what is she on? Or maybe one of the neighbors has warned her about me. Told her my family's sob story.

  “We moved here from LA,” Luca explains, sliding his finger up the bridge of his nose to position his glasses back into place.

  “Oh . . . okay, I get why you think Honeyton is small then.” I tuck a few strands of my hair behind my ear and steal a peek at the corner of the street, calculating how long it would take me to get there if—when—I decide to flee from this conversation.

  “Your hair’s cool.” He extends his fingers toward my head and pinches a strand, totally invading my personal space and sending my heart into a fitful frenzy. “It kind of reminds me of grape Skittles.”

  I tell my heart to chill the hell out, that I’m not that silly girl who gets giddy over guys anymore. Then I drop my head and the strand falls from his fingers. “No, it doesn’t.”

  “I don’t mean that in a bad way,” he hastily adds. “In fact, the grape ones are my favorite.”

  “Grape isn’t anyone’s favorite, no matter what kind of candy you’re eating.” Ready to get the hell out of here, I open my mouth to tell them bye.

  “I have an idea.” Tammy’s eyes light up as she turns toward Luca. “Maybe Annabella could show you around when school starts up and around town, too. You said you wanted to have an adventure and go exploring.”

  “I didn’t say exploring or adventure.” His cheeks redden. “I just said it’d be nice to walk about and see what’s around.” He smiles at me, as if waiting for me to agree to go exploring on an adventure.

  “Maybe . . . if I have time.” I won’t make any promises I can’t keep, and I know I won’t be doing anything with Luca because he seems too nice, and nice isn’t what I need anymore, what I deserve.

  “Oh, okay . . . Well, hopefully you can find the time.” She fiddles with a silver hooped earring in her ear, growing fidgety. “It’d be really great if Luca had someone to hang with.”

  I search for an out while Luca stares at me, his eyes roving all over my body, unsubtly checking me out. I loathe that he’s noticing me and I despise how much I like the attention.

  “Are your parents around? I’d love to meet them.” Tammy looks at my two-story home that resembles every other house on the street

  There goes my theory of her already knowing my family’s history.

  My lips part to tell her my parents are dead, to just throw it out there and watch her squirm. But the words get lodged in my throat along with a thousand emotions I refuse to let out.

  I limp away without saying a word. Someone else can tell her.

  I feel their eyes on me as I hobble down the sidewalk. At the end of the street, I veer to the right toward the bus stop. By the time I make it to the bench, my knee is sore and my phone has rang at least ten times.

  I wait for the bus, letting the phone ring about ten more times before answering it.

  “Where the hell are you?” Loki fumes before I can even get out a hello.

  “Going to physical therapy like I’m supposed to,” I lie, slumping back on the bench.

  “And how the hell are you getting there?” he seethes. “You can’t drive. Not with that leg. You know that.”

  “I’m not stupid. I’m taking the bus.”

  “You’re not supposed to be walking around like that. You’re going to fuck up your knee even more.”

  “I just thought I’d take the bus since you’re going to be late opening the store.”

  He fires off a sequence of curses. “Dammit, I forgot about the store.”

  Loki forgets about the store a lot. Between taking online college classes, paying the bills, and keeping an eye on the four of us, he’s losing his mind, and is completely unlike the Loki before the accident. We’ve all changed. Me, the rainbow turned raincloud. Alexis, the thunder grumbling at everyone. Zhara, the sunshine refusing to fade despite all the rain. Nikoli, the lightning shouting out at everyone. Jessamine, the distant wind. And Loki, the rain struggling to wash all our pain away.

  “Why don’t you just sell it, then?” I ungracefully stagger to my feet as the bus rolls up to the curb.

  “You’re joking, right?” he asks. “Please, please tell me you’re joking.”

  “Why would I joke about that?” The bus doors swing open, and I struggle to get up the stairs. “It’s just a store, and it’s stressing you out.” It’s not just a store, though. It’s my father’s store that reminds me of the last time I saw him, looked him in the eyes, and lied to his face.

  Swiping my bus card more violently than necessary, I limp down the aisle to the back, noting everyone’s stares.

  Who are they’re staring at, though? The girl with purple hair wearing too much makeup? Or the girl with a limp? Which one is it? Who do they see? Because I have no idea anymore.

  “Will I ever dance again?” I ask the doctor with false hope in his eyes.

  He looks at me with pity. “Let’s just worry about getting you walking properly again, okay?”

  “It’s Dad’s store.” Loki’s stressed voice shatters apart the memory of the day my dancing dream was lost. “And he left it to me.”

  “He also left us to you, which seems like more of a burden than anything.” I sink into the backseat and pinch the bridge of my nose.

  “Don’t say that.” His voice cracks like glass. “You guys aren’t a burden.”

  He’s lying. Having four teenagers, one fourteen-year-old, two sixteen year-olds, and one seventeen-year-old would be a burden to most people.

  I’m not exactly sure why my parents left guardianship to Loki, other than maybe they weren’t expecting to die so soon. We don’t have any living family other than my mom’s sister, who lives in California and smokes a lot of pot. They both had friends, though, that were more equipped to raising four teenagers.

  After the funeral, Loki said something about a note with the will that stated the reasons why my parents wanted him to raise us. He wouldn’t let anyone read it. Not even Jessamine, who he used to be close to before the accident. Said it was solely for him.

  “I think you should come home now. I can take you to therapy and then go to the store. I don’t like you walking around more than you have to. Plus, you’re on probation.”

  “Yeah, that doesn’t matter.”

  “You can’t seriously believe it doesn’t matter?” He leaves the statement hanging in the air, but I don’t utter a damn word—can’t—since I have no idea what I believe anymore. “Anna, you’ve been arrested twice in the last four months. And the police have brought you home two other times on top of that. You sneak out of the house, go to parties, steal, and those friends you hang out with are bringing you down. You skip out on school, and you’re barely passing your classes. You won’t go to your therapy sessions, and your leg’s never going to get better if you keep it up . . . Don’t you want to dance again?”

  Dance? I’ll never dance again. “I’ll never dance again. You know that.”

  Silence stretche
s between us, and it’s painful, aching, just like the scars on my leg and the hole in my heart put there the day my parents died—the day my life changed.

  I’m just about to hang up when he says, “I really think we should start looking for a therapist, someone you can talk to since you won’t talk to me.”

  “I don’t need your help, or anyone else’s.” My knee literally twitches as the scars burn from underneath my pant leg. “I just need to be left alone.”

  “They’re going to take you away from me if you keep it up,” he says in a desperate attempt to get me to clean up my act. “You know they can do that, right?”

  I smash my lips together, battling back the guilt and tears that cram their way up my throat. “Maybe it’d be better if they did.”