in the beginning of it all esther managed to maintain a certain sense of optimism. that is a lie. what she managed to maintain was a facade of optimism. it was a face she put on for friends and family and sage. it was a smile and a squeezing of the hand and a we'll get through this together. it was bullshit and she knew it.
it wasn't until she had to start dressing herself presentably and speak respectfully to security guards with looks on their faces that translated to "mean" and "bored" that it finally began to set in. she had lost the only person who really understood her, her partner in crime, her confidant and ally and brother and best friend in the entire fucking world and there was nothing she could do about it. at first it was every weekend, but she had a job and on top of the job was the clothing and the jewelry and the stupid performances until she could no longer make it every weekend and once the commissions dried up due to low quality work and horrible service she had sunk too far into depression to pull herself out of bed long enough to do anything but go to work at the café and quietly serve coffee with a smile that made her eyes sting plastered on her face. she still visited; once a month or so she gathered herself up. she put on a clean dress, long enough to reach the tops of her socks, and a jacket and brushed her hair and braided it. she hadn't noticed when exactly it had become long enough to braid but she didn't hate it. she painted on her customer service face; her makeup was reserved and pretty. mascara and maybe a tinted chapstick. it was enough to fool the front desk and the security guards but even she couldn't convince herself it was enough to fool him. she would sit down and watch from inside her head as the love that had once been so strong and powerful and unending deteriorated into an endless cycle of each party silently praying for the other. she hated how bad of a friend she had become. she hated how she couldn't be there every second of every day like she used to she hated the one off phone calls and the how are you?s but what the fuck else were they even supposed to say to each other? it wasn't the same. she wasn't the same.
she had lost sage. and then she had lost saiori- the only person who could possibly know what it felt like losing sage- and she was alone. she was left with jen and her mother. jen, who knew this was hurting her worse than anything and who made her eat when she forgot she was hungry and who made her spill out all her pain onto the table and quietly helped her sort through it. though she loved him, the love had become lost again in the dull ache that had become her every day life. she visited him out of necessity. she needed him, though she had forgotten why.
her mother, she knew, missed sage too. esther knew her mother missed sage the way one knows there is not a monster hiding in the closet. she knew, but she didn't believe it most of the time, except on the occasions when she would walk in on her clutching a photo of esther and sage as young children, or on her and yoona quietly sharing a cup of tea, almost lighthearted but impossibly dampened. even esther, who found it nearly impossible to "read the room" as one might call it, could see the way sage hung in the air over everything in their little corner of the world.
she saw him in the glued-together teacup, once broken during a game of cats, hunting little stuffed mice they'd bought at the toy store with esther's allowance. she saw him in the binders in her closet, filled with stories and bad drawings. she saw him in the records by bands he'd shown her, in the clothes he'd helped her make, sitting in her workroom with her until five a.m. periodically handing her a cup of tea because she had to get it finished, she had to, and hand over that bolt of lace, would you, i've got an idea.
she saw sage in strawberry, too. she wondered, occasionally, if cats grieved like humans. if they missed the people they once knew. if they forgot them.
on sage's birthday, as she undressed and put her pajamas back on, returning from a visit, her phone buzzed on her bed. it was saiori, asking her to wish him a happy birthday. it must have been early in the day for her. she shut off her phone and began to cry. she sat down, curling into a ball on the floor, and hit the back of her head on her dresser. she was 12 years old again and felt like the world was collapsing in on her. her only friends had disappeared almost completely from her life and god, were they really even friends anymore?
on a day that felt vaguely like november she sat at her piano and began playing something. the sounds didn't exactly affect her in any way, but the muscle memory was there and she didn't have to wonder if she was playing it right. for a minute or so it existed only in that moment, as a distant memory, until she remembered it. it was a gentle melody, a song she had written for sage and saiori, the day she realized they were meant for each other. she had intended to play it at their wedding- not that they were getting married, or had considered asking her to play at their wedding, but it existed in a fantasy, the same universe where she herself would be married, in a quiet ceremony with saiori and sage beside her and jen being told he could kiss the bride; it was a fantasy world from before, when fantasy wasn't so far out of reach and she felt able to indulge in it. the song recalled to a time when the stickers on her face matched the stars in the sky, when she made breakfast in bed for her mother for no reason, when she had time to dream about love. it recalled to the tentative why sage and saiori fell in love with each other.
she wondered if they loved each other still. she wondered if saiori had moved on, and was with someone else now. the thought made her angry. she realized she couldn't be angry with her for moving on, so she became angry because she didn't even know if saiori had moved on, because saiori never spoke to her anymore. she thought about finishing the yellow dress, but who would wear it?
love got the better of esther, and she finished the dress. she couldn't decide if it was a christmas gift of a late birthday gift, but their friendship had deteriorated to the point where she no longer really had to do both. the thought made her cry as she drove it to the post office to be shipped.
the new year past. she slept through it. the only reason she knew what day it was was her work schedule. she called in sick on The Day, which she hadn't known was The Day until she looked at her calendar and saw she was scheduled. she stood up and looked in the mirror. her hair had grown out long and she hardly recognized herself. a year had passed and she hadn't gotten better. before she knew it she was sobbing, thrashing about and screaming and cursing everyone and everything and wondering if she wasn't the one in prison why the fuck was she so fucked up over this? she dug around in her dresser drawer and pulled out her extra set of shears, slapping them onto the countertop and staring at herself in the mirror, tears staining her cheeks, snot everywhere, her eyes puffy and red; she took the shears and began chopping at her hair. the first big chunk of brown hair fell to the glitter-stained carpet quietly. she stared at herself harder. she kept chopping, and stopped crying quite so loud until she had given herself a complete, albeit god-awful haircut. she began to recognize herself. with a shaky hand, she reached into her sticker jar and pulled out a little pink star. she peeled it off the sticker paper and tentatively stuck it to her cheek. there, she thought to herself. that's more like it. i'm going to be a best friend again.