I look in the mirror, and I see a freak.

[behindmothersback]

It's been just a little under a month since my arrival, Father, and I still feel a bit like I've been hit by a Brute Splicer. Dazed. Unsure of which way is up. Sometimes it all feels perfectly normal, like I've just picked up from where I left off when I was here before, and other times I don't have the first idea what I'm doing or where I'm going. Sometimes I miss you desperately, like it really has only been a month since we escaped and you left me, and other times, it's like a healed wound. Scarred to be sure, but just a vague ache that part of me seems to have lived with for years.

I find myself walking through the city, finding myself lost, but walking another block and chiding myself for ever forgetting where I was. I went to the bookstore I worked at once. The displays were all different, new books, old books arranged in different ways, but the smell of paper and bindings and the sounds of soft voices were all the same. Different, but the same. Foreign, but as familiar as my cage back in Rapture. Everything is like that and I dearly wish it would just pick a side.

Like today, Father, I was at the shop to pick up a few things: some clothes, snacks I can keep in my room at the Home (things that won't spoil like everything else seems to these days), a few books, and I was halfway back to the home before I look into my bag and see something that almost breaks me. Cat toys. I bought cat toys, without even thinking, for the cats I no longer own. I don't even know where they are, I was living alone when I left, did they go back to the shelter, were they adopted by someone else? Grumpy little Eve, your white ball of fluff, and scrappy one-eyed Captain Jack. And then I remember, I had taken in Boy, too. Maria's dog. I failed to care for those small, helpless creatures that depended on me, as I once depended on you. I've lost them all.

I've lost everything, really, when you think about it. Even if I remember parts, and people remember me, deep down, I've lost everything again. I don't know how to get it back. I don't know that I want to.

I can't face the other kids at the Home, not like this, on the edge of tears, having to explain to my roommates why I have a pack of fake-looking fuzzy mice. So instead I go to the park, it's not the best weather, overcast and grey, but I don't know where else to go. So I find a bench, pull out a small bag of chocolates, and... well, alright, I'm pouting. But don't you think I've earned the right, Father? Wasn't freedom supposed so wonderful? You wanted me to be so happy and I'm not. I'm in another cage and I don't even know who holds the keys or how to escape. I haven't felt this way since... since I first realized what Mother truly intended to do to me and how utterly helpless I was to stop her on my own. I'm failing you, failing the life you wanted for me, just like I failed those poor animals.

And as if to rub salt in my emotional wounds, a happy mother with her baby in a pram walk by, their family dog trotting along beside them. I have to fight the extremely petty urge to toss a bit if ice or electricity towards them. Not to hurt them, never to harm an innocent, just to... I don't know, make their day a little more like mine. Miserable.

I miss you so much. But I'm glad you aren't here. I think you'd be disappointed in me.

Comments

[formicine]

Blue's walking. Not on a walk: that would imply more intent than she has, a predestined route or some sort of exercise. She's just walking. When she'd been asked to start thinking about Big Decisions, through a night of thinking, once again, that she might have to be responsible for Gansey's death -- she'd felt a strange stillness, an eerie calm that she'd known was going to break eventually. Even finding out Gansey had disappeared, the next day. She'd been a boat on a windless sea, not going anywhere but not storm-tossed.

Well, the clouds are gathering.

So she's just walking, letting herself tire out and be around nature, so many of her usual routines stripped away, when she sees in her periphery a familiar face that can't be here.

Younger, maybe, or different, a little sadder, too, maybe not her at all, but with so many friends lost, she can't help but stop, literally, at the idea of one re-found.

"Eleanor?"

[behindmothersback]

I look up, not really seeing what I'm looking at. Too far inside my own head, a few weeks ago, that might have gotten me killed. Today, it just means I'm staring for a long moment before I realize who it is speaking my name. Another lost friend, another person I know and yet am just about to meet. It's exhausting, if I'm being honest.

"Hello, Blue." I try to smile, but I suspect the expression is a bit hollow. "Surprise?"

[formicine]

"Jesus," Blue says, half under her breath. "Surprise," she agrees, and slides down beside her to give her a hug. "How long have you been here? How -- are you all right?" She'd looked so sad, and Blue wonders, after it's too late to take back, if reaching to touch her was the right decision. She sits back, ruffling her own hair.

Gansey had come back, too; he hadn't remembered anything. But Eleanor had known her. Thoughts are whirling around her head. If nothing else, it's pulled her mind away from the emptiness.

[behindmothersback]

The hug startles me, but I find I'm grateful for it. I'd much rather your arms around me, so large and tight I could just disappear into the embrace. But you're not here. And I fear you never will be again.

"I've been here a couple weeks, but I got a new phone so I didn't have numbers for hardly anyone." I shrug and look down at my legs, grinning ruefully, "I also got four years off my life, physically I'm sixteen again. No, seventeen, by birthday was on Valentine's Day."

[formicine]

She doesn't flinch, and Blue feels a little better, sitting back and looking her over.

"No kidding, you did. At first I thought you were just -- you know, someone who had the same face? I was hoping, though..." Blue shakes her head. "Well. Happy birthday? And you remember everything? I've never heard of that happening. I don't think."

[behindmothersback]

"You're not the first to have that reaction. And thank you." I don't really celebrate my birthday, well, except for the one time. And you always tried to do something nice, but mostly... no. Another thing to wonder about, I suppose.

"I remember a great deal although some of the finer details escape me still. I remember knowing people, but not always how I know them. I can't remember how you and I met, for example, but I remember we were friendly." That, at least, makes me smile. I like having friends, it feels like, well, rebellion, I suppose. Mother never allowed it and anything Mother forbade feels nice. "How are you? Are you out here alone today?"

[formicine]

"Wow. That must be ...really strange for you." It has to be uncomfortable, to remember but not remember people, and in the name of filling in the gaps, Blue tries to recall."We met...I had seen you around, but I think the first time we talked you had just found something from home. Yeah. A recording, I think, some leader that didn't sound too great. It wasn't the best moment, for you." Blue gives her a little smile. "That's the way Darrow goes. Sometimes it's horrible, but sometimes good things come out of it."

At least, she can hope that's the case for her too. Seeing Eleanor has made it feel a little more possible.

"I am...yeah. Alone." She laughs dryly, because Eleanor didn't mean anything by it but it feels awful. "All the boys -- everyone I lived with has disappeared, over the last couple of weeks." She ruffles her hair. "It's tough. I mean, everyone still here has been really amazing, it's just. Sort of a tidal wave."

[behindmothersback]

"Oh, Blue, I'm so sorry. I think I knew some of them, that's... is there anything I can do for you? Can I buy you some... tea?" Wincing, I cover my face with my hand. "That sounds awful, I'm sorry, one can't fix such things with tea, but if it would help at all?"

My problems, though great, seem to shrink in the moment. I know how she feels, to have everyone from home leave you, despite it not being your, or their intentions. I felt much the same after you left, and again, realizing you weren't here when I returned. "Or if you want to talk, I know some people find it comforting."

[formicine]

"No," Blue says, putting a hand on her arm, "it sounds amazing, actually. It's not like you can actually fix it, but tea is...nice."

She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear; it's not quite long enough to actually stay. "You were friends with Noah, weren't you. He disappeared back in January. And then Adam and Ronan at the same time not too long ago...and now Gansey." She waves a hand. "Ugh. Yeah, let's get some tea." It all feels so heavy and unfair, but it's not as though she can just keep holding it in forever.

[behindmothersback]

Despite my own pain, I manage to smile. It's easier, isn't it? To put your own troubles behind you when another needs you. A change in focus, away from myself and onto another. I'm sure my mood will return, grief is like that, but for now, I can lock it away. So I listen as she lists the disappeared and I wonder, is there a place where we can remember them? They're not dead, but... The sisters would draw flowers and leave their toys in the places their protectors fell, even if the bodies were gone, looted, those small remembrances would remain.

But that's neither here nor, there. "Come on, then, my treat. I'd offer something stronger, but I'm no longer old enough to buy so a sugar rush will have to suffice."