Destined

12

Yaz

18 years old

1 year ago, in Tokyo, Japan.

I watch the high ceiling of my room move. Like an ocean.

Itʻs my eighteenth birthday.

It used to be our eighteenth birthday but I guess it's just mine now.

God, who would have known? That Iʻd be the one who lived longer. The one who lived to be eighteen while the other stays the same age forever. I, the fucked up one. The one who was mostly like our mother.

I laugh although the thought isnʻt funny.

The door opens slightly and Lyn pops her head through, "Yaz?"

I glance lazily towards her and I feel a bit guilty that she caught me while I was high out of my mind. Well, maybe she canʻt tell. Itʻs been a year of me doing drugs behind her back so why would she notice now.

"Yes?" My words drag out for too long and her eyes widen. Shit, well she can definitely tell.

She shuts the door with a click and when she turns towards me her eyes flash, "your father told me about your mother." she says it with a bit of accusation in her voice.

I donʻt sit up I just look back at the ceiling, "why would he do that?"

I can hear her walk closer to me, "because heʻs worried about you."

I hear a bunch of ruffling as a drawer is opened, I look over to her, "what are you doing?"

"Iʻm looking for your drugs."

"Lyn?" I ask to try and stop her, I sit up, "Lyn?"

She continues to riffle through my things and I grab her arm which she shakes off.

"Why are you doing this?" she asks, glaring at me, "I know that he died a year ago but do you really think heʻd want you to mourn him by doing drugs? He worried about your habits! He would hate this!"

I have never seen Lyn so angry before. I narrow my eyes, "How would you know how he would feel? You barely knew him."

She lets out an annoyed sigh, "you really think I didnʻt know the guy I was going to get married too? You think that I was going to go through a marriage with a stranger? God, Yaz, do you even know me at all?."

I let out a scoff, "if you guys were so close why was he fucking someone else under the same roof as you? Huh? Why didnʻt you know? Itʻs because you didnʻt know shit about him!"

Lyn clenches her fist and I think Iʻve gone too far. Until she says, "I knew."

I blink, "what?"

"I knew that he wouldnʻt be able to love me. I knew that he loved someone else. I knew that they were sometimes together in his room. And I let it happen. He was my friend because he was a good guy and would let me have my freedom and I would let him have his." She unclenched her fist and crossed her arms over her chest.

Anger seems to blaze through me, "And you didnʻt tell me." It wasnʻt a question, more of an accusation. I thought back to the summer I met Lyn. How in the beginning she had been so hopeful that her and Haru would fall in love. I thought about that week when she was sad and didnʻt want to do anything but I had just let it go.

She runs her hand through her hair, sitting on the edge of the bed, all her anger gone. "I didnʻt know it was him that Haru loved but I guessed it. God, Yaz, you were so caught up in Isamu. I knew you well enough that I knew you wouldnʻt have believed me until I got proof. So one night I tried too and I peeked through the door. They were laying in Haruʻs bed, and I was going to open the door and force them to tell you about it but," she takes a breath in. "They looked so happy, Yaz. Isamu was always brooding but he was smiling then, I could see it in his eyes. They looked like," she lets her words trail off

They looked like they were in love.

I look away from her.

They were together.

Lyn grabs my hand and squeezes it, I look at her and she seems about to cry.

"Please, Yaz," squeezing my hand again, "please stop doing this to yourself."

I donʻt open my mouth, I just nod. She pulled me into a hug. Lyn is all I have left.