The Girl Called Alice

Chapter 1

Every night I cried myself to sleep. Every night I thought about him, despite what my therapist told me. He told me not to think about him and Mark, and what might have happened to them. But I can't stop thinking about them. They were apart of my life. And Lorraine's life. And they just disappeared. Into thin air.

It was horrible, that day. The day they told us what happened. The day Mark went missing, Lorraine locked herself in her room, and I just stared off into space. That's how I spent my days. James was there, comforting me. But I knew. He was crying, just like Lorraine, and he needed me more than I needed him. I just didn't realize that at the time.

It got better. Everything got better. Lorraine began to act like herself again, and James was able to stand on his own two feet. James' parents refused to accept that Mark wasn't ever coming home. They never put up a gravestone, but the three of us made a pact to go visit his favorite hiding place and drink a toast to him on the eve of his sixteenth birthday every year. Until tragedy struck again.

It was the night before James' sixteenth birthday. The three of us always did something together on the night before, just to be sure no one disappeared on us again. He said he would be right back. He just had to go get something from the garden. His birthday hat, he said. That boy was obsessed with hats. Always wearing one. But he never came back. Not once. We looked for months, but we couldn't find him. Both of the Manson boys had gone missing, and everyone was grieving. I was still grieving. 

Always crying, always screaming in my sleep. Always, always, always. Never stopping to even take a breath or even look around me to see what's there. Never, never, never. I hated James and Mark for doing that to us. They killed the love in our hearts. The one that was constantly burning for someone that was always there. Not there anymore. Not anymore.

That was a year ago. One that went by painstakingly slowly. I hated myself and my parents didn't know what to do with me. Lorraine couldn't be around me without thinking about Mark.

"Alice? Do you want to go on a walk with me?" Lorraine interrupted my thoughts. Lorianne was speaking to me? The odd seventeen-year-old? No. I was imagining things again.

"I'm sorry?" I asked.

"Do you want to go on a walk with me? Into the garden? I know you and I haven't spoken in a while, but I want to change that. I'm still really upset about Mark and James, but Mom and Dad said we should try speaking to one another to see if we can console each other. I know I want to get over this..whatever it is. I want to leave this feeling of emptiness behind and throw it in the gutter. Please?" She asked, with a tired look in her eyes.

"Of course, big sister." I replied.

We went on that walk. We walked around the huge flower garden we had in our back yard for hours. Sometimes we'd talk, and sometimes we wouldn't And sometimes, we would just look at the sky and wonder 'When did everything get so complicated?"

I wanted to tell Lorraine everything. About how much I missed James and Mark, and how much I hated them for leaving us. I wanted to tell her how I was sorry I was for being so distant after Mark left. And how I just wanted to make sure James was okay. I wanted to know he wasn't being harmed in any way and that he was going to live a full life with the people he loves most. I didn't care if it was me or Lorraine, or someone else he's met in his lifetime. I just want to know he was okay.

Everyday. We did this everyday. We would talk or cry or just sit there, staring into the sky. I was happy I had my sister back. And I was getting better. Slowly.

Eventually, Lorraine and I stopped talking about James and Mark, and started talking about other things, like the color of the trees in the fall, or the sight of the birds migrating for the winter. It was all good. Everything was good between us. And our parents didn't have to worry about us. We were getting better, and I wasn't plagued by the nightmares anymore. They were gone. And our birthdays went by, and niether of us disappeared on the eves of our birthdays.