Sticks and Stones, Blood and Bones

I felt strangely nervous following Ellie through her house and into the backyard. It was the first time I was at her house since the funeral. What had once seemed so familiar to me had become incredibly foreign over the past two months. I couldn’t help but stop and wonder at the unfamiliarity of a place I had spent most of my high school days thus far. I walked through the living room, remembering all of the things Ellie and I had accomplished there. We had beaten Super Mario Brothers, we had written several short stories together, and we had once each eaten a whole pizza on a dare.

“Greg, are you coming?” Ellie asked, waiting at the sliding door and strumming her fingers on the glass in impatience.

We sat together in her lawn chairs on the back porch. There was a high fence surrounding her backyard to give privacy for the pool they had in the southwest corner. Ellie reached into the sock she had brought out and pulled out a chillum, a lighter, and a small plastic bag filled with pot. She quickly got to work stuffing the chillum. Her long brown hair kept falling down, blocking her face from my view. She would absentmindedly tuck it behind her ear and then continue what she was doing.

I used to give Ellie a hard time about smoking so much. But now, after everything that had happened, I just couldn’t argue with her. It seemed cruel to deny her this one happiness. She put her mouth to the chillum, lit it, and inhaled deeply. I watched as she sucked in a quick breath of air to force the smoke down and not let any of it get away. She was such a pro. I remembered when I used to be awed by her unbelievable ability to jump rope, now it was how she smoked pot. For some reason, it made me feel a little ashamed.

Ellie passed the chillum and the lighter to me. I took my hit. Ellie still held in the smoke. She was making it into a competition, I could see. I tried my hardest to hold the smoke down, but my throat started to itch, and I had to let it go. Ellie gave a little smile and let the smoke out through the side of her mouth.

“You’re such a show off,” I said, handing the chillum back to her.

I heard the front door of her house close shut. “Shit, is that your mom?” I said, instantly in panic mode.

“Yeah,” said Ellie, taking another hit.

“What are you doing? She’s going to catch us. Put that shit away!”

Ellie just shook her head.

“Okay, maybe you’re not worried about getting in trouble, but my parents are going to kill me if they find out about this!”

Ellie had no response for me. I got distracted as she let the smoke out through the side of her mouth again. I liked the way her mouth turned into a half-smile, half-grimace when she did it. It seemed that was the only smile I could get out of her these days.

“My mom won’t come back here,” Ellie said, handing the chillum back to me. It was probably good for only one or two more hits.

“How can you be sure?”

“Trust me.”

I felt wary taking my next hit, but I did trust Ellie. “What if she looks out the window?” I asked while blowing the smoke out of my mouth.

“She won’t,” said Ellie. “She never opens her blinds. I don’t think she wants to see the sun. And she’ll know I’m out here, and she doesn’t want to see me. So we’re fine.”

“What about your dad?”

“He works late.”

I remembered past days when I would feel at home around the dinner table with Ellie’s family as we all laughed and ate. It made me feel a little sick to realize just what they had become since Marjorie died.

I was never close to Marjorie. Although Ellie and Marjorie were twins, they were very different. They didn’t hang out with the same people at all. So although I would spend every day with Ellie, it was rare that I would ever see Marjorie for more than a couple minutes at a time. Marjorie was the popular one. She was a cheerleader, friends with everyone, always the center of attention. She was the life of the party, and she loved to party. It worked out well for her. Ellie was more reserved. She had her small group of friends, me included. She was the creative one, into reading and writing and music. I had always thought that Ellie was the less superficial one, more complex, deep. But there was always that other side to Marjorie that I never got to know. Ellie knew, I think, even though Marjorie hardly talked about it at all. Despite their differences, Ellie and Marjorie had been close. They had had a connection. Maybe it was a special twin thing. I wasn’t sure. But when Marjorie died, it was Ellie who I was sad about. I knew how much it would crush her.

At least, so I thought. But it seemed that Ellie had built up a wall as soon as she had heard the news that her sister had slit her wrists in the bathroom they shared. I had gone to the hospital with her. I had watched Ellie’s face as she was told that her sister had lost too much blood, and they weren’t able to save her. There wasn’t even a moment of shock. It was like she had moved through all the stages of grief in just that once split second. She had nodded, accepted it, and that was that. No tears, no anger, just acceptance. I could not, even to this day, get her to talk about it. Not really, anyway. She would talk about Marjorie, her memories, her personality, but she wouldn’t talk about her death. About the fact that Marjorie had left them all to struggle for survival on their own. Or about the fact that Marjorie had been so depressed. Ellie wouldn’t talk about any of that.

“Hello? Earth to Greg? You want to take the hit or not?”

I snapped back into the present. Ellie was leaning towards me, waving the chillum in front of me face. “No thanks,” I said. I didn’t feel much like getting high anymore.

“Suit yourself.” Ellie sat back and crossed her legs, taking the next hit for herself.

“Why am I here?” I blurted out. I hadn’t known I was going to ask those words until I had opened my mouth.

“What do you mean?” Ellie looked over at me and squinted a bit, as if in confusion.

“You haven’t invited me over in months. Why now?”

Ellie shrugged. “Does there have to be a specific reason?”

“Yes. I know you. You want something from me. I can tell.”

Ellie sighed as she rested her head back on the top of the chair. She slowly rolled it towards me and gave a half-smile. “You know me too well. I need you to help me with something.”

“What’s up?”

“Come on, I’ll show you.” Ellie stood, and I followed her lead.

We walked over to the side of the house. There was a wooden plank the size of a door laid on the ground. Ellie walked to one end of it and lifted it up. She flipped it to the side to reveal a hole in the ground.

“Did you do this?” I asked, incredulous. It was larger than any hole I could have ever imagined Ellie digging. It was at least five feet deep and five feet long.

“Yeah. Took me a couple months. Got a kick ass work out though. Check out my biceps.” Ellie flexed her arms for me and I could definitely tell she had more muscle than before.

“What’d you do with all the dirt?” I asked.

Ellie pointed over to the house and I turned to see that both of her window wells were overflowing with dirt. “But…why?” I asked. It all seemed very surreal, like it wasn’t really happening. No way Ellie could have really dug that hole. No way. But yet there it was.

Ellie shrugged. “I wanted to know what it felt like.”

“What what felt like?”

“To be her. To be Marjorie.”

My body went cold. “You’re not planning on doing what she did, right? I am not helping you kill yourself!”

“No, no. That’s not what it is. I’m not brave enough to do what she did. I could never be that strong. I just want to know what its like to be her.”

“So what do you need me for?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Support.”

“Support?”

“To help me make sure I get back out.”

The words seemed loaded with meaning and I wanted her to take it back. “I don’t know about this.”

“Look, I’m doing it with or without you. You can either be here, or you can leave.”

I wasn’t going to leave her alone, that was for sure. Was this her working through her grief, or had she just finally snapped? Either way, I wanted to be there for her. “I’ll stay.”

“Okay then.” Ellie hopped into the hole like it was no big deal. She laid herself there on the dirt, at home with the rocks and mud and bugs. She closed her eyes. She became very still and she looked oddly at peace.

Ellie’s naturally tanned skin looked unnaturally pale, lying down there. Maybe it was the contrast of the black dirt. Or maybe it was the fact that I was imagining her dead. I was imagining her dead, and I didn’t like it. I was imagining her dead, and it scared the shit out of me.

I was angry with her. She just didn’t get it. She didn’t understand. I wished she didn’t have to do this. I wished I didn’t have to be there when she did it. I wished that her parents would take care of her, just this once, so that I wouldn’t have to. I wished that we were far away from here, a different place, the two of us together. Ellie’s eyes opened and so did mine. I saw her there, in her makeshift grave, and I knew the truth.

“I can’t feel her,” said Ellie softly. I could barely hear her from so far down. “I guess she really is gone. Sometimes I wish I could bleed…for her…but I’m not strong enough. I’m not like her.” Ellie said those last words with a certain longing, and it made me angry.

“She had the strength to do what she wanted,” Ellie continued. “She did what was right for her. She could do it. I can’t. I’m not like her.” Ellie sat up, and her sad eyes called out to me.

“No, you’re not like her,” I said. “You’re not like her at all. And I’m sorry, but you’re wrong. You don’t see it. You don’t see what I see.”

Ellie’s eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?”

This was the make or break moment. This was my one shot to say what I needed to say, what Ellie needed to hear. I couldn’t mess it up. I took a breath. “You’re the strong one. Marjorie was weak. She was frail and she was broken and she couldn’t hold on any longer so she gave up. And I don’t know, maybe it was what she wanted but we’ll never know for sure. You’re the strong one, Ellie. Can’t you see that? You’re still here, despite everything. You haven’t given up, and you won’t. You won’t leave the people who love you behind to suffer. You endure, Ellie. You persevere. You’re the strong one. Not Marjorie. No, you’re not like her. You’re not like her at all. And I’m glad.”

Ellie’s eyes were wide, and I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. It was odd for me; I was always able to tell before. I didn’t know how she would react. Maybe I needed to say more. Maybe she just needed a push. “I don’t want you to bleed, Ellie. I want you to pull yourself together, because you can.”

Ellie stared at me for a moment, and then looked away. Her eyes roamed about her grave and she looked scared. She gulped in a way that I knew meant she was trying not to cry. But it didn’t work, because I saw the tears starting to roll down her eyes. She looked back up at me and she was the smallest I had ever seen her look. “Can you help me out of here, please?” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

Ellie stood up and I reached down and grabbed her hand. I helped her climb out of the hole. Once she was on solid ground, she didn’t let go of my hand. She held onto it tightly, gave it a squeeze, and then released her muscles. Her hand rested lightly against mine, and she turned to stand with me, side by side. “Thank you for helping me get back out,” she said. The two of us stood in silence, looking down into the splendid emptiness of the dark grave.