.・. .・゜✭・.・✫・゜・. .

SWEET MELANCHOLY

CHAPTER TWO

ii. the lie and the truth

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MIKE'S VOICE FILLS THE PHONE AS APRIL CHOKES ON HER BREATH, she tugs her knees up to her chest, letting her head fall against them as she holds her phone to her ear with her left hand. The clown... Her friends... Derry. She was remembering jagged pieces of a mystery she had spent the last half of her life trying to solve. She takes ten breaths, shaky and deep. Nearly shallow, she forced herself to carry each breath through -- to not give up on allowing herself the comfort. She clenched and unclenched her right fist continuously throughout each exhale.

It was a grounding exercise she was taught by her long-time therapist. "Use these exercises when things begin to 'bubble up', April. It won't stop your feelings but it will quell them. You deserve peace," She recalls Laura saying during the session she first learned of them.

She frequented therapy since she was a teen. From the minute she moved to Seattle, from the minute her dad died. She needed it more than ever. It frightened her to think about who she would be without it... If she would even be. Or, if she would be gone by now. A victim to loss, a victim to her big emotions. No. A victim of this depression that has never left her side since the last time she saw her dad.

"April? Are you okay?" Mike asks softly. He hears the deep, shaky breaths on the other end of the phone and his mind is filled with the image of frail, April Ambrose.

April when she had just woken up, her knees knobby and ribcage protruding from the six months on bed rest, when a machine was the only indicator of her beating heart. He thinks back to a hollow, April Ambrose, the sunny girl gone and replaced with a sunken-eyed shell which wobbled when she walked and could hardly leave her bed.

Mike sees a vision of her at the beginning of it all when she did not speak for weeks until she finally broke into a fit of tears and screaming in fear, agitation, and anger -- sputtering nonsense until she was finally calmed, pulled into father's arms while her mother strokes her hair. Mike remembers it too well. He and Richie were there. He remembered sitting on the floor and rubbing her back while she lay on her side, unmoving, staring into a wall as if it were the most interesting thing she had ever seen. Richie next to her, carefully unknotting her hair and twisting it into careful braids. Mike remembered him saying "My mom always wanted a girl. I wanted to be a big brother too,". Mike also remembers April breathing in a shallow breath before beginning to scream, Richie jumping back in a panic and running down to her parents -- calling them for help.

April hums in response, signalling to him that she needs a moment before responding slowly -- unsure of what to say. Unsure of how to go about this. "When? When do I need to come back?" She asks, voice shaky and head still against her knees. Still, she attempts to brave it.

"I talked to everyone already. They're coming out for tomorrow." Mike responds. "It's bad, April," He whispers, voice breaking.

He had managed to stand firm in all the other calls, calm, levelheaded. He got them all to come home. There was something about the image of her, the sound of her false-confident voice which pushed him over the edge. Mike knew they needed to do this. He had sacrificed his whole life to ensure the completion of their oath. But, he knew enough, none of them wanted to do this. Of course, they didn't. Even if they couldn't remember much, the feeling of dread was enough. It was as if they were fourteen and signing a death wish. Fourteen and promising their adult bodies to a monster.

"Everyone?" She asks, not looking for clarification. She's remembering now. Getting faint glimpses of red hair, glasses, and pudgy cheeks. Her eyes are watering. She's seeing it. She's getting flashes of children's faces, and a sharp pain in her forehead as her hands begin to sweat. "You mean..." She goes on, voice weak, heart racing. There is a breath caught in her throat.

Mike is silent for a moment. "Yeah, April," He whispers into the line. "Everyone is coming. Rich, Eddie, Stan, Bev, Ben..." He goes on, voice trailing off before he is cut off by April interjecting. If the circumstances were different, he would have laughed. April would always sputter apologies when she cut people off, he remembered that too. Well-mannered April and her floral dresses, lollipops in her pocket and friendship bracelets littering her wrists. He liked remembering her that way better. He liked seeing her for who he had met her as.

"Bill," She says and she feels her stomach turn, a weird clench which made her wince. It felt partly of guilt, of resentment, of longing. She hardly remembered any of them but the mere mention of Bill's name made her throat tighten, hands clammy as she trembled. "Y-Yeah, okay. I'll be there, Mikey. I'll see you tomorrow, okay?" She continues, lifting her head from her knees and breathing in again -- ten deep breaths.

"Yeah, I'll see you tomorrow, April," He responds, bidding her goodbye before ending the line -- leaving April alone in her storage room, sitting on the floor, surrounded by boxes of memories she had long since forgotten and is only now beginning to remember.

She looks around the room, staring at the old boxes which store her only connections to her childhood. Staring at the bins which held old clothes, Nolan's baseball cards, and Christmas decorations. April thinks back to when they first moved into this house. When Nolan was so excited to begin their lives, wanting a big home for children who would run around the halls and chase after him, calling him 'dad' and calling her 'mom'. A home where their children would never go a day unloved, where they would always sleep knowing they were wanted. He wanted kids and they never came and April wanted to get better but that never came either. She wanted to be a devoted wife but she never could be. She wanted to love him fully, but, she never could.

April places her phone down on the hardwood as she looks down at the letter she was reading before Mike called. She picks it up, eyes scanning the page as it all begins to make sense now.

♧

Billy,

I don't know if you miss me and I'm not sure if you remember me at all. Or if you've even thought about me since you've moved. But, God, I'm terrified I'll never love someone as much as I love you. I wish I could stop writing you. I wish I could be stronger than I am. I miss you. I hate you for doing this to me but I love you too much to mean it. I don't know anymore, Billy. Please call. Even it's to tell me to get over it. Anything is better than this silence. I don't think I can take it any longer.

-AA

♧

She drops the letter, a tear falling down her cheek now. She feels as if she has done something terrible, she feels guilty. Her stomach flipped inside out as a barrage of memories came rushing into her mind. She remembers waking up. For the longest time, April could not remember anything about her coma. She just knew that she was in one.

Her parents told her she had been playing with friends one day during the summer, and had slept over at one of their houses too. Then, the next day, they went swimming -- cliff jumping at the Quarry in her hometown but she never made it out of the water on her own. Instead, she had jumped into shallow waters, hitting her head against the bottom of the lake and was knocked unconscious upon impact, her body floating to the surface face down. She was rushed to the hospital.

She had looked at her medical records when she had gotten older, attributing her lack of memory to the head trauma, after all, she was put into the coma in an attempt to protect her brain. They all said the same thing. She never got any closure from it. In truth, she wasn't sure what she was looking for. The answers were there. She was fourteen and having fun and hit her head. She was fourteen and put into a coma to prevent further injury to her brain. Yet, it just never seemed right. Maybe, it was because she remembered nothing from that day. She has hated bad endings since she was young and ever since that day, it seems her life has been full of bad endings and false hopes.

She remembered the truth now. She never hit her head at the bottom of the Quarry. April Ambrose was thrown against a wall in a cistern at full force, breaking a rib, snapping her wrist, and shattering a collarbone. She was knocked unconscious with hardly a pulse. April Ambrose didn't get put in a coma because of a jump into blue waters. She was put into a coma after being thrown over a pile of slaughtered children's toys by a monster which terrorized her hometown.

There was a moment where she sat in shock, wavering breaths as she shook in fear. She remembered. She remembered. She remembered.

♧

April had cleaned up her box before going onto her laptop and browsing flights to Maine, purchasing the cheapest one-way ticket she could find because why would she buy a roundtrip, first-class ticket to take a flight to her hometown where she would probably get killed anyway? She wasn't actually thinking like that. She just wasn't sure when this... Mission... Would be completed, or at all? She didn't want to waste money, that's it! She tells that to herself as she sits in her large home, surrounded by magazines on her coffee table which featured her jewelry brand on the cover. She just didn't want to waste money.

She pondered as she packed. It was only an hour's plane ride. She was shocked at how close it was. Not that it would have changed her never visiting that place, she hardly thought about it until today. None of her family lived there anymore. She hardly remembered it at all. The flight would land in Portland at 3 PM tomorrow. She would have to rent a car to get to Derry. She looked on her maps app and estimated it would take roughly 2 hours to drive there.

It was like she was in a trance, walking around her bedroom in a haze as she grabbed random articles of clothes and threw them into a floral quilted duffel bag her grandmother made her while she visited a long time ago.

She was twenty-two and spent the summer in Greece with her grandparents, spent her days sleeping in her dad's childhood room until noon and helping her grandparents tend to their farmland. It was after she had dropped out of university, she had savings and no idea of ​​what she wanted to do with her life. All she knew was that most of her wanted to die, to be done with it all and if an afterlife was real, maybe she would be lucky enough to die and be with her dad again. But instead of acting upon it, she listened when her mom suggested a trip to visit her family. So, they packed up to be gone for a few weeks and April decided to stay longer. To spend more time sewing with her grandmother, more time picking fruits off trees with her grandfather, and more time to mess around with scrap metals until she forged them into something beautiful to wear.

As she packed, she began to forge a lie to tell Nolan. She had no idea what to say.

'I'm going home to fight a monster which tortured my entire childhood which is probably the reason I have been chronically depressed my entire adulthood, and I'm going to fight it with my childhood friends which I haven't seen in over a decade. Oh, and the only boy I have ever truly loved is going to be there. The person who is the reason I have never been able to love fully again,'

"You sound insane," She whispers to herself as she zips up the bag. She breathes in again, ten times, clenching and unclenching. She sits down at the foot of her bed, at a loss for words, unable to form a coherent thought. She's scared.

Her heart is racing, unsure what to do as her hands begin to shake again. Her lip trembles as tears well up in her eyes. She sits on the bed, bouncing her leg. Her head is in her hands now. "What do I do... What do I do..." She whispers again. Her breathing was shallow, her vision blurred with tears as she remembered more.

She sees herself at fourteen for the first time in years. In a pair of yellow Converse and a floral sundress, her curly hair was cut with bangs. April sees herself as young, full of life, and beautiful. How did she ever think she was plain? She sees seven kids and she recalls their names, quickly putting names and memories to faces with ease as each face appears in her mind.

'Richie had glasses. He taught me how to ride a bike. He called me his baby sister before we moved away.'

'Stanley would sleep over at my house when my nightmares would get too bad to be alone.'

'Mike told me to call if I ever needed anything and to keep him updated on my dad. I never did.'

April remembers her friends now. She's seeing their faces, remembering the way she loved them -- the way they loved her. She had friends. How stupid was she to ever forget them? What happened back home? What really happened? She doesn't remember it all yet.

'Billy told me he loved me and then he moved away before I could wake up,'

She chokes on a breath, remembering him better now. Bill. Bill Denbrough. He was her first friend, wasn't he? Tears streamed down her cheeks, she hated bad endings and his absence after it all was one of the worst endings she had ever experienced. She remembered him more with each tear she shed.

'I rode on the back of his bike 'cause I didn't know how to ride yet. His little brother was killed and he thought it was his fault, I would always tell him it wasn't. He said he loved me more than anything. He would kiss my forehead when I was scared. I wanted him to be my first kiss and I loved him with everything until I forgot. I was never the same when he moved away. I was never the same after the clown.'

Ten more breaths. She inhales and exhales slowly, continuing to cry -- muffling her whimpers with her hand. Her head is still against her knees. She didn't know what she could say to Nolan to make it all make sense. She was scared of what would happen when she went and what could happen when she saw Bill. It has been twenty-seven years yet, she's sitting her her bedroom crying over a memory of the boy she was in love with her entire childhood, crying over the loss of innocence which was ripped from them all at the hands of a monster. She couldn't hurt Nolan. She just couldn't. He was too good. He was the best of them, of her and him.

April was jaded, always assuming the worst. There was a time, a few years ago, where Holly had gotten t-boned on the way to a dinner at their mother's house. She was okay, with hardly a bruise on her, her car taking the brunt of the damage. She had called Josephine to tell her that she needed to be picked up from the sight and when April heard the words 'car crash', she panicked. She began to cry, pacing around the living room before her mother sat her down, telling her Holly was okay and that all she needed was a ride.

There was no doubt Nolan loved his wife. He loved her but he always knew that there were parts of her he would never be able to understand, parts which she hid -- whether aware or not. She had gotten better over the years. She really did. Before twenty-five, there were weeks when she would not leave her bed. The last time that happened was when she was thirty-two after finding out her grandfather had passed away. He knew that she cared about him, about their marriage, that she loved him the best she could. He had made peace with the fact that she was loving him the best she could, even if he would always be the one loving more. Nolan loved her.

"April?" He asks, entering their bedroom and seeing her folded at the foot of their bed. His heart squeezes at the sight, seeing her clenching her fists and breathing steadily. He knew she was trying. "What's wrong?" He sits next to her, rubbing her back apprehensively. He never knew what to do when this happened. It hardly happened anymore.

She's silent, blinking the tears away and breathing in shakily one more before wiping her face and looking at him through messy hair. "I just... I got a call, Nolan," She starts, looking at him with watery eyes.

She feels guilty looking at him. April knows why she could never love him fully and it's because she never stopped loving Bill Denbrough, even if she forgot about him. Nolan was perfect. He is perfect. April knew he loved her with his whole being, so much that he would give up the world for her and she felt sick looking him in the eye knowing what she knew now. She feels dirty as if she had cheated him this entire marriage. Held him back from finding the love he deserved. She was selfish.

He looks so concerned as he stares into her eyes, wiping a tear on her face with the pad of his thumb. "What is it? What's wrong?" He asks gently.

"An old friend called from Derry... Weird, right?" She continues, voice shaky as she mentions the coincidence. How strange it was that Mike called the day she began searching for answers. She said this mostly for herself. "I hadn't talked to him in years. III sort of forgot about him until he called," She looks to him, skirting around the topic because she doesn't know what to say. "We were close. We had a whole group, I forgot about them too. My coma, I guess," She lies, saying the excuse she has used for years to explain her poor memory of the past. "He needs help... Something's wrong back home and we made a pact to always stick together when one of us needed help. He's... He's sick, Nolan. Everyone is going," She sputters out, unsure of where her words are taking her. She just spoke, looking into his eyes which were so earnest.

Nolan is silent for a moment, listening to her words intently. "Okay," He nods. "When... When are you going? How long?" He goes on, looking at her distressed face with concern, and confusion. Nolan knew there were parts of April she didn't understand herself but this seemed odd.

"I booked a flight for tomorrow. I don't know when I'll be back..." She trails off, looking at her hands, fumbling them. "I think it's bad..." She whispers, barely audible. "III don't know, Nolan. It sounded bad," She goes on, opening up honestly now. She was lying about Mike being sick but, the truth really was bad. "I don't know if things will be okay. I don't know," She shakes her head as it falls into her hands. "I'm sorry," Her voice breaks.

He puts his hand on her back again, rubbing it. "It's okay. I'm just confused, April. How do you know them all?" He asks, looking for more clarification.

Her breath is jagged as she shakes her head again. "We were childhood friends. I hardly remember anything. Just that we were close. Mikey... He took care of me after my coma. Helped me get through PT..." She answers, remembering the days Mike stood her in living with her, helping her down the stairs and helping her regain her strength. "I don't know how I forgot them," Her voice breaks, tears welling up again and she pulls away from his hand. "I don't... I don't know, Nolan. I don't think... I can't do this," She whispers, guilt eating at her belly.

"Hey, it's okay... What do you mean? What can't you do?" He asks, heart dropping as she paces the room and he knows she isn't speaking without thought. He can see her thinking out each thing she says, each whisper she lets out. He feels her slipping away from him.

She falls to the floor, pulling her knees to her chest again and beginning to cry into them. "One of them..." She whispers into her knees. "He... He was... He was like... My boyfriend, Nol," She says, feeling pathetic. How fucking pathetic, she feels. Forty years old and crying into her knees about the love she still feels for her first love.

Nolan tilts his head down to her, watching as she looks up at him with guilt. "Your boyfriend?" He questions. "April, that was so long ago. I don't care," He assures her, voice breaking and hoping that what she was getting at was just her being nervous about his reaction to this information. But, he wasn't stupid. She could see it, written all over her face. She was guilty. He feels his heart clench.

She shakes her head. "I only remembered now, Nol. You have to believe me, okay?" She whimpers into her knees. "I only knew now, I swear," April feels her heart tightening as she looks at him, her husband, Nolan Neufield.

They met at a coffee shop. He was instantly enamoured with her and April had to convince herself to show interest. She should have known from the beginning. She should have never done this to him. "He moved away while I was in the coma," She states into Nolan's eyes, watching as tears fill his now too. "I don't think... I don't... I don't think I ever got over him," She lets out and a cry follows after, out of guilt for what she was doing. "I think that's why I was so closed off in the beginning. Why I keep you at arm's length now, too," She whispers.

They never had an unhappy marriage but to say it was perfect was a lie too. It just was. It existed, it was there. They slept in bed together each night and cared for one another, they went on vacations and lived together as one. Nolan knew April's favorite flowers and loved her and April knew his favorite meals and cooked them each chance she got and she cared for him deeply.

But, it did not take a genius. Nolan knew from the beginning, from their first date until he got the confirmation now. He knew that somewhere, somewhere unknown, April's heart was locked away and he knew, for certain, that it wasn't because of him and he knew it wasn't because she was unfaithful or that she was some sort of monster who wished upon nothing for him but ill-will. But because from the very beginning, he knew he was marrying a lost woman. A woman who hardly knew how to love herself, let alone how to love someone new. He could hardly blame her and he knew, he could never blame himself either.