Chapter Six: The One With The Messy Handwriting

"Everything isn't what it seems." I whispered Mew's words that I've been reminded of to myself, the creak of the stairs louder than me as I followed it's direction. The mission up there I was creating to take on became the smallest amount more comforting. Still more difficult than not to see the life she was living like footprints in the sand as the only thing she got the chance to leave behind, but comforting because it felt worthy - like it would get somewhere.

I know that just because she lived by those words her whole life didn't mean it meant it connected to her leaving me behind being the same way, but I did think so, and I wanted to say this was proof that she held on the same way until the very end. That people really have been wrong about how she disappeared. It would feel so good to have been right about her, especially since I didn't give up even once. That's what I wanted more than anything; to prove loyal to her, whether she's gone or she was able to stay.

Her room towered with books on every wall, lining it up from ceiling to floor. Most people assumed she was a heavy reader because of it, but she wasn't necessarily. She liked to read and all, yes. More than that though, she liked the look of having complete series placed next to each other. A collector was a better term than a reader and that also meant it would be harder to find one notebook among all of them.

I skimmed my finger across the binds, starting at the bottom row, in search of a spiral. Majority of them had the typical feel of a hard cover or soft cover novel that I didn't think twice to skip by and head onto the next. Every so often I'd come across something that put my hopes up, but it would always be something like old photo albums from her younger childhood, or one of her yearbooks that's cheap binding tore apart a long time ago, that she put effort into reconstructing enough it'd stay together. This process ended up being ctrl+c, ctrl+v as I went through the four rows above it, and I came out with nothing after hours. Rummaging through her backpack and small closet, resulted in the same way.

"You're so dang organized Mew, and yet nobody knows where you keep your things." I sighed as I gently let myself fall into the floor. I tried to laugh like it was some sort of joke and nothing to take serious, but I knew it wasn't. When she was alive, her organization was such a pet peeve of mine. Not just because my parents favored her habit that I wasn't very good at, but because it made her look so open for other people to look into her life, when I've never been that way.

Recently it's becoming more obvious that everyone interpreted her differently. She's not just the girl that I saw her as, but she's so much more, and that "more" is like a whole crowd of people I've never met. Mew is extremely organized, that even her death can't make people forget that, but she's also a concealed girl that didn't expose much about herself. In the end, I found that we're a lot more similar than I've thought my entire life, and it makes it look like we could've gotten along much better than we already have if I would've known.

From the floor, I could see the sun begin to set deeper into disappearance from her window. At this angle, it was shining brightly into her room, where it fanned out to draw rainbows in the air. I can remember how we fought over this room when we first moved here for that sole reason of how magical it looked when it did this at certain points of the day, and how mad I was when my parents let her win. It's one of the many things you get used to being the older sibling, but also something you wish you didn't have to get used to. It seemed unjust. It was unjust, really.

That didn't stop the sun from shining, though. It was something you had to live with, like many other things, on a much more and less painful spectrum. For once, I let myself appreciate how delicate it looked, like she used to do all the time instead of feel like a loser as I did every time before. I followed its glow above me, where it paved its way on her ceiling, her shelves, her bed frame, and the sheets, that is, until my gaze ran into this brilliant flash of gold that skyrocketed color from inside her pillow case.

"Wh-what the heck?" I mumbled. If anyone was around I'm nearly certain nobody could've understood it except myself. Nobody needed to anyway. My balance wavered before I managed to stand fully upright, but I made my way to the source of the gleaming glimmer that fought to be seen more than anything else nearby. Fingertips failed to keep still as I exposed it from where it hid, the blue notebook with the center sticker officially lost, and then found.

I flipped through the thin pages, her familiar handwriting written flawlessly within the lines, holding a vibe that was pleasing to look at. She treated her every assignments like a coloring book, where each letter, punctuation mark, and all had its designated place. Long complex formulas of the new prompts for thesis that couldn't go away no longer made you nauseous when it was written in her handwriting. Every page was the same way; formal yet beautiful. Except one.

Out of the entire book, there was one page rustled around in comparison to the rest. It's been folded up, and crumbled, but never once was it detached from the spiral binding. It's as if no matter how much Mew hated the page lurking among her work, she was scared of what would happen if it fell out and got lost. If she would do such a thing, it wasn't about herself. She'd risk her own reputation, but not somebody else's, even if she had to swallow hurt every day because of it.

I told you so, didn't I? The page read. It was written diagonally across the top corner, in a font foreign to what the notebook previously held. It wasn't foreign to me though. I knew it was Rachel's handwriting. I recognized it from old graduation cards, sympathy cards and the like. It must be what she was writing in the uploaded video.

I'm sorry. Really. What do you want me to do? I'll do anything. I will. I promise. I can make it up to you. Mew's response was right beneath the first sentence. Unlike the rest of her usual school-notes, this was written messily, like she was writing it quickly. That font was just as foreign to the notebook as Rachel's.

The truth is gonna come out sometime and every piece of it is bad on me. Sooner or later that's exactly what's going to happen, and with who already knows, I think it's sooner. You know that, so don't act like you don't. You owe me more than your life. You ruined mine. Don't you realize that? Everything's changed and it can't be fixed no matter what you do or what you try. Your existence itself caused this so do not involve yourself anymore than you already are. Stay back. My chest numbed as I read her rant. I couldn't see Mew to be the bad person. I'm sure she's made mistakes, and everybody does, but for it to be this extreme that Rachel would hate her this much, I didn't see how that could be possible. That's not bias, that's strictly the personality she owned.

Just let me be there for you. What you're going through is a hard time for anyone, and what you did - it's okay. I won't think of you differently. Nobody has to know either. I didn't want any of this to happen. Don't you remember who I am? How I've been to you? You need to rest and de-stress; let yourself grieve and go through all of its stages. You're not a superhuman and I don't expect you to be. Take it easy. This sounded like the Mew that I knew. The girl that was selfless and that wanted to make things better, whatever the story behind it was, but in my shoes, I couldn't understand why she felt she needed to comfort her, especially after how she's been treated. That evidence of cruelty from Rachel's side was right in front of me, in my hands.

Die, okay? I can't stand to be in the same school as you. Heck, I can't stand to be in the same neighborhood as you. Either you die or you move so I never have to see you again. Because you walked on this earth, you created competition, you created comparison, and now you created death. That's because of you, alright? That's because everyone likes Camille Lobrigas, and you proved that today. Even if you walk into trouble you never get punished. You get away with everything, and now you're a murderer, and you're so good at it that you never had to touch a gun to get it done. Get out of my life. It's the only way I can start over.

I had to read Rachel's words too many times to actually accept that she would write such a thing, but each time I came to the same understanding and conclusion. It hurt more and more, that the strongest anesthesia had nothing on me, and my sobs only got louder. Yet through all of that, I still wanted to deny what I read. I wanted to believe that it couldn't possibly be true that Rachel would push her over the edge like that.

I'll tell everyone it was me. I'll take the hit for you. We've been friends all our lives so please let me suppor-. Mew tried to reconcile until she couldn't anymore. She'd fight for people to be pleased with her, whatever it took, and she'd write page after page if she had to until she ran out of time. I'd guess too, that the notebook did get taken from her before she could finish writing out her entire sentence because a long line of led connected to her last letter stretched to the other side of the page, like it was dragged out from under her pencil.

'You die, or I'll kill you' was the last response.

Shuddering and quaking, my thumb against my phone was so far from still it made the screen look like it was glitching, but I bolted for a tap to Rachel's name when I saw it, before I could get myself to hesitate. The call was picked up after two rings, in which her voice on the other end grasped a tone of longing to receive shallow forgiveness for not what I found out behind her back, but what abruptly ended our last meet up. She just as well be speaking a different language, because I couldn't understand a word she said. I had in mind what I had to say, and nothing else, in order to get it done.

"Since you seem to like this style of threat, you turn yourself in, or I'll do it myself."