I’ll See You Soon by Helen Gu {Inklings Book Contest 2021 Finalist}

 Today we are featuring Inklings Book Contest 2021 finalist Helen Gu! Helen finished 7th grade this past school year. Her story is called “I’ll See You Soon.” Enjoy!

I’LL SEE YOU SOON
by Helen Gu

The streetlights shine overhead, each lamp emitting a soft, warm glow. For some reason, I feel some kind of nostalgic comfort when I sit out on the porch, staring at them. The first blanket of snow during winter, cold, but makes you feel warm inside.

I have an obsession with streetlights.

I used to sit on the porch with Audrey during sleepovers, looking at the streetlights hanging above the sunset and the birds flying over it. At night we would look at the stars, and I’d hear her ranting about this constellation called the Big Dipper or something. I don’t get constellations, at all. My friend Grace once sent me a meme that said constellations were just someone saying that these stars look like a bear, and everyone else was too busy fighting a plague to disagree. And it’s true. Whenever Audrey would start ranting about them, I would tune out her talks and focus on how pretty the sky is instead.

Sometimes, though, I wish I hadn’t.

It’s been three months. Three months since we walked out on the streets at night. Three months since charcoal tires skid along the damp roads, sending high-pitched shrieks across the night. Three months since the trail of crimson dripping off the side of the curb, stretching far into the middle of the street.

Three months since Audrey was rolled away on a hospital cart, wrapped in a sheet with a cloth over her face.

These memories still haunt me. A ghost lingering in my mind, waiting for every chance to ambush me.

… 

“Katherine!” a high-pitched voice calls from behind me. Man, what now? “Mom says that we’re gonna eat out today!” I groan. The last thing I want to do when I finally have some solitude is to go out to eat.

“I wanna go to McDonald’s I wanna go to McDonald’s!” I can already hear Avery screaming out in the halls, jumping up and down like a kangaroo. One who was fed ten cups of coffee. I stick AirPods in my ears, jamming to Adele instead of these awful noises.

Dad drives us and I try to pay attention to the way the breeze feels against my face and the vibrating of the car when we run along a speed bump, instead of the million thoughts still lingering in my head. Sensory details like these always help calm me down, dissipating the dark, suffocating swirls of smoke in my brain. I think about the times when I would worry about school and crushes and trivial problems like that. I wish I could still worry about those things, though.

“Kathy? Kathy! Earth to Kathy!” Avery sits in front of me, irritatingly waving her hands in front of my face. I undo my seat belt and slap her hand away.

“I told you not to call me Kathy!” I snap, running to catch up with everyone else. Only my friends call me Kathy, except Eli who calls me Kat, but he’s weird so it doesn’t matter. Eli… I feel my cheeks grow slightly warmer at the thought of his name and mentally slap myself to snap out of it. 

“HEY KATHY!” I feel two hands tightly grasp onto my shoulders. What in the world? I jump and turn around, preparing to curse the person who just gave me a near heart attack.

“What the actual— Oh, it’s you.” Riley, one of my closest friends, runs up to me. Avery screams something about why Riley’s allowed to call me Kathy and she’s not. 

“Oh, hi Avery!” Riley turns around, waving.

“Riley is much nicer than you,” Avery scorns. 

“Ignore her, please,” I groan, storming off ahead.

We find a table to sit at, and I look around, trying to decide on a drink. I settle on lemonade, and Riley has raspberry soda as always.

“What’s so good about soda?” I say. “It’s so… fizzy, and gross, and—”

Riley cuts me off. “You don’t understand.”

Our orders come, preventing us from getting into a full-fledged argument on whether Coke tastes good or not. I twirl a french fry around in my finger before putting it in my mouth, relishing the crunch it makes when I bite down. Mom lets Riley and I move to a different table, away from Avery and her continuous screaming – another thing I’m thankful for.

“So, how are things going between you and Eli?” she asks as soon as I sit down.

“What are you trying to suggest?”

“You’re way too obvious, you know that right? And also—”

“No, I don’t know that,” I interrupt. Eli and I have been friends since the end of sixth grade, but of course, my friends like to take that the wrong way.

“He said that—”

“Let me finish at least a single meal in peace.”

“Fine,” she says, rolling her eyes. “I still ship you guys, though.”

I mentally curse her as I stick my spoon in my vanilla sundae. Audrey used to love them. I normally order chocolate ones, but I don’t know what’s gotten into me these days. Maybe the soft sweetness of vanilla just reminds me of other soft, sweet memories. 

A rush of memories consumes me. Turning around to run when Audrey was in danger. Watching everything, every image ingrained deep inside my mind and heart.

I tell myself to breathe. Breathe in, breathe out. But the memories corner me, squeezing all my thoughts into a single corner of my mind. A single corner, telling me it’s my fault.

Before I know it, I’m crying.

… 

People tell me that I obsess over Audrey too much. Maybe they’re right. Maybe I do obsess over her too much. 

But at this point, I don’t care if I’m being obsessive, or childish, or downright stupid. Still, some stupid part of me has the audacity to think that maybe she’s still alive, maybe this was all a joke and she’ll pop out of a corner somewhere and tell me she’s just kidding. Even if I know that’s wrong.

Stars fill the dark sky out my window. I think I can make out where the Big Dipper is. It’s the trail of five dots that look like a spoon. At least, supposed to look like one. The Milky Way stretches far from where I’m standing. One of the things I like about my house is the amazing view we have of the night sky. Tonight, it’s so dark and clear outside. 

… 

It practically takes all my willpower not to toss my stupid phone out my window. I hate the ringtone “Radar” with a passion, but it’s also the only ringtone that I’m able to get up to. Shut up phone, I think. Shut up. But as always, it doesn’t listen to me and keeps ringing loudly in my ear.

I sit in bed for another two minutes before the sound gets too unbearable, and slap the “off” button on the screen. Great. School. How fun. I squeeze my tired eyes shut, trying to make them water a little so they don’t feel like the cement on the ground during noon in July.

As I walk down the street, my eyes automatically start darting around the air, taking in every little detail in front of me. The soft rustles of the trees. The quiet murmurs of the squirrels. The crisp chirps of songbirds. The cool breeze lifting my hair. Back, forth, back, forth. I walk out from the shade of the tree, and the blinding sunlight decides to shoot right into my eye. Stupid sun, I think, flinching, walking back under the shade.

“Kathy!”

Riley and Grace run up to me, panting.

“Hey,” I reply, nodding. I haven’t seen them since before spring break, but I’m not really in the mood for talking. 

“OMG, you literally won’t believe this! The other day Claire and I were at Starbucks and we ran into Andrew and we were just sitting and talking for a while and…”

I ignore her as she goes on and on about her relationship issues. It’s too early for my poor ears to tolerate all this. I turn around to leave, eternally abandoning my eardrum destroyers. Well, at least for a little while… I hear loud footsteps behind me, like someone impatient knocking on a door.

“HEY KAT!” Eli runs up to me from behind, waving like a five-year-old on steroids and yelling loud enough for the entirety of China to hear. A few passers-by turn around to stare. Since when did I become a magnet for eardrum destroyers?

“Eli!” I say running up to him, trying to ignore the judgemental pairs of eyes on us. Don’t look at me! “What in the world are you high on?

“Life,” he replies nonchalantly. “I’m high on life.”

“Okay, fair,” I reply. “Also, my name isn’t Kat.”

“Yes, it is!”

“Whatever you say, Eli,” I reply flatly. I come across as too standoffish sometimes. Really though, I’m a softie inside. I know. Cliche, right? 

Riley wiggles her eyebrows at me, making the most annoying sounds possible. So much about abandoning my eardrum destroyers.

“Let’s go,” I say, indignant, grabbing Eli by the arm and storming off ahead. My hand grazes lightly against his, sending waves of shock down my body. The air in front of me shatters into a million sharp glass shards, and I’m stepping in every one of them. I violently pull my hand away.

“The heck was that for?” Eli turns and grabs my hand again. I freeze for a moment, slightly shaking, though the glass shards put themselves together again. I try to synchronize my breathing with the wind. Up, down, up, down. We walk a little in silence, and I’m calm again. An ocean of tranquility, though my hands won’t stay still.

“Look!” He suddenly breaks off my grasp and clasps his hands around something in the air. I watch his palms unfold, a tiny, wispy dandelion seed laying underneath. “Make a wish,” he whispers, pulling the cork from my glass bottle necklace. The seed sparkles against the silver chain, the empty bottle finally filled by something. My heart just… breaks. The nostalgic, happy way. The feeling you get when you’re lost in someone’s eyes, when the moment just freezes, like a photograph.

It’s almost like Audrey came back. I see the happy and carefree gleam in Eli’s brown eyes. Who knows, maybe the dandelion seed was Audrey’s spirit, coming back to me. 

The bell rings and I rush to my first class. It’s gonna be a long day.

… 

“Atoms are made of three parts,” our science teacher, Mr. Lee, drills out in the slowest and most boring possible manner. His accent makes it a hundred times worse.  “Protons… neutrons… and electrons…” 

Finally, the bell rings. I pack up my stuff as quickly as possible, sticking my notes messily into my binder before running off.

Something lightly taps against my chest. I look down and remember the dandelion seed from this morning. 

I know that Audrey really is gone. Even so, the thought that the seed is her spirit united with me again just comforts me. It’s almost as if I can hear her voice again, the seed silently resting against my heart. Thump, thump, thump, I can hear my heartbeat every time I inhale, evaporating my dark pool of anxiety.

I go home and lay the necklace under my pillow, where it’ll be safe with me tonight.

… 

I’m flipping through our old photo album. Audrey and I at summer camps, around a campfire. At a sleepover, throwing pillows at each other.

The air in front of my eyes darkens into a stormy grey. But this time, I plug my ears, struggling not to let the thunder reach me. 

I remember what happened this morning. Make a wish. Isn’t it weird that the most trivial moments can be the most memorable ones?

Instead, I stand out in the rain, letting the soft raindrops hit my skin and darken my clothes, relishing the scent of damp air and the mist drizzling from the sky. Until the stormy grey all disappears.

That’s called nostalgia, I think.

…

“Whatcha doing?” I see Riley and Grace walk in the back door of the library. I found a book about souls that I think I’ll check out.

I look down at the necklace hanging on my chest.

“Just looking for books… why are you guys in the back door?”

“We just felt like it.” Grace shoots Riley a look that I can’t really comprehend. Though, I’m surprised Riley hasn’t entered a room through a window yet. She’s clutching some papers in her hand, holding onto them like it’s for dear life. Her eyes look detached and her lips are bleeding, but she’s still biting them hard. I feel a little uneasy inside me, but before I say anything, Grace comes.

“Are you reading about souls?” Grace asks, taking the book out of my hands. “Woah. I think I read somewhere that souls will leave Earth in forty-nine days.”

“That isn’t true…  isn’t it?” I feel my stomach turning inside me for no reason at all. Forty-nine days are long gone… 

“I dunno. It’s this Japanese thing. I read it from Kira-kira, but OMG, it’s the saddest book ever! It’s about this Japanese girl and her sister and you should really read it sometime—”

“You guys coming over for Cynthia’s birthday party this weekend?” I cut her off before she starts ranting about another one of her books. Grace is usually pretty chill but when it comes to books… 

“Sorry, I can’t,” Riley replies with a dejected, almost distant look in her eyes. “I have somewhere I have to go. Tell her I say happy birthday though! Pretty please?”

“Yeah, yeah. Anyways, where’re you going?”

“I’m going!” Grace pipes in. “I already invited Eli and Lydia. I invited him for you, you know that right?”

I roll my eyes. “Seriously, you too?”

“What? I don’t even ship you. I just silently judge you.”

“That’s… not much better, you know.”

“I know.” Grace smiles passive-aggressively at me.

“Anyways, gotta go,” she says. “I have piano class at four.”

After I finish all my homework (and read half of the soul book I checked out from the library), I pack up all my things and go outside. It’s a windy day and I love wind. I love the way the breeze blows on my face, sending my hair all over the place. It feels weirdly refreshing. I sit down on a wooden bench under a tree and pluck out a leaf, tracing my fingers across the light green veins. 

“Katherine!”

“Audrey!” I feel my adrenaline surge as I turn around. But I don’t see bright hazel eyes or bushy brown hair. All I see is the windchimes hanging from the rooftop on the school, ringing as they clash together. A wave of disappointment washes over me. Like someone dumping a bucket of dirt into a crystal-clear lake, turning it a murky brown.

But I swore I heard her.

… 

“I’m gonna go out,” Avery shouts through my door.

“Whatever,” I mutter, my face buried in the pages. Avery runs out the hallway, obviously really excited to go wherever she’s going. I go back to reading as always, taking in every single word. I’m not an avid reader, but when I find a book I’m interested in, there’s no stopping me.

The important thing is to recognize our faults, avoid self-denial, and have the courage and self-sufficiency to make constant adjustments in our lives. That quote somehow hits harder than I thought it would. Sometimes, the most insignificant things are emotional triggers for me. Like when something light falls on your head, and it actually hurts.

A gentle pitter-pattering on my window arouses me. I pull open my curtains watching the raindrops hit the windowpane and then slide down. I love watching the rain. It’s so calming and peaceful and gives you a feeling that makes you want to cry and sing at the same time. I lean on my windowsill, thinking about everything.

I think about Audrey. I think about Eli. I think about Riley and Grace and all my other friends. I think about the way Eli looked at me today, the sunlight reflecting off his soft brown eyes. I think about the distant emptiness in Riley’s, something I didn’t notice until now. I even think about Avery… 

Avery… 

“Katherine…” 

Avery!

But the voice is gone. That strained voice… the sounds of the subway passing, the honks and sirens of the cars passing through… 

“Avery!”

I know it’s not a hallucination.

I shiver under a streetlamp, my sneakers already sogging wet, waiting for the “Railroad crossing” bars to lift so I can pass through. Hurry up hurry up hurry up! I grasp my chest with my hand, clenching it tight so it doesn’t feel like it’s about to come out. But I’m not alert. I’m in a trance. I can’t make my stupid self wake up. 

I sprint as fast as my legs can push me, each step creating a soft squish against the cold cement ground. Yes, it was here. The sounds of the passing cars. I stand at the side of the road, having no concern for my safety anymore. I look around. Nothing. Avery is safe.

Avery is safe.

Splash.

Avery’s head disappears beneath the water the moment I turn around. No, no, no, no, no. My anxiety closes around me like a foggy box, each breath to blow the fog away just fogs it up even more. I can’t see. I can’t hear. I zigzag over a few passing cars before pushing myself over a metal fence, next to the reservoir.

“Avery!” I manage to croak, collapsing on the ground. It feels like someone’s tugging a string on my body, slowly unraveling it.

“Kather—”

“Hold on!” I scream, the air in my lungs slowly being pushed out. I snap my umbrella shut, holding the tip across the surface of the water. “Hold onto this!”

Avery holds on to the umbrella and I feel my hand slip, both of us tumbling into the dark, cold water.

… 

I open my eyes to Avery softly breathing next to me.

Was all that just a dream? It felt so real. The water stuck in my shoes, the freezing air blowing on my face, the sounds of Avery’s strained breathing. My head swirls around, spinning, as if little threads of my memory were still connected to the dream world. I’m not awake yet.

And then I realize. I just experienced my own death. And then woke up after. Creepy.

“Katherine?” Avery suddenly sits up. “I really thought I died.”

I chuckle to myself. “Me too, man, me too. But we’re alive, aren’t we?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t want to lose you.”

That voice trails out and then suddenly stops. Stops and I realize that I’m sitting here hugging a pillow on my bedroom floor. Like those strings from the dream world finally broke.

I’m here. And awake.

“I wonder if that’s how Audrey felt,” I suddenly say. “Zoning out and then waking up somewhere, somewhere in a different dimension.”

“Maybe we really are dead in another dimension!” Avery pipes in.

“Deep.”

Another dimension, where Audrey was still alive in.

“If Audrey is alive in that dimension,” I add, “I hope she’s happy. And doesn’t obsess over me like I did over her,” I say, laughing.

“Friends are weird and well, if you need to talk… you can talk to someone,” Avery says. I can almost see her eyes soften. “Not me, though. I’m going.” 

Almost.

… 

Water is only murky for a while after someone dumps a bucket of dirt in it. The dirt eventually has to settle at the bottom. Then the water is clear again.

… 

Riley wasn’t herself the next day. “Wasn’t herself” meaning that she didn’t talk as much, or laugh as much. She looked especially empty, and no one else seemed to notice that.

“Riley?” I ask quietly. “What’s wrong?”

“What do you mean? Nothing’s wrong,” she replies.

“You’re not being yourself,” I say. “Something’s wrong.”

She hesitates for a second.

“I’m a little sad because I lost my favorite sweater,” she finally replies.

“What actually happened?” I keep probing. I know that I’m probably being really annoying right now, but I hate to see her like this. “You’re not the type of girl to be all sad about a sweater.”

“My brother,” she finally whispers, eyes tearing up. “He’s on life support. They’re taking it away next week because it’s hopeless.” Those words barely come out from her pale lips. The ones that would always tell stories and sing songs, but now are stained with dark tears.

I know better than to ask about it. 

“I know,” I whisper, pulling her in a hug. The campfire-during-a-cold-night kind. “You can pull through.”

… 

One by one, the people we love the most leave us. One by one, they silently whisper goodbye. Maybe it’s time for me to do that, too.

I glance at the dandelion seed dangling on my neck. It’s become a part of me. An embodiment of other feelings, feelings different from my obsessions. Those feelings… I have yet to discover and understand. 

But as for Audrey, I think it’s time for me to let go.

I unclasp the silver chain from my neck, holding it up to the sunlight. It sparkles, each little bristle spreading out like the petal of a flower. Or a crystal on a snowflake.

I close my eyes and breathe in the cool spring air.

“Bye, Audrey,” I whisper quietly. “I’ll see you soon.”

And all of a sudden, I go back into that trance-like state. The “dream strings” pulling me back again. A soft, gentle whisper and light footsteps:

“I’ll see you soon.”

…

EPILOGUE

Warm, vibrant colors fill the once gentle and green leaves on the maple trees. I wrap my fingers around Eli’s, walking around the path covered in fallen leaves. My feet make a crunching sound for every step I take, dried leaves on the ground scratching against the hard cement. 

Eli stops walking to stare up at the horizon. The brittle leaves shuffling back and forth, the white clouds slowly drifting by. One thing we have in common is that we both really love staring into space, to breathe in the atmosphere around us.

The bottle around my neck is once again empty, except for a few dried flowers. We planted the seed together in my backyard, showering it with a hose every now and then. Just a few days ago, it bloomed into yellow flowers, scattered on the stem. Today, it puffed into clusters of white seeds. Next spring, we’ll have an entire garden of dandelions right here.

“Make a wish,” Eli says, walking towards the center of the garden.

I think I know what I’m gonna wish for.

We blow the seeds together on the count of three and watch the puffs of white scatter around before flying off to start a life of its own. A chorus of little seeds, each chanting the same soft whisper by my ear.

“I’ll see you soon.”

See you.