Thrones

It was about two weeks after he had gone, just a few days before the fall holiday on the last of the month. There was only comfort in the borrowed room with the heron blue walls and the pressed wooden frames. Apart from going to the only place she had to go every morning, this room shaped with five walls was where she stayed. Twelve days had passed in which the only words that slipped off of her silent lips were 'no'- it was within those days that the girl who once was so alive vowed to stop the quick and quirky gestures and words that people had loved her for. She was still and always had been everybody's favourite- but those things were for him, and he was no longer.

The only light she had allowed for the duration was the face of the moon that looked through the window of the skylight every night, it was the only light that was ever sure to stay. The sun was begging the horizon to be had on this night and though there was still enough light lingering from its rays, the waning moon had made an early appearance. She stared at the walls that once held them close together, the guitar that he always left behind with the red ribbon around the neck, and the shattered hourglass all across the floor that had once been filled with black sand. Had she any desire to leave the bed that matched the colour of the walls and now molded her sideways shape, she would have broken everything, even the things that one would think could not be broken. They had always warned her about choosing metaphors wisely when broken- that if she chose the snapped strings, she chose to be irreparably broken- that if she chose the pulled grass, she chose to keep her roots- that if she chose the dead clock, she chose for things to be right even for just a moment or two. She always liked the strings.

Even before it happened, she was a creature of her own. She had made her nightstand out of shoeboxes and out of the corner of her eye she saw the bright light from her phone stay constant. Of course the last time she answered the phone she heard the words that brought her here, so the motivation to answer this call was nonexistent until she saw who it was from. His best friend never called her and though they were close, they only ever talked when the three of them were together. All of them had names that only belonged to them when they were all around. She was Brick and the one that had gone was Noisemaker.

They called his best friend Eyes- partly because his name was Isaac but mostly because he was blind, and that sort of humour was never absent from the three of them. They could have been twins despite their differing facial features, for they thought, acted, loved, said, read, and bled for the same things. Eyes would always tell his best friend that he was lucky to find this girl and he would always say back 'well I saw her first' with the sweetest victory smirk one could ever give, and always they would laugh after a claim of unfairness. They were like brothers and at the graves of people they once knew, they would stand side by side and say a line about death from a book they had both read, together. So she answered only to hear a voice that cried out much like the one in her head.

'Brick'- he sobbed, 'Brick, I need you to come get me'

'Where are you, Eyes?'- the first words she had spoken in days

'Im at my house'- his voice almost in a whimper, 'Brick, are you listening? I need you to take me'

'Take you where?'- blankly but worried

'To the ocean'- him, flatly

She told him that she would be there soon and did not question his request, to question that was the last on her piling list of unanswerable thoughts. It was getting darker still, the wind could be heard making its way through the branches of the many trees outside, and the house was quiet. She grabbed her keys and made way out of the walls that kept her warm, towards the burgundy door with the large glass oval at its center. Her mother jumped off the couch, surprised with a hint of worry- asking where her hallow daughter was going at this hour. She always had something to say.

'Im picking up Isaac'- her haired pulled back as she used to wear it, so that her widow's peak could not go unnoticed, along with a large grey hooded sweatshirt that she would eventually wear down.

'Why?'- still acting motherly as if nothing had happened

'We're going to the beach'- the girl said as if it was an unremarkable demand

'You can't leave now'- her mother's obedient strawberry blonde hair moved with the tone of her voice

The girl gave one of her famous looks to the woman standing across from her as if she was a stranger, with her head cocked to the right, one eye slightly more open than the other, shoulders open, and her expressive eyebrows doing their dance- she laughed a small sad sigh and before she left she pronounced,

'As if we have any say when it's time to leave.'

She made her way to his house and approached his small stoop in order to lead him to the car she would soon come to love. Apart from the sixteen track disc playing, the car ride was filled only with the deafening silence that they could feel running through their bloodstreams. The highway was screaming, rubies and diamonds getting more scarce the further they drove. It was not the closest beach, but it was the one she knew best and so she pulled into the sandy access that led to a place she had once spent most summers. Turning the car off, she told him they were there.

The smell of salt took over her, the wind was stronger here and ran races in her hair and through the small open spaces that her sweatshirt allowed- her legs were never cold. Without hesitation or tremble he told her take him to the shore, but only to where the tide could just touch his ankles. It was dark now, the kind of dark that made all surroundings disappear- she led him to where he requested, telling him to watch out for spurs just to have some sort of normalcy to this quest. They stood there for brief moments that felt like eternities, her slightly behind but still beside him. She looked to her right to watch his face as he stared into the black abyss sounding in front of them. It was odd because for the first time he looked like he could really see, and the sea was always looking back. He looked back at her and started again to sob and muster out his short sentences.

'I needed to know, Brick'- he was still in tears not bothering to wipe them away

'Needed to know what?'- in her short quipped tone on the verge of tears herself

'I needed to know what it felt like, what it sounded like'-him. The lump in her throat was there to stay.

Him again, '.. that his last moments sounded like these terrifying waves, crashing and taking and never giving back what once was', another pause- 'I needed to know that it was just as lovely, just like this'

She was on the ground now in violent shakes with dispersed waves of wails, he felt for her there and held her in the way that his best friend once did- not knowing that his hands were around her shoulders like his would have been or that his chin was resting in the same spot on the side of her head as the others' used to.

She finally spoke in an angry slew that slowed to a sad song with unceasing rivers of tears flowing, 'What am I supposed to do, Eyes?? What is this feeling?! Why do I feel like everything was just torn out of me? Why should anyone feel this? What is this?!? Everybody wants me to talk and say what I'm feeling and how I'm doing and act like I didn't just lose the thing that saved me every day. What am I supposed to say? What-' he shushed her and spoke firm

'There is only one thing we can say'- he said, and she moved her head from the crook of his neck so she could see him as he handed her a thick envelope from his pocket that had a familiar scrawl on the outside of it

'And what's that?'- her soft mutter

'The only thing we can ever say, Brick, "not today".'