Crumbling Down

this is just a short story i had to write for my english class. its about this girl who loses her twin sister and starts to lose it but finds a friend who hepls her get throught it.

 

Crumbling Down

            Something was wrong.

            The thought came out of nowhere. Thought? No, it was a feeling. I felt it in my entire body. My heart beat sped up, my breathing became raged, my eyes started to tear up, I felt my limbs were shaking uncontrollably and my brain would no longer focus on my math homework, instead it stayed locked on the fact that something was wrong, horribly wrong. I knew in that instance that my life would never be the same.

            I don’t know how long I sat there in my terrorized trance of fear. I don’t know how long I would have stayed like that if the phone hadn’t started ringing.

             The surprising break in silence made me jump. I took a couple seconds to get my bearings before I reached for the phone. I took a quick glance at the caller ID before I pressed the talk button.

            “Hey Mom,” I said. It took the better part of me to keep the fear out of my voice. A worried mother was never good. Especially my mother.

            “Hey, sweetheart. You haven’t heard from your sister have you? She was supposed to call twenty minutes ago and she’s not answering her phone.”

            Everything snapped into place at that very moment. The reason for my unnamed terror now had a name. My sister was in trouble. Something was wrong with my best friend, my twin, my other half.

            “M-m-mom, something happened to Stacey.” I felt my voice wobble and quiver as I realized my world was crumbling down and slowly crushing me, making it suddenly very hard to breathe.

            “W-what are you talking about, Cathy? What’s going on? Have you heard from Stacey?” My mother’s voice was shrill as what happens when she gets worried.

            “I don’t know what’s wrong! I just have this . . . this gut feeling that something is wrong with her. That something’s not right.” I was fighting back the sobs that threatened to render me unable to communicate with my mother when communication was key.

            “Well maybe it’s something you ate. Maybe you’re getting sick. Maybe . . .” I heard her voice trial off with her brief moment of hope and optimism.

            I was just about to respond when I heard the door bell ring.

            “Hold on Mom, someone’s at the door.” I put the phone to my chest before she had the chance to reply.

            I walked down the hall and down the stairs and to the front door. I grasped the handle and opened the door to an officer with a forlorn look on his face.

            “Hello, I’m Officer Reynolds. Is this the Clark’s residence?” His voice matched his face as he held his cap in his hands.

            I nodded in response, not trusting my voice to actually do anything.

            “Are your parents home?” he asked, glancing into the interior of my dark, empty house.

            “No, but I’m on the phone with my mother right now,” I squeaked out, feeling my suppressed sobs get stronger and my breathing nearly stopping from the pressure of my fallen world.

            “I hate to be the bearer of bad news but there was an accident on Turner Road about forty-five minutes ago. A driver, Mr. Daniel Hedgings, and a passenger, Ms. Stacey Clark, were the only two occupants of the car. The car was found half an hour ago and when the paramedics arrived they found Mr. Hedgings alive but with a multitude of serious injuries that required immediate medical attention. They also found Ms. Clark to be dead. The car was . . .”

            I couldn’t hear the rest over the sobs that escaped, constricting my chest, tearing my throat and raking my entire body, bringing me to my knees. I didn’t even register the officer trying to comfort me or the shrill voice calling my name coming from the now abandon phone lying on the floor beside me.

 

            I sat in the corner of the living room as my realities, family friends, and kids from school chit-chatted after the service. The past week was nearly unbearable.

            The worst part wasn’t having to tell Daniel that his girlfriend had died while he was driving, or avoiding Derek, Daniel’s twin brother and my boyfriend because without Stacey, I didn’t see why we needed together. It wasn’t having to deal with the people from school and our neighborhood stopping by with their condolences or having to deal with some of the older neighbors that kept calling me “Stacey”.

            The worst parts were those few moments right after I woke up but before I was fully awake and I forget the nightmare of my life and start thinking about what Stacey and I had to do for the day , only to remember that she wasn’t there anymore.

            They were the moments when I would start to say something and then leave it unfinished, expecting Stacey to finish it for me.

            It was staring at myself in the mirror holding the mascara and knowing that I did hair and Stacey did make-up.

            It was the fact that no one understood exactly what I lost when my sister died. No one knew that I lost more than a sister. When my sister died I lost my sister, my twin, my best friend, and a part of myself all at the same time. Without her, my life didn’t seem to have a point.

            It was the fact that I couldn’t cry. After my meltdown in front of the officer, something inside me kept me from crying again.

            “We need to talk.” I looked up to see Derek standing directly in front of me.

            “I don’t want to talk right now,” I replied, hoping that he would just drop the subject and leave me alone.

            “When? I know you are going through a hard time right now but we have to talk about us sometime. You can’t ignore. ” I didn’t say anything and dropped my eyes to the floor, ignoring him.

            “Please talk to me.” this time when I looked up, I didn’t need to look up as high because Derek was now crouching down so that now he was at my eye level.

            “About what?” I asked, hoping to sound clueless. I wasn’t up for this conversation yet.

            “Us,” he repeated patiently, “I want to talk about where we stand, where I stand. I want to help you but you’re not letting me in. I want to know what you’re going through.”

            “I’m going through hell,” was my simple answer.

            “Okay. How can I help?” he asked, reaching for my hands.

            “You can’t,” I said, pulling my hands out of his reach.

            “I can try. Won’t you let your boyfriend try to make you feel better?” he said with a small smile, most likely an attempt to get me to imitate him. It didn’t work.

            “No because you’re no longer my boyfriend,” I said while purposely deepening my frown.

            “W-what?” he asked, confused. “I know you’re going through a lot and obviously need some space right now but . . . but breaking up isn’t necessary. I can wait until you get over this.”

            “Until I get over this?! I may never get over this!” I said hysterically. “And even if I do, this relationship is still over. It’s not going anywhere. The only reason I let it drag out so long was because Stacey loved the idea of us both dating the same pair of twin brothers. But guess what? Stacey is gone forever!” I was now screaming, causing more than one head to swivel in my direction.

            “Okay, okay. Let’s just calm down. You’re making a scene,” he said looking around at everyone who was staring with a worried expression.

            “So?! Why can’t I make a scene?! My twin sister just died. My best friend for the whole seventeen years of our lives was killed in a car crash. My other half is no longer here to complete me. I feel so . . . lost, so . . . alone. I feel utterly alone and empty.” it’s then that I let myself cry again.

            I looked around through my tear blurred eyes at all the concerned faces and couldn’t take it anymore. I ran up stairs and straight into my bedroom to curl up and hide from the world while I cried.

 

            It was Monday, two days after the funeral and first day back at school since Stacey died.

            I stood in the entrance to the cafeteria, debating what I should do. Should I go sit with my friends? Should I go sit in a corner by myself? Should I leave all together and sit at a desk and attempt to catch up on my school work. The one think I could say for sure was that I wasn’t hungry.

             I had barely eaten since Stacey’s death and what I did eat I had to force down. It was also the main reason I decided to show up to school. When I refused breakfast once again this morning, my mother started complaining again about my eating habits and I decided I needed some space from her, space to breathe without my mother looking at me with a worried expression 24/7.

            Just as I was about to leave to go hide in my French class for the remainder of lunch, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I looked to my left to see a semi familiar face.

            “Dylan, right?” I asked Daniel and Derek’s younger brother, who is actually closer to my age than Derek is.

            “Yeah,” he replied shyly.

            “Well, nice to see you, I guess.” I turned away and started walking down the hall.

            “Wait!”

            I looked back to see that Dylan looked a little perplexed about something and more than a little uncomfortable.

            “I was wondering if you wanted to talk, about anything,” he said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

            I just started at him.

            “I saw what happened at the funeral with my brother and I thought that maybe you could use someone better to talk to, someone who didn’t know your sister so well, like a third party or something.” His eyes dropped to the floor, “I thought that if you wanted to talk that I could listen. If you’re up to it.”

            “I don’t know,” I said politely.

            “Well, just remember that I’m here if you need me,” he said, looking up at me.

            “Okay.” I turned around and headed toward my French class, quickly forgetting the conversation that just transpired.

            “I’m sorry honey, I can’t pick you up. Do you think you could get a ride?”

            “Yeah, sure,” I replied to my mother as I silently cursed my great aunt Milley for getting the date of her flight back to Wisconsin mixed up.

            “Okay, well I should be back in about an hour or so. Bye sweetie!” Click. My mother hung up before I could say goodbye but I didn’t mind.

            I closed my phone and looked at the almost empty student parking lot. Those who were still there were the last people I would ever ask a ride from. I hiked up my backpack and set off to walk home. I never had to walk home before and had no idea how long it would take. I was hoping it would take less than an hour.

            After walking for about ten minutes, I heard a honk come from behind me. I turned around to see a blue Toyota pulling up to my left. I watched as the window rolled down and saw Dylan leaning across the passenger seat towards me.

            “You need a ride?” he said with a genuine smile.

            I was about to say no but thought better of it. My feet were starting to hurt and my backpack was making my back sore and I wasn’t even close to being half way home. “That would be nice. Thanks.”

             He reached farther across the car and opened the passenger from the inside. “Hop in.”

             I got in the car, closed the door and just as I heard the click of my seat belt, we started moving.

            “How was your day?” he engaged in chit-chat.

            “Hard.” That was the simplest way to put.

            “I’m sure. I hope you don’t mind me asking but don’t you have a car?” he asked, glancing quickly at me then back to the road.

            “Too many memories are in that car. Stacey and I shared it. Plus she drove on Mondays.”

            “That makes sense”

            “That’s not what my mom thought.” And that’s all that we said for the rest of the trip. He dropped me at my house with a quick goodbye and drove off. I appreciated the silence; everyone else seemed to think that talking was necessary.

             The next morning I was about to walk out to my mom’s car only to notice that she left without me. Just as I was about to go back into the house and skip out on school, I noticed a blue Toyota parked out front. I walked over, opened the door and got inside.

            “How did you know?” I asked.

            “I didn’t. I figured you might need a ride so I decided to drop by and check and I saw your mom out here waiting for you so I went over and talked to her and when she learned that I was offering you a ride, she smiled and took off.”

            And once again, we rode in silence.

            This is how things played out for the next month or so. He would pick me up and drop me off and at first we didn’t say much but after a week I started to open up, started to talk, first about nothing, the weather, school, then about more serious stuff, Daniel’s recovery, and eventually, I started talking about Stacey.

            At first, it was hard to talk about her but the more I did, the easier it got and eventually it felt good to talk about her. I felt like I was keeping her alive somehow.

            Everything seemed to be getting better, I thought that I was finally getting over Stacey’s death, that I was learning to deal with it and move on. I thought it was all good, until I had to go into her room.

             I was in my room looking for my favorite green tee-shirt and when I couldn’t find it in my closet, I decided to go look in Stacey’s room to see if she had borrowed before she died and accidently put it back into her closet instead of giving it back.

            I entered her room and immediately stopped. It was empty. The bed was gone, along with the dressers. Everything that she had on the walls was torn down. I went to her closet and opened it up to find it empty as well. I moved back to the middle of the room in shock but it soon wore off into anger.

            “Mom!”

            I heard footsteps coming up the stairs and the door to my room opening up next door. “Cathy?”

            “I’m in Stacey’s room.” I felt the venom that was sitting on my tongue.

            “Oh,” I heard the surprise in her voice right before I saw her pop her head in. “What are you doing in here?”

            “It’s gone! All gone! Where is it?”

            “Honey, it’s not like she is here to use any of it.”

            “Where is it?”

            “Some of it got sold, the rest went to charity.”

            “Why?”

            “As I said, it’s not like she’s using it honey.”

            “Mom!”

            “Sweetheart, let’s be logical here.”

            “It’s like she never existed. It’s like she was never here.” I didn’t wait for my mother to respond. I walked past her and out the door and into my room and I closed and locked my door and cried. Seeing her room empty tore my heart apart. It felt like she was truly gone.

            After I had calmed down, I reached for my phone and dialed Dylan’s number. I sat and ranted and cried and screamed all while he quietly listened, giving me support when I needed it. We ended the conversation with him five minutes away from picking me up and as I got my stuff ready to go, I realized something. Although my sister and twin had died to never be reborn again, my best friend could be and so could the missing part of myself. I had just assumed that they were gone forever but now I knew that they weren’t, they were slowly coming back, very slowly. Dylan was turning out to be a really good friend and I could see in the years ahead becoming closer and closer to what Stacey and I had. And the missing part of me? I could replace that myself by learning how to cope with out my sister, how to view life as wonderful, and not an empty void.

            I heard Dylan honk the horn and I scurried out of the house and into his blue Toyota.

            “Hey!”I said as I jumped into the seat.

            “Feeling any better?”

            “A little. Still mad at my mom, but less of the ranting lunatic I was earlier.”

            “Well, lunatic is a bit harsh. Maybe a ranting maniac.”

            I smiled. Not a big smile, but my first true smile Stacey’s death. It was a small step, but a step none the less to living a happier life. And Dylan was going to help me get there, that much I knew. Without him to help me through this, I would probably still be hiding in French class during lunch.

            “Hey, tomorrow, how about I pick you up?” I asked, looking forward to taking my next step.

            “You up for that? Wasn’t Wednesday Stacey’s day?”

            “It was and I am.” My smile grew a little bigger.

 

           

           

Author's Note

the ending needs work but i typed it up the night before it was due so i was crunched on time and energy and just wanted/needed to end it so i kinda rushed it. i plan to go back and fix it soon. it was originally an idea for an entire book but i compacted it and tweeked it to fit the short story format. hopefully i will have the time and energy to put it in book form. please give me some constructive criticism or advice on improvement, i could really use it!

Reviews

[Lyndie Bolt aka JustRac..]

My mother's voice was shrill as what happens when she gets worried.- sentence needs rewording to flow well with the rest. What is this "realities"? This "The worst part wasn't having to tell Daniel that his girlfriend had died while he was driving, or avoiding Derek, Daniel's twin brother and my boyfriend because without Stacey, I didn't see why we needed together." Would sound better as : The worst part wasn't having to tell Daniel that his girlfriend had died while he was driving. Nor was it avoiding Derek, my boyfriend and Daniel's twin brother. Without Stacey, why did we needed to be together?"

Next sentence alteration:"t wasn't having to deal with the people from school, neighbors stopping by with their condolences or dealing with the older neighbors calling me "Stacey".

she wasn't there anymore-- change "there" to "here"

change "The worst parts were those few moments " to "No, The worst happened in those moments ...

change :"it's then that I let myself cry again." to Finally, I let mysel cry."

from this sentence on the story feels very rushed "my best friend could be and so could the missing part of myself"

I think you should flesh the story out with more details/conversations that show how Stacy is coping and how Dylan is becoming her new best friend. Even though she is coping- there probably would have been some survivors guilt with a twin like this. Seems like her boyfiend rolled over and disappeared a little to easily. Adding to this issue would set up some lovely conflict.

I like the story, and the parts where I can see that you took more care in writing are excellent. I'd LOVE to see a revision.

[Ange Pange]

that was really good! it's really descriptive and i can feel like i'm cathy

[Fear Corrupts!]

This was excellent, very well done.
I can't relate to this story in the least bit, but yet I could feel Cathy's pain, point of view, etc.
You definitley put a lot of emotion into this piece, and you have the talent of sharing that emotion with the reader.
Really like this,
Great Job.

Molly*

[Akash]

a good read
thanks for sharing