Unfinished

Nineteen

             Soren didn't go to school the next day. He stayed home and played the piano the whole day, and wrote songs in notebooks, and listened to music he loved. He ignored calls and texts from Ella, he didn't stop to eat. His sister was gone the whole day. She didn't contact him. His parents were also both gone for work related reasons. He was alone.
             That, really, was the problem. He was alone.
             First there had been Jess. She was always there for him, had been since he was born. Then she had left, and he had been alone.
             Not true. He had been more alone. At that point his friendship with Becca had begun, or was beginning. That was probably a lot of the reason they'd become such close friends; when Jess left he had needed someone to lean on.
             First there was Jess.
             Next there was Becca.
             Now there was Ella.
Now, Jess was asking him to choose. Choose first or present, what he was and what he had been. What he could be. How could he choose?
There was his sister who had always been there for him, until she had to be there for herself. And then there was the girl whom he was just starting to know. And there was Becca. She was dead and it wasn't his fault but it hurt like it was anyway. If he could have been faster, had warned her sooner, had gone outside and asked her to come in. If he could have done something. But he couldn't have, or hadn't, anyway. And she was dead. His memories of her were all here, tied up in this place and time.
Leaving was sort of like running away when you looked at it close enough, and running away was like trying to forget. He didn't want to forget Becca. He wanted to forget her. He wanted to do both at the same time, and he didn't know if that was possible, or even if it was a good thing to do if it was. He wanted her not to be dead.
Well, in a way she wasn't. He still had her papers. Her manuscript. She wasn't all the way dead until he finished it. But that was getting closer and closer every day, wasn't it?

I thought we had forever,
Or longer than we got.
I thought I had the time to tell
My tale of urban rot.

The story of my parents woe,
Of how they learned to hate.
Of absences and silences
And pain that won't abate.

I thought I'd tell you all about
My sister and her dreams.
Her music and her poetry
And her soul that gleams.

I never told these things to you,
I thought I had the time.
But now you're in this dream tonight
Here at the end of time.
And I'll tell you what I didn't before:
I thought that you were mine.