Forever You'll Stay in My Heart

She can’t remember the last time she slept so poorly. She hasn’t slept well since the night Hannah died, but tonight is particularly bad. The trial is not going how she wanted it to, and she’s never felt so alone, so scared. With each new testimony, she discovers another secret about her daughter that she should have caught on to. In some ways, she feels like nothing more than an outsider in her daughter’s life, unworthy of calling herself her mother. The media outlets favouring the prosecution have already done plenty of damage, proclaiming how ignorant and terrible she was for not realising her daughter was depressed. Andy’s name comes up, too, but they always blame the woman more. Was. She still can’t get used to using the past tense. In her mind, her daughter is away somewhere. She’ll see her at the breakfast table tomorrow morning, kiss her on the top of her head and tell her how much she loves her. She won’t. She won’t because she can’t. 

And she’ll live with that for the rest of her life.

After tossing and turning some more, she gets up and pours a glass of water in the kitchen. She isn’t sure how much time passes when she stands and stares aimlessly out the window. Her hand trembles, and she curses as she drops the glass. She can’t do anything right. She has nothing. Her callous husband views this all as a minor inconvenience and too much of a headache for him to handle. The pharmacy is barely making ends meet. Every friend and family member, few that she has, either suffocates her or avoids the elephant in the room due to their stupidity and selfishness. Most of all, she has no daughter. Her pride and joy, the person she loved more than anything in this world, is gone. She is never coming back. She will never see her smile, never hear her laugh, never be able to ask her why, oh why, she did this. She’s listened to the tapes a thousand times to the point where she could give a timestamp-by-timestamp summary. But she needs to understand more. Not because she views it as something she did to her, but to herself. She was a ray of light in a dark world, and now that she’s gone, the world isn’t as bright anymore.

But the fact is, it is not Hannah’s fault. With so much evidence and more to come, she cannot see this as an act of suicide. This was murder. This was death by a thousand cuts. Every person at that school who did her wrong, from those who claimed to be her friend to those who had the audacity to claim that she owed them something they had no right to ask of her, from those who were supposed to support her, including, yes, including her and her father, to those who went out of their way to make her feel alone, killed her. And she wants nothing more than to channel her grief into rage and expose every last person who played a part in this. But she has no energy. The only thing she lives for now is the hope that with each new day in court, she will get closer to victory and to maybe, just maybe, feeling worthy of her daughter’s love again. If they don’t succeed, she will have no redemption. The chances of appeal would be slim. If the court rules in favour of the school, she will fail not just her daughter but every other person who may end up like her.

“Mom?”

It sounds so real, but she supposes it’s something she’s heard for sixteen years, so her voice is not hard to imagine. Perhaps the cocktail of antidepressants and sedatives she’s on is starting to affect her sanity. She closes her eyes and shakes her head. She needs to sleep. Drinking on her medication isn’t permitted, but there’s no court tomorrow, so sixteen hours of sleep might do her some good. She finishes cleaning up the shards of glass, pointedly pushing down the reminders that the glass is sharp. Sharp enough to slash through skin and pierce an artery. While she hasn’t exactly kept up her physical hygiene and appearance on the days she isn’t out in public for the world to criticise, even when Jackie is there to help her, she can’t bear to think about shaving. The pink Gillette plastic-covered blade is nothing like the bloodied metallic razor she found at the bottom of the bathtub, but it still scares her. The voice calls her name again, and she sighs, scooping the pieces into the bin.

But when she turns around and sees her daughter standing near the fridge the way she might if she was getting a midnight snack, she lets out a piercing scream, stumbling against the sink so fast her lower back collides with it hard enough to know she’ll have a bruise tomorrow. She’s insane. She’s clearly delirious with exhaustion and grief and stress, so now she’s seeing her dead daughter. She clasps a hand over her mouth and fights back tears. She doesn’t know whether she still wants to see her every time she blinks. If she disappears, she can at least claim it as a figment of her imagination. If she stays, oh, God, if she stays, she can have the chance she’s been dreaming of. If she can talk to her, maybe she can talk back. Even if this isn’t real, she can at least try to get this off her chest.

“Hannah?” She breathes. “Baby?”

Her daughter smiles back at her sadly as she nods. She seems pained by her current state, for which she can’t blame her. She’s wearing sweats that should have been washed by now. Her hair is short and blunt. The bags under her eyes are heavier than ever. As Hannah approaches her slowly, she gets a better look in the moonlight. She’s beautiful. There is no blood on her arms. Her skin is no longer pallid. Her hair is long again and full of life. She is exactly the way she remembered her before that day.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Are… are you real? I-I don’t understand.” She reaches out instinctively to hug her but soon realises that her hand is not touching anything. She doesn’t pass through her, but there is nothing solid there. Still, Hannah places a hand over hers and meets her eyes. She starts to sob and wants nothing more than to hug her. Soon, Hannah is crying, too, and she hates herself for wiping that smile off her face again. She furiously dabs under her eyes, wanting to convey in every way that she is so happy to see her.

“I’m sorry.” She bleats, feeling unable to meet her daughter’s gaze. “I’m so sorry. I let you down. I didn’t see the signs.”

“No, Mom. It’s okay.” Hannah insists strongly. “I didn’t- The last thing I wanted you to feel was guilty. That’s why you’re not on the tapes. I didn’t want to hurt you and Dad.

She shakes her head. “I failed you. I failed you, and I’m so sorry.”

“I forgive you.” She says. It lifts a weight off her chest she thought would never fade. “I forgive you, and I love you so much, Mom. I always will.”

She feels compelled to pull away, breaking their phantom hug in favour of seeing her face. “I’m going to win this trial for you, sweetheart. I’m going to get justice for you.” She promises frantically. “The school will pay for what they did to you.”

Hannah places a hand on her cheek. “No matter what happens, you will never let me down.’

The words are earnest and wise beyond her years. She is amazed by her; she always has been. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

As she says this, Hannah starts to fade, and she grabs desperately at the fabric of the cardigan she’s wearing, her favourite, but to no avail. Before she knows it, she is alone in the kitchen again. 

“Hannah!” She screams, letting out a harsh sob. She clutches her chest, sinking against the cabinet. A part of her is rational enough to know a neighbour might call the cops, but, at the same time, those who might hear her would already be used to hearing her day-to-day nightmares and breakdowns, anyway.

But, to her shock, the cries are cathartic, not anguished. She hears the warmth of her daughter’s words in her mind, and she prays she will remember them with as much intensity as she remembers the day she found her.

Because, deep down, she knows those words will resuscitate her soul and bring her back to life so she can find a way to live what remains of it.