I want in fact more of you. In my mind I am dressing you with light; I am wrapping you up in blankets of complete acceptance and then I give myself to you. I long for you; I who usually long without longing, as though I am unconscious and absorbed in neutrality and apathy, really, utterly long for every bit of you.” ~Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena

***

(Ariel: unedited)

The business of watching someone unravel was a terrible thing.

And it wasn’t just the unraveling that was the problem – it was the things it left behind. Bits of thread were stuck to the walls, thin and narrow as macaroni noodles. Glass shards sat upon the windowsills.  Unturned pages from old newspapers flapped in the faint breeze from the overhead air conditioning vents.

Each thing seemed to be faded, colors blurring together, a little more broken and a little less tangible than they should have been. Because, of course, none of these things were real. They were examples of what sorrow did to a person – a physical representation of how strange it was when people began to deteriorate, like clothing or objects or emotions.

The only real things were overturned shoes, sitting in pairs upon the living room coffee table, heel prints making triangles in the sticky puddles of dried soda. There was a pile of broken records in the kitchen, a steadily growing contribution of favorites to the favorite who had passed.

All the food had been taken downstairs in a whirlwind of bumped cupcake frosting and trailing sprinkles, but the musty, sugary smell lingered in the crevices of the empty rooms.

Ariel ran her hand along the wall of the entry way slowly, feeling the bumps and ridges of the flaking white plaster. She had been up here twice already, and around the whole house at least once.

Anything to avoid the basement, where the air was stagnant and the knots of mourning people cinched tighter to accommodate fresh grief. All the pictures had been moved down there, and she had only to open the basement door to find a pixelated 16x20 of his sad, uneasy smile.

Her coffee was cold. Lumps of undissolved powdered creamer were rising to the surface, skating around like water bugs. Each swallow ran down her throat, esophagus, into her stomach in an icy stream.

Hunger did this – drew things out, made the sensation of simply being so much more finite.

She wondered how long it would be before anyone noticed that, this morning, she had simply stopped eating. She could feel the dots rushing across her vision in a gentle black sweep, advancing and retreating with each breath.

She wondered if Iris had noticed the bowls of cereal, brimming with milk that she had been emptying carefully into the sink. If they had seen the way her jeans slipped off her hipbones this morning. She had risen too quickly from the breakfast table and the fabric had fallen, exposing the curvature of her swollen skin.

“You’re thinking about me.”

Ariel didn’t move. Her breath caught in her mouth, an unreleased whoosh that rippled through the silence. “No.”

“Today is the day, you know.”

“I know.” How could she not? Even now she could hear the sobs beneath her feet, rising through the floorboards. It was haunting. Gathering her courage, heart thumping, she turned her head slowly. Randall stood in the doorway.

His hands were stuffed inside his pockets, and when his head turned, face coming into a beam of dusty light, the feminine curve of his cheekbones was illuminated. And just like that, he was real. All was well again.

Ariel wished Iris could see this.

“They’re still crying.”

It was a statement. Ariel, finally, let the breath out of her mouth. It caught in her teeth and came out a hiss. “I wish they would stop.” Lie. “I wish this wasn’t happening.” Truth.

“The birthday party?” Randall shrugged awkwardly. He scuffed his toe along the worn floorboard. “I think it’s nice.”

“It’s bizarre.” Ariel stepped toward him. Could he see the confusion on her face? The panic? She wanted him to freeze, fade, disappear, like he always did. But, he stayed, leaning back against that doorframe with a strange look on his pale face. It was because she hadn’t eaten all day. Hunger made this happen. Price paid to obtain the ultimate goal. “Randall, you’re dead.”

“Angry that you aren’t?”

If it was anyone else, she would’ve screamed. This was just too much: the party, the hunger, the pains, him reincarnate. It was unnerving. The only consolation was that while he was talking, blowing dust motes away, he didn’t look entirely like a real boy.

His edges were faded.

Like the fraying at the bottoms of his jeans, the curve of his shoulders and the slant of his arms had gaps, pieces of him at last unraveling.

But it was Randall. The one she never gave a chance; the one she wished she had. What kind of person was she, that she hadn’t mustered tears over the death of her cousin? He had been so painfully shy. They had never really talked. Yet, here she was, standing in her aunt’s house with a hallucination of a dead boy in front of her, paying penance for her silence.

At least this time, he deserved her honesty.

She met his dark gaze, chin lifting slightly in self-defense. “Yeah. More than anything.”

Randall shook his head. “It won’t be what you think it is.”

“That’s what everyone says!” The dots came again, crowding Randall out, reducing him to black space. Ariel flung her hand over her eyes. “You don’t know. How could you?”

He was in front of her in a flash, leaning forward. His breath smelled like coffee. “Just ask yourself something, Ariel.” The dots had disappeared and he was blurring, the brown and blonde of him muddied to grey. “What is the cost of death?”

Ariel felt something akin to panic rise up inside her. Foreign emotion bubbling to the surface. She placed her hands on the remnants of his chest and pushed, hard.

And then he was gone, and she was falling, her knees digging into the grain of the floor. All that was left of her efforts were the words she could taste and the blood on her knees.

She rocked back on her heels, pulled her knees up to her chest, and tried to stop the tears from coming. If they came, they wouldn’t stop.

Ariel didn’t know how many more uncontrollable things she could handle today.

***

The basement was slowly emptying as she arrived, like basin of water bleeding dry. All the tears were gone. The time of grieving Randall was spent, for this year. People left with murmuring and wet tissue wads, taking their Tupperware and their consolations back to their small, snug houses.

Aunt Iris was slumped over on one of the couches. Ariel pushed her way past the cluster of easels at the bottom of the stairs, her Styrofoam coffee cup crumpled in her fist.

Iris looked up as Ariel approached. “Doll. You missed it.” She held up the candles. “I wanted you to light the eighteenth.” Her voice cracked, and one of her false eyelashes was slipping down her cheek. She looked so broken that Ariel felt a flash of fear.

She folded herself into the couch next to Iris. “I needed a moment.”

“I’ll need a lifetime.” Iris touched Ariel’s cheek gently. Her calloused fingers were shaking. “Thank you for coming.” What she really meant was: thank you for staying. Thank you for being the one who came back when everyone else was leaving. Guilt surged white-hot through Ariel. She shouldn’t be thanked. She should be condemned. After all, she had been the very one to condemn Randall.

Carefully, Ariel reached over and pulled the eyelash off her Aunt’s cheek. “It wasn’t me.”

“Well, Anya isn’t around to thank.” Iris extracted a packet of tissues from her jean’s pocket and blew her nose loudly.

Ariel surveyed the room. Streamers hung haphazardly from the ceiling, and red plastic cups were scattered across the floor. Someone had crumbled chocolate cookies over the opposite sofa, covering the tan suede in a fine brown dust. The tablecloth on the refreshment table by the far wall was ripped, and half-empty bottles of soda and lemonade rolled on their sides.

“It’s a mess.”

“A mess I’d appreciate help with.” Anya spoke from the doorway. She was holding a broom and a dustpan, both of which she shook at Iris when she tried to stand. “I had a daughter for a reason! She can help. You just sit down.”

Iris sank back down. Her legs, her lips, her arms, everything wobbled and trembled and shook with grief. She kept swallowing. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

She wept the entire time Ariel swept, filling the small space with her sobs. It was as if her grief had been caged, tamed during the party, and now it gushed forth like a waterfall. Ariel’s heart ached for her aunt. She had loved Randall so very, very much. He was the pride of her life. And now, he was gone.

“Where’s Benny?” In the chaos of the party, and the hallucination, Ariel had almost forgotten about Benny. Everyone, however, forgot about Benny. Today – this same day, every year – was the day it happened more than usual.

“Oh, doll. I don’t know.” Iris wrung her hands helplessly. “I don’t think he even came down!”

“I saw him in the kitchen.” Anya ripped an orange streamer off the ceiling.

Ariel started for the stairs. “I need water. I’ll check.” She had no idea why she was going to find him. Her legs seemed to be moving by themselves. Maybe it was because she could succeed with Benny where she had failed with Randall. She could learn to be nice. Selfless. She could learn to care about people again.

Benny was standing in the draft of the refrigerator, door flung wide open and a jug of milk overturned on the floor. He had his glasses pushed up on top of his head again, pulling his long, greasy brown hair away from his face.

“Any cake left?” It was a joke, of course. She couldn’t bring herself to eat cake. Cake is sugar, sugar is fat, and fat is the enemy. Cake meant calories, and calories meant that the niche along her sides she had been trying to rid herself of would come creeping back.

Benny jumped. He swung towards her, then swung back to the refrigerator, as if conflicted with which one to observe. “No. Actually, no.” He rubbed his puckered chin, looking back and forth. His eyes were glassy. They reminded Ariel of fly’s eyes – large and unfocused. Everything in Benny’s world seemed to be fragmented, broken into little squares of being.

“Oh. Well, the Johnsons brought all their kids. I saw Miranda sneaking a third piece into the living room. That’s probably why.” Ariel joined Benny at the refrigerator. There really wasn’t much to see – a lump of cheese, a cup of grape juice. The shelves seemed swept bare. “We should go get Iris some food.”

Benny snorted. “R-right. You and your mother came to stock the fridge?”

Was he mocking her? Ariel shifted her feet uneasily. “Something along those lines.”

“Um. Yeah. Okay.” Benny closed to door. He picked the milk jug up from its precarious position near his chubby ankles and gave her a nervous smile.

“Are you going somewhere?”

He stopped. “Upstairs.”

“The basement’s in shambles.”

Benny ducked his head. He turned the milk jug slowly in his hands. “Yeah.”

“Yeah?” Ariel raised her eyebrow. An ache was starting in her temple, shooting through her forehead. Annoyance overwhelmed sympathy. “Do you even care? Did you even come down?”

Benny was silent.

“He died. Your brother died. Didn’t you want to see him?” She realized how strange it sounded when the words left her mouth. Didn’t you want to see him? She had. She did. Every day she starved herself.

Benny swung the milk jug towards her, the liquid inside slopping up over his hands. It dripped onto his battered sneakers. “I don’t have to go to the basement to see him.” The way he tilted his head and looked at her told Ariel that maybe he knew. Maybe he had seen her talking to herself. Maybe, the same thing happened to him.

“He’s everywhere.”