The Untold Story of a Grim Reaper: Chapter 4.2: Sin...cerity

We got to the base of the tree house. A latter dropped and we climbed the thirty-foot rope to a well-furnished apartment of wood. Camilla was right, Aaron’s family is very wealthy.

The tree house was made of two parts. A simple television hung on the north side and we could clearly see the party from the south window. The second room looked like an ordinary bedroom, I turned to Aaron, “Do you sleep up here?”

He shrugged, “I like it better, I don’t have to deal with Lilli this way.”

“Wow, you really don’t like her. How was it like growing up with her as twins?”

Aaron scratched his neck, “Frankly, it’s all a blur, like I have the memories of us, I don’t know. There really isn’t much to tell. But as far as I remember she’s just the same as she is now. Manipulative and hateful.”

“Even as a kid she was?”

“Again, it’s all a blur, but yah.”

Jessie called us over as she passed around a couple smokes and wine coolers. I never drank when I was alive so I wasn’t sure if in death it mattered. I took my fair share of the liquid courage and hoped for the best. The rest of the night they gossiped and trashed talked people I did not know, but the nagging thought that I might soon know them boiled in me. That I might know them as I separate their soul from their bodies to face a judgment… to face a sentence.

With this shift in perspective, I was no longer a living girl with thoughts and opinions about others. I was death who now had to collect the outcomes of those thoughts and opinions. I couldn’t shake the idea of being death; it was too much for me to wrap my mind around.

Camilla stood up, “God, I can’t wait to just graduate,” she continued over to the only window, “I’m tired of these people, like physically tired of them. I’m tired of avoiding being noticed.”

A bottle smashed against the side of the tree house. Jessie went to the south window to peak at what might have caused it. “Great, Ellia is here,” her voice was less than enthusiastic.

I looked over from the second window, it was a small Asian girl who seemed rather excited to be joining us.

I turned over to Jessie, “What’s the big deal? Are you all not friends or something?”

Camilla scoffed as she joined us at the windows, Jessie gestured for Ellia to come on up. Camilla rolled her eyes as she started, talking quickly knowing that Ellia would be up any second, “Ellia is one of those people that needs to just calm down. She tries too hard to be our friend and it gets so annoying. And she’s a pathological liar.” 

And Jessie added, “And she’s got a lazy-eye too which makes it hard to keep a conversation with her.”            

Camilla snickered, “And the same hat everyday. Not even joking, I think its sown into her head.” Jessie crossed her eyes and put a pillow over her head, using a mocking voice she mimicked, “Hey guys! Hey guys! We should all hang out at my house and play who-can-stare-at-two-things-at-once!”

Aaron and Jonah gave a weak smile but Camilla and Jessie were milking their jokes to one another. I couldn’t bring myself to even pretend they were funny at this point. Camilla and Jessie were nice but it dawned on me that they were worse than most bullies. And that they didn’t like Ellia because she wasn’t emotionally compatible with them, they didn’t like Ellia because she wan’t physically compatible. 

The worst kind of bully to me is one who outwardly says it’s wrong; who acknowledge bullying is immoral. They beg for others to not pass judgment on them as they cast it upon those they deem less than them. They find easy prey and stalk reasons to keep knocking them down. 

Making fun of people is a human quality, and I got that, I slowly grew to understand people talk shit and don’t mean half of what they say. But it takes a special kind of person to make the flaws of a stranger become how they are defined. Camilla and Jessie were bullies in their own special way, which made it difficult for me to look at them the same. There is a fine line between using judgment and being judgmental.

Camilla caught my somber stare, “Oh, come on, Noa. We’re only kidding. No need to get all serious. We like Ellia just fine.”

A part of me agreed whereas the other half of me reminded me of what got me to this point. At what point is it just kidding? And at what point is it just cruel? I might have been overreacting due to my sensitive situation, it was hard to keep a straight thought on what was truth and what was opinion when it came to these circumstances. 

Eventually, Ellia had knocked on the horseshoe shaped knocker that laid on the hatch. When Jessie opened the door she popped her head up, like a mole popping out of its hole, and snapped a flash photo with a Polaroid camera. The entire room winced and rubbed their eyes from the flash. 

“Hello!” Ellia’s volume was a lot louder than necessary, “Didn’t miss anything, did I?” 

The group waved and exchanged a few hello’s, some more sincere than others. Ellia introduced herself to me and I politely did the same. She apologized about the flash of her camera and offered me the picture as a peace offering. I accepted it and put it in my back pocket.

Joining the group, Ellia took a seat next to Jonah and leaned her shoulder against his. Jonah seemed genuine in his accepting Ellia’s need for a cuddling. 

They were picking out movies when Camilla asked me if I would walk with her to the bathroom. Confused, I looked over at Jessie who I saw was distracted with flirting with Aaron. I hesitated at first, but upon looking out the window I wouldn’t want to go back down there alone either. 

We climbed back down the rope ladder and swam through the outdoor crowd. It was more difficult than before to get by now. More people had shown up and the music brought out the animal in all of them. 

My attention was pulled to a row of girls leaning against the staircase, they coughed and barked as we passed them. Camilla rolled her eyes, murmuring to me, “Every time.”

I asked naively, “Every time what?”

“Every time they see me they do that.”

“Why?”

She scoffed, “Why do you think? My body type doesn’t exactly compliment me.”

Camilla had curves but in no way did I even consider that means to even think she deserved to be labeled, in a negative way, fat. I never could keep up with what was considered too small or too large. And it’s a shame that body-types, must be defined negatively if they don’t mirror ad campaigns and shallow magazines. Or why calling someone fat is a weapon for self-redemption. It only made it apparent on what they judged themselves harshly with, it only reflected their own issues with their body image. 

I was short and a little overweight throughout middle school, boys coughed “beast” behind me at the lunch line if I even looked at a cookie. By the end of the seventh grade I had an eating disorder, which had me go from a 140 lbs to 118 lbs in one summer.

To my disadvantage I just earned a new title, they all began calling me a boy. When I had weight on me, it was at least a defining feature to my femininity, but when I lost the weight it became evident to everyone that I had a frame of a twelve-year old boy. 

That’s when I realized there’s no pleasing the judgmental, for the flickering desire to be better than others will churn in every heart that see’s the human body as a definition of who you are. And what for? Edge. Everyone needs an edge and most carve theirs out of words. 

 And fine, maybe Camilla wasn’t the prettiest or smallest girl compared to the several at the staircase. And maybe I judged her a little too harshly for what was said about Ellia. Maybe I was just as bad as those girls who coughed at her body for I did the same as I coughed at her soul. Such a funny little world we live in, believing we all have excuses to be self-righteous. 

One thing I did know, opinion aside, was that those girls, although small, cute, and witty, had peaked. By the time they graduated high school they’d be frozen in time, trying to suntan and highlight the person they were back into existence.

I gave some pathetic advice about how those girls shouldn’t matter and she’s better than them.

Camilla returned the smile and shrugged, but I could sense my advice had not sunk in as deep as those girls remarks had. Strange how the truth can simply grace the eardrums whereas the lies can take root in the skin.

I took back the thoughts I had on Camilla being a bully. She, all in all, could be a friend. And what she thinks of others will be a natural conversation to be had amongst friends, I could respect her on that level, as long as she would never make Ellia’s life equivalent to the hell I had been living in at school.

We finally found the bathroom and she gave me the one-minute sign. She was eighth in line and without thinking I wandered into the kitchen. I turned three-sixty to make sure I still knew where Camilla was. I gave her thumbs up and she exchanged a nod, so I continued to wander.

Someone was cooking something, smelt like hardboiled eggs. Besides a mess of wrappers and bottles, it was the cleanest room in the entire house. I looked at the fridge and noticed some family photos arranged on it. Family photos… but none of Lilli when she was little. 

It would be a random girl, five-yearold Aaron, and their parents… but why no Lilli? They were twins, wasn’t the whole joy of having twins is that they were constantly together growing up in matching outfits? And who was the girl in all those photos? It couldn’t have been Lilli; the girl had much darker, Italian skin and dark brown hair, just like Aaron.

I put my hand on the counter to support me as I looked at the photos at the bottom of the fridge. The only five photos with Lilli; she was only smiling in one of them. 

Someone had walked into the kitchen, dumping some cans into the sink. I didn’t pay any attention as to who it was. 

It wasn’t until they said anything that I shot up, “Um, what are you doing?”

I stammered, “Nothing.” It was Lilli. I leaned back, my hand slipped down the counter into the live stove. It didn’t burn at all so my reaction time was off. I retracted my hand but the damage was already done. 

Lilli reacted, “Oh my god, are you okay? Isn’t your hand burned?”

I stuffed my hand into my back pocket, “No, I’m fine.”

“No, your hand was on the stove. Give me your hand.”

I was caught off guard by her forcefulness to help me, “I’m fine, really.”

Lilli pulled something out of a cabinet and walked up to me with it, “Give me your hand. I can’t have you going home with your parents freaking out, and then you blaming this party.”

I rolled my eyes as I handed my hand over to her good intentions. She took it and flipped it over a couple time, searching for the damage. She looked up at me and I saw suspicion spark in her stare. I gave a stare with the same intensity back.

“You two gonna hold hands all day?” It was Salvatore, leaning against the walkway, “Let’s go, Lilli. Your brother can clean up this when it’s over.”

Lilli returned her glance at me as she dropped my hand, “It’s a miracle. You’re alright.”

“I guess it was a dull flame…” I shrugged.

“I guess so.” Lilli put the medicine back in her cabinet and rejoined Salvatore. She gave one last suspicious glance before exiting completely. By then Camilla had joined me in the kitchen, welcoming herself to something in the fridge.

Camilla asked, “What was that all about?”

“Nothing.”

Camilla pulled out a plastic bag full of cubed cheese and munched away at what remained. She offered me some but I nodded no as she asked me, “Can I see that photo Ellia took? I swear I was doing something unattractive as soon as she snapped it.”

I reached into my back pocket and pulled out the photo Ellia had taken. It had fully developed. Camilla took it from my hand. She pointed at it with her pinky, “Yep, it looks like I’m having an aneurism… This is actually a pretty good picture of you, Noa.”

I peered over her shoulder but I couldn’t find what she was talking about, I couldn’t find me in the photo, “Camilla, what are you talking about? Where am I?”

Camilla pressed her finger on the photo, “What are you talking about? That’s you, right there! Standing in the front.” I squinted my eyes and took the photo from her. That was where I was standing but that’s not the person I have seen in the mirror. The girl in the photo had sharper facial features, was taller than me, looked older, and much more intimidating.

I ran to the bathroom, cutting everyone in line, ignoring the yells and gestures thrown at me. I locked the door behind me.  Staring back and forth between the photo and the mirror. The girl in the mirror was the girl I always remembered myself to be but the girl in the photo was who I was becoming.