Out of the Bag, Into the Water

This was not a liminal feeling, something in her gut literally told her not to trust this person, even after all these years. Especially after all these years. Now that they were lying side by side again, just like in their childhood, Lyla was having a hard time falling asleep.

New England summer was at its peak and the only sound was the faint ripple of small waves on the shore. She could hear her own heartbeat during the nights sometimes, and now she could hear two and of course the slight tingle of her left knee. Selena, her childhood friend was once again by her side, and this made her eerily uncomfortable. She turned to her side, away from her. Lyla did not know why Selena came back anyway, she did not even like being in this house. She could have told her mother not to take her but no, she arrived, precisely six days ago and Lyla was uneasy ever since.

They spent the days apart mostly, Lyla was by the sea with her friends and Selena sat by the pool reading. She was always the anti-social kind anyway; she never hung out with Lyla’s friends back in the day and when she did, she always wanted to be the center of attention. When she could not, she left and when she left - just like that bonfire night years ago - she left people feeling a bit worse than when she arrived.

Juniper hated her too, she remembered quite vividly, the poor cat ran from her whenever they arrived and never in her presence she could sit still. Her tabby fur would spike up whenever she saw Selena. Lyla did not trust people who were not trusted by animals. Once she saw Selena kill a bird with a stone too; she had claimed it was an accident, but Lyla thought otherwise. She knew somewhere deep inside that Selena was not the innocent and well-behaved person she portrayed herself to be.

She turned once again, landing on her back, and hoped Selena was asleep. She did not want her to revel in Lyla’s discomfort. Lyla could not wait for her house to feel like it’s hers again. It never did when Selena was around, even back then, when she was seven and Selena was nine, the house felt like it belonged to them and not her family whenever they came over. It was a stupid friend group tradition, spending a week in the summer house together - the two families. They went to the mountains in the winter but that did not include the children, so this was the only holiday they were forced to spend together. And for Lyla, it was more than enough.

Their mothers kindly forced them to spend time together too as if it was not already torture to spend a whole week in the same space, dinners, breakfasts, fighting over pancakes and ignoring remarks about eating disorders.

Her eyes snapped shut when Selena shuffled beside her. She reminded herself that tonight was the last one she had to endure; just a few more hours and then life would go back to normal. Involuntarily, she let out a small sigh.

“Just,” Selena sighed back and Lyla’s body went cold as ice in the warm darkness of her bedroom, “please stop and sleep, you are ruining it for me too.”

Lyla did not want to answer her, she was not about to start a late-night conversation in bed as if they were still friends. She got riled up at the idea of a heart to heart, but it was obvious now that she was not sleeping and acting like a ten-year-old all over again by refusing to acknowledge the fact that she heard her was embarrassing. How she hated being all grown up right now.

“Fine.” was all she could muster up. She did not mean to sound that snarky, but this was the shortest answer she could give.

All Lyla could hear was their breathing for a while and she hoped Selena went back to sleep. The room was too hot, and she could feel even her skin was struggling to breathe. She closed her eyes once again and tried to picture her happy place, her therapist taught her how to do that in times of crisis. To think this silent and uneventful night was a crisis for her was embarrassing but she could not shake the feeling of not being safe no matter how hard she tried.

Her mind went back to being at sea, water was her happy place, an entity so deep and vast she could surround herself with it and feel at ease like nothing else could touch her. So, she let the feeling of the sea engulf her and she was maybe a bit closer to drifting off when a sudden image from the shore strike her mind. Her stomach clenched, and she refused to think about it, but a second later the whole memory emerged; Selena and Lyla were running across the beach together, barefoot and happy. Being a ten-year-old felt free and unlimited, the contrast feeling of warm sand and brisk seawater under their feet, their laughter ringing in the open air, Lyla’s mother bringing out cold tea and muffins. The clinking of the ice inside the pitcher right before they decided to take a ride through the mountains. Such great times that all ended with that one night where everything went so wrong that Lyla would rather have a truck trample her than to remember it all over again. She forced herself to think of something else, anything else but once it started, the memory demanded to be remembered as a whole and felt to the core as if it still had something to tell her.

It was as ordinary as any evening, Lyla had just come back with sand in her shoes and salt in her hair, tired from biking around all afternoon and her knee hurting. They had been separated for an hour and she had been looking for Selena for some time. She had to give up and come back to feed the house cat eventually.

“Juni,” Lyla called, “meal time!” The cat somehow knew when she would receive food by heart, so she was expected to come running through the door any second but instead, Selena came in through the living room, her black locks still damp with seawater.

“Hey,” Lyla said. “I’ve been looking for you.” she sounded colder than she meant.

Selena was meandering around the kitchen island, touching things as she usually did. “Yeah sorry, I fell behind and lost you so I went to the seaside.” she said without making eye contact. She was touching the pans and pots over the counter now.

Lyla went back to dumping the canned chicken patty into Juniper’s bowl.

“Do you need ice for that?” Selena asked her, Lyla stared back as Selena pointed to her knee which was visibly scraped and there was a faint little red line toward her left ankle.

“No, it’s fine now.” Lyla said, “I took care of it earlier.” She was quite angry to Selena for leaving her alone like that after she fell. She should have stayed with her; she might have had a concussion or something. Still, she refused to say anything.

The piercing silence was broken with Lyla’s call to Juniper once more. She did not come for her meal.

“That’s strange.”

They both went around the house twice to look for her, Lyla’s father even went to the seaside and the neighboring houses, but she was not there either. Lyla slept so little that night, worried and agitated. Her knee hurt on top of everything. Selena kept reassuring her that the cat would turn up somehow, sure that she must have lost her way or maybe found a friend and decided to spend the night with it, just like they did. Still, Lyla could not sleep.

Just like tonight, she thought, once again her temper rising as she turned to her right, away from Selena. She refused to think about the rest of that memory. The morning after of an already terrible night.

“I can hear you thinking.” Selena spoke once more. “Please, at least stop fidgeting like a small cat.”

“Small cats don’t fidget.” she spat. She knew that was not true but it was not the time to talk about cats. Juni’s lifeless body on the beach flashed behind her eyelids again and she opened her eyes as fast as she could. It did not help.

“Sorry.” Selena whispered, like she understood. She should have, Lyla thought. In the end, it was her who killed it. Lyla was sure of it. She could have caught her too, Lyla knew, if she was not so distraught from her fall earlier that day, she could have saved her cat. If only she was not rushing back home to take care of her knee. If only she had realized Selena was not with her anymore before she got back home, she may even have caught her in the act. She had tortured herself for years with these thoughts. Her therapist told her time and again, but she could not shake the feeling of guilt, crippling inside her for all these years.

“You always hated that cat.” she found herself talking before she could stop.

Selena was silent. Lyla turned to her left, staring at the ceiling, she could feel her tears meeting her ears.

“She never liked you too, you know. Why did you hate her so much?” her voice cracked, “Did you hate me too?”

Selena did not answer. She was not supposed to talk about Juni. In the corner of her eye, Lyla could see the day breaking. Finally she would be free of this prison with Selena in it. Finally, it was once again the morning after a most terrible night.

Selena sat up inside the bed, her hands in her lap. “I did not,” she started then stopped. “Never mind,” she hung her head, “it was nice seeing you again Lyla.” and with that she stood up, pulled her long black locks in a ponytail and left, taking her bag with her.

Lyla did not follow her, she was not in the mood for an unwanted farewell, she wanted her to leave and never come back, just like Juni. She did not go downstairs; she even missed breakfast. All she wanted to do was to make up for her lost sleep.

After a few hours, she heard footsteps and a light knock on her door. Her mother did not wait for an invitation to come in and found Lyla still lying in bed.

“Honey, are you okay?” she asked. When Lyla did not answer she continued, “Selena left honey, you missed them. Didn’t you want to say goodbye?”

“Please do not invite them back,” she plead. “I do not want to see her ever again and you know it.”

“Now why is that?” her mother found a small spot to sit down on the bed and held her daughter’s hand. She had an idea why, but never before she had the courage to ask for sure because that would require telling her she was wrong.

“She killed Juni and you know it.” Lyla said with little strength in her voice.

Her mother sighed, closed her eyes. “Honey I think maybe you should come down and eat some breakfast and maybe then we can talk about this.”

When Lyla did not move, her mother got up and added, “I made pancakes.”

Lyla caressed her left knee as she put on her bikini and shorts. After a few seconds she was going down the stairs of the house that finally felt her own and her fathers voice stopped her in her tracks.

“I still don’t think we should tell her Sally, this may not be a good time, right after Selena left. And she is only fifteen.”

“We cannot let her hate that girl for no reason anymore, and yes she is fifteen. She will get a drivers license next year for God’s sake!” her mother argued.

“You’re saying she will kill more animals with a car in her possession?” her father joked with a sigh but it did not land well with her mother.

“David I’m serious.”

Lyla realized she was holding her breath. Her knee was throbbing and her head was heavy. She could feel her arms numbing so she sat down on the stair she was on.

“I still cannot understand how she does not remember how she fell off that damn bike,” her father continued. “Surely she must know what she did.”

“She was ten David!” her mother hushed herself with clear frustration in her voice, “She hit her head and we did not exactly show her the tire marks on that poor cat now did we? She was already pretty shaken up seeing her dead cat on the shore.”

There was a pause, then her mother continued, “I cannot go on with this story and let her or anyone else torture that poor girl trying to cover up for our daughter and her doings. It was an accident, but she needs to know it wasn't Selena. We already let this go on for too long.”

With that Sally left David sitting alone in the kitchen. Lyla grabbed herself from the stairs and went straight back to her room and fell on the bed, numb. She tried to go back to her happy place, to calm her frantic heart but failed. The numbness reached her neck and her throat clenched. She pictured a deep blue body of water, trying to tell herself this was a happy place but even the sea seemed to shame her now and as she could not escape the vast space, a sea of waves engulfed her into a callous nothingness.