Sister Holiday

The night before Chris...

No no, if I did it like that then everything would have to rhyme with a certain meter and feeling. And it would be forever dated to a relatively small period of time.

Fuck it. Just write it.

It's so tough though, to take everything I feel and dash it into words. Smiting the hundreds, thousands, and millions of possible words I could say and putting all my thoughts and heart and soul into a single set.

It was the day before Christmas, and I'd gone crazy. Not from the season, the stores, situations, or the preparation. My only seasonal buying was an anonymous gift on the Internet to a person I'd never met and what I got in return was a plain blanket. All I'd asked for. The stores were a storm to be weathered for the essentials I needed. And festive decorations were the bright lights outside my door on other houses.

I was alone and it felt fine.

So many years of my life had been spent as a nursemaid for one parent then the other. They were the brutal dictators of my life. Crush me to their will, bend me to their shape, and then expect me to take everything on my own.

I learned though. Slowly, painfully, and with the years creeping on my shoulders.

That old, dusty house where candles could only push back the waves of decay and any repair was as much a bandage and routine to be repeated as often as any I performed for them.

My wrists ached but not from words. From trying to pad dry the cottage cheese crap on the ceiling after spraying it with a bottle of water mixed with soap. I had the ancient TV on because silence is painful.

I was so used to a needy, wailing adult infant that the absence made my heart thunder like when you still have dreams that you need to finish a class you never studied for when college is a decade over.

It had been so long since I lavished any attention on myself that going out to get my nails done or hair fixed up felt alien to me. There was one nice day at my clerk job where I got invited to the salon, but I passed because...uh, I didn't really have a good reason, but I told them the chemical smells made me sick.

The other ladies at work were nice but they were just so different from me. Either jaded, with weird notions, or priorities that puzzled me. I only really connected with Ryan online.

It's not too hyperbolic to say, in my life, there was everyone else I ever met in one category and then Ryan in one by himself. He was special. I once got a lesson about how you need to find someone you agree with in life to be the one who compliments and suits you best. But all that went out the window with Ryan.

He had such a vastly different perspective on the world. Bold, clear, and energetic. Chuckling and determined. Rebellious from his earliest years. You could say in one turn he was everything I was not, but at the same time, we complimented each other perfectly. He accepted what came his way, whereas I stressed out and my mind couldn't rest. He worked hard, harder than I could imagine, and inspired me to keep on whenever I felt my enthusiasm abandon me.

So fuck what people tell you about pairings. He was my soul mate. The girls at work would always nudge me about him in the expected ways but that wasn't it. I wasn't interested in "boinking" him or anything. He was like a sibling.

I never had any and he never had a sibling like me. Even through the lulls, what gave me strength was knowing he existed in the world and we'd talk again. The rest of the universe could implode but so long as Ryan was okay, it would be alright.

It was such a shame that he lived on the other end of the country and I hadn't been out of my local county in years. I wanted to go. But after family cemented me to a place, work was so necessary to just keep treading water. No vacation time or free time between all the necessities and sitting alone in that house.

I aired the place out a bit more than usual because no one was left who believed the "thousands of murderers" in our small city would ram through the door if I so much as left it open for more than ten minutes in the morning or evening. Still, it wasn't really mine. It was just a place where I could exist and not have to worry about too much.

Clearing out all the old stuff was a long and careful process hampered by the dust stirred up and what little time I had available. I meant to get things ripped out, redone, and fixed up, especially after a series of old, festering leaks.

My eyes, after years of too many nights in the dark waiting to be called upon, had finally gotten better with the drapes pulled open and the light brightly screaming through. Still, it felt scary to see the world outside after so much had been shut away.

I sat on the couch with my feet tucked under me. The zipper holding back the stuffing had broken long ago, so I had to edge them carefully. My rarely-used computer sat still fresh to the side, the one oasis of order I could manage to keep. I paid my bills and checked work email on it even though I told myself a dozen times that novels without measure would flow from the keys. Someday.

The prickly, burnt-dust blow of the patched-together heater made me want to vacuum again. The blanket to the side felt in need of a wash no matter how many times it went through the laundry. It had hairs from my mother's head left there a decade ago and the ghosts of illnesses long passed. It was still the only blanket I liked despite the gift one.

My toes tingled, and my neck ached. The raspy assault on my nose from dust that should've been exorcised long ago no longer bothered me. The power of air fresheners compels you!

I got up and held one of the candles. Dad would've shrieked at me about that, but there was no one to complain. I watched the flame dance with a stir of air. My eyes half-shut, I rested beside the flame. My little seasonal yule log.

No sounds of dad hacking because he secretly wanted me to go lavish attention on him and couldn't be bothered to drink water for himself without being served it or learn that the minus button on his four-button remote control made the sound go down. The flickers of old rage vented through me and out.

Instead, I thought of Ryan. Calm, sweet, smiling. His soft, gentle face and lean form gave me playful ideas. I wanted him nearer to me, especially in this season. I slowly meditated with the cascading warmth of the candle.

The light flared in my hands as though someone had turned up a gas feed. It burned so high. The moment I thought it was getting too high, it receded. I thought about it dipping to the left and it was like I had turned the candle ninety degrees. When I released my focus, it settled down and burned as it had a moment before.

I shook my head and cleared my throat. Immediately, I went for the detached carbon monoxide detector over by the stove. I picked it up and swung it around a few times. Nothing. I didn't even have a headache, though I often got them from my sinuses on cold days like this.

I return to the candle. It had behaved like a shadow to my thoughts when I held it but that clearly was just a coincidence easily explained away. Where I was sitting or my breathing had fed and diverted the flame. My physical actions, not my mental ones, had had an effect. But no sputter of breath or puff of air made anything like the sharp shifting and swelling I had witnessed.

So, I tried thinking of it moving exactly the way I wanted. Up down, up down, left right left right, burst out, settle down, out.

I marveled at the extinguished wick as I thought of it reigniting. It did so without a source of heat. I set it down on the table beside me. Did...I have a life cheat code? Wait, hold up.

What was I saying to myself? A little candle just danced around like it was possessed. Surely ghosts were the simplest explanation, but it did what I wanted. Not some random stuff someone else wanted...Me!

Okay then, bigger test. The candle was blue. It was blue. I turned away. The candle is pink. My throat felt heavy but also like it wasn't even attached to me as I gazed at the air freshener candle in pink glass.

Time to take over the world! Heh. As I joked about the idea, the loudest voice in my head said to settle down. I must be dreaming. But everything around me felt the same. I felt my rough fingers against the worn fabric of my blanket. No...how about...my soft, healthy fingers glossed across the comforting, fresh fabric of my perfect blanket.

A giddy shiver spread down my back. So nice. So lovely. It didn't matter if maybe I was just telling myself how this felt or if it was really real. If this was self-hypnosis happiness then I was eager to live it and accept it.

I thought of Ryan. He was out there. Far away. He didn't have to be. Still, as I vetoed the world domination joke, the reality of tampering with someone else's existence shook me. What if he didn't want to be here right now? If I just made it so it was okay then it would be like taking someone, the most important someone in my life, for a doll to pose, present, and manipulate for my satisfaction. The notion left me sick to my stomach as I held the armrest.

Okay okay...ground rules. Gotta keep myself in check. Whatever this is...if it manifests a terrible action to someone then it will cancel. So, I summon Ryan to my front door if he is able, if he is willing, and it doesn't hurt him in any waaa...

The screen door opened and a knock came on my front door right then, despite the late hour. My heart raced.

I was afraid to ask who it was on the other side. I clung to the useless thought that I had somehow sleep-dialed for pizza and nodded off in front of the candle. But I knew the voice on the other side immediately.

"Hello? Could you help me? I think I'm lost."

It was Ryan's voice. I wasn't crazy. At least, I hoped I wasn't.

Urging myself, I hopped to my feet and started down the long, tunnel-like hallway to the front door. No dad screaming about people ramming in. No fear. Well, still fears but different ones.

I stood with that door open, the deadbolt worn down in places to expose metal, like the skeleton of this old house. He stood there, as I knew him so well with kind eyes and a calm expression. He knew me.

"Lucy?! Holy crap. Wow, am I at your house? Is this Wrendale?"

Was it Wrendale? I thought I made that up in a story a long time ago for a homophonic joke. No. This was Wrendale. But had it always been that way? I could've created a different name for this city and dusty little valley, but it didn't occur to me, which frightened me even deeper.

"I'm sorry, Ryan," felt like the only thing I could say. I had spent decades saying I was sorry even when I hadn't done anything, often because I couldn't do anything when miracles were tasked upon my shoulders with burying demands on a daily basis.

With a calm, casual cock of his head, he asked, "What for?" I swallowed the tightness in my rough, raw throat and told him, "I believe I willed you here because I was lonely. I'm sorry."