Episode 16
Nothing lasts forever.
In the end, you changed. There is no reason, no sincerity. Take away such
a thing as love. Tonight, I'll be
crooked. Leave me alone, I was alone anyway. I have no one, everything is
meaningless. Take away the sugar-coated comfort. Tonight, I'll be crooked.
Isabelle
hung up her phone. She didn't want to go anywhere or do anything, but Jay kept
calling and texting.
"Let's go to the coffee shop! Want to have a jam
session with us? Come over and eat with us at least." Jay was desperate to
get Isabelle out of her room, but no matter what he came up with, she wasn't
interested.
Isabelle
sat at her desk, leaning on her hand, staring blankly at the pitcher of water
on her desk. It was nearly empty, and a drop of water hung onto the tip of the
pitcher, dangling dangerously, threatening to drop onto the wooden desk. "I wonder when I'll fall. When what
little I've managed to become just, falls and disappears." She thought to
herself. "Why should I even practice if nothing's going to come of it? All
my effort, will be, meaningless."
"Isabelle! Are you in there?!" A loud knocking
made her jump out of her chair. "It's me, Hendrick! Open up! Hurry!"
Isabelle jumped up to open the door to find Hendrick all dressed up in a black
tux and black bowtie. His hair smoothed down, and his glasses shining clean.
"Wow. You look...normal." Isabelle admired.
"Where's your usual quirky attire?" Hendrick smiled mischievously and
pulled up his pant legs to reveal his unmatched neon socks. Isabelle chuckled.
"So I know someone who got me these tickets." He
pulled out two tickets from his pocket. "And it looks like they're for a Yundi
Li concert where he plays...Chopin." He raised an eyebrow at her, waiting
for the response. Isabelle's eyes lit up.
"How did you get those? When is it?!"
Hendrick looked down at his suit and raised his arms as if
to present himself.
"Tonight?!" Isabelle found herself growing with
excitement.
"More specifically..." Hendrick checked his shiny
watch. "...in 20 minutes."
"20 minutes?!" Isabelle looked down at her tank
top and sweat pants, trying to fix her messy hair. "Why didn't you tell me
earlier? It looks like you had enough time to get ready!"
"Well..." Hendrick said sheepishly, "I was
afraid if I gave you more time, you might think about it too much and decide
not to go..."
"Well what would you do if I decided I wouldn't go
right now? Simply because I don't have enough time to get ready?" Isabelle tried acting angry.
"So...does that mean you're not going...or..."
Hendrick asked slowly. Isabelle tried looking angry, but gave up.
"No, of course I'm going. Give me a minute." With
that she closed the door in his face and frantically undressed and pulled out a
dress from her closet. Hendrick stood outside with stupid grin on his face,
dancing on his toes with excitement.
A couple minutes later Isabelle burst from her room and
grabbed Hendrick by the arm.
"Hurry! We're going to be late!"
"Wait!! Aren't you going to lock your door..."
But Isabelle was dragging him along, her long pink dress
flowing behind her. They jumped into the elevator, and as it finally opened in
the lobby, they dashed outside. They hailed a taxi and went full speed ahead to
the concert hall.
They arrived in front of the large concert hall ten minutes
later. Most of the crowd had gone it, except for a few people. They hurried up
the steps and into the building. Hendrick pulled her into the concert hall.
Thousands of people filled the room, facing a majestic stage. On the stage sat
a large orchestra and in the middle, a beautiful, black piano, the white keys
shining under the stage lights. Hendrick lead her further and further to the
front. There they found two empty seats in the fifth row.
"How did you get seats so close?" Isabelle asked
as they sat down.
"I have some connections." Hendrick smiled
brightly at her. Isabelle felt her heart jump a little at his smile, and
quickly turned away to face the stage.
The lights dimmed, and a spotlight formed as the director
stepped onto the stage and took his place at the podium. The audience applauded
loudly. The director gave a short introduction, before the spot light shifted
to the edge of the stage, and Yundi Li emerged. The audience thundered with
excitement and eagerness. He took his place at the piano and nodded to the
director. Then with one movement of his baton, the orchestra burst into life.
Isabelle became lost in everything. Somehow all the problems
and worries she had where nowhere to be found. She listened to the magic of the
orchestra and the piano and found inspiration. She found motivation, and more
importantly, strength. The roaring applause of the audience woke her up from
her trance, and she watched as Yundi Li stood on the stage, taking a bow. "I want to be someone who inspires the
audience like that." Isabelle thought.
"That's where I want to be." Isabelle said.
Hendrick gently took her hand in his, and leaning in close so she could hear
him,
"Me too."
Isabelle gently
squeezed his hand, finding comfort in him that she never expected. They stood
up and began following the crowd out of the concert hall. As they stepped
outside into the lobby area, they began seeing stares and fingers pointing at
them.
"Isn't that Isabelle Young? That daughter of Yang Chun
Hwa?"
"Who's that guy she's with? I thought she was dating
some rock, or pop star whatever?"
Isabelle felt her stomach plummet to the ground. Hendrick
grabbed a hold of her hand and began pulling her toward the exit.
"Wait! Isabelle! Wait! Say something for the
camera!" A reporter had seen them and camera flashes began erupting.
Hendrick quickly hailed a taxi that was already stopped there.
"Come on, get it." Hendrick helped Isabelle into
the cab, and jumped in after her. The reporters ran up to the cab as it began
pulling away. "That was a close one." Hendrick sighed and leaned back
into the seat. Isabelle felt the magic of the performance ebb away as the
problems of her real world came flooding back.
The cab pulled up in front of their music building. Holding
onto Hendrick's arm, they walked into the lobby and took the elevator up. They
stepped out into the 8th floor common room and were greeted by the voice of a
loud reporter, and Jay pacing back and forth. Isabelle nervously stepped out of
the elevator and dropped her hold on Hendrick's arm. Jay whipped around to look
at Isabelle. He hurried over to her and put his hand on her shoulders.
"Where have you been? Why did you go out without
telling me? What's he doing here?" Jay looked coldy over at Hendrick.
"We just went to a concert." Hendrick said just as
coldy, returning Jay's glare.
"I thought you said you didn't want to do
anything?" Jay asked Isabelle. Isabelle couldn't look at him, she just
shrugged his hands off her shoulders and turned to hurry back to her room.
"What did you do?!" Jay turned angrily to
Hendrick. Hendrick straightened up, the same height as jay he looked him right
in the eye.
"Why? Is she your girlfriend?"
"Yeah! She is!"
"Oh really? Did she say that herself? Or are you just
assuming that?" Jay broke off his glare first, looking after Isabelle. "That's
what I thought." Hendrick turned and began walking away, but Jay stopped
him, slamming his hand into Hendrick's shoulder. They locked eyes again,
glaring coldly and angrily at each other. Then all of a sudden they heard a
crying scream. Jay and Hendrick jumped into action and bolted down the hallway.
Isabelle's door was open, and she was sitting on the ground,
her pink dress in a puddle around her. Tears streaming down her face as she
stared at her room. Hendrick and Jay came to a skidding halt behind and stared
in disbelief at her room. All her papers and music books were torn and strewn
all over the room. Everything on her desk was in a broken pile on the ground.
The sheets on her bed, the clothes in her closet, all of her belongings were in
a state of ruin.
"Who did this?!" Jay shouted, and turned to
Hendrick.
"Why would I know?!! Isabelle, are you ok?"
Looking at her destroyed room, Isabelle felt just as broken
as her things. Her friends were angry enough at her to ruin her belongings. She
could hear Hendrick and Jay trying to talk to her, trying to lift her off the
ground, but she didn't want to stand up.
"Come on Isabelle," Jay put her arm over his
shoulders and started lifting, "We'll make them pay for this. They can't
get away with doing something like this." Isabelle wanted to shout at him,
wanted to tell him that's not what she wanted.
"Isabelle, can you hear me?" Hendrick held onto
her hand. "I'll talk to them with you ok? I'll make them listen to what
you have to say. This is all an accident."
She wanted to hold onto him, to tell him to help her, but Jay pulled her
into the room, and closed the door, leaving Hendrick standing there helplessly.
"Here, sit down." Jay set Isabelle down on her bed.
"Here have some water. It's like the only thing they didn't knock
over." Jay reached for the water pitcher on the desk and picked up the
toppled over mug. He poured her some water and handed it to her. Isabelle took
the water and swallowed a large mouthful, trying to stop her sobbing and
hiccupping.
"It was probably Karin." Jay sat down next to her.
"She seemed the most angry. You want me to go get her? She's right down
the hall right?" Isabelle shook her
head and finished off the mug of water.
"No. I don't want to...do accuse her."
"Why?! It has to be her! Who else would think to do
this?!" Jay exclaimed. But Isabelle's eyes were glued on the water
pitcher.
"What?" Jay looked over at the pitcher.
"What's wrong?"
"That pitcher..." Isabelle felt her fingers
loosening from around the mug. "It's full."
"Yeah...? I guess she was nice enough not to spill
water all over your room." Jay picked up the pitcher and looked at it more
closely, sniffing it.
"It...was empty...when I ...left." Isabelle dropped
the mug to the ground, unable to move her hands.
"Isabelle?" Jay started panicking. Isabelle saw her room spinning around her, her
throat burning as if on fire. Her stomach seemed to scream in place of her
throat. Then everything went dark.
Jay watched in shock as Isabelle slid from the bed to the
ground and began shaking. He dropped to her side and tried holding her still,
screaming for her to talk to him. Her eyes were open, but she wasn't seeing
anything.
"Help!! Someone help!" Jay screamed for someone,
and held Isabelle in his arms as she started to stop shaking. Tears rolled down
Jay's face as Isabelle looked up at him with a lifeless stare. Hendrick burst
into the room and as soon as he saw her, burst into action. He whipped out his
phone and called an ambulance.
Jay ran down the hallway, Isabelle dangling unconscious from
his arms. Hendrick called the elevator and ran out of the building with Jay.
The ambulance pulled up as they came out and the medics pulled out a stretcher.
Placing Isabelle on the stretcher, Jay leapt into the back of the ambulance
after her, Hendrick right behind him. The ambulance speed through the city, and
pulled up in front of the hospital.
In a frantic rush, Isabelle was pushed into the building and
into a room. Jay and Hendrick watched, their noses pushed up against the glass
as nurses and doctors crowded in.
"We need to pump her stomach! Hurry!" They pushed a tube down her throat and began
to drain her stomach.
For what seemed like days, the room finally began to clear
out and Jay and Hendrick rushed in.
"What happened? Is she ok?" Jay shouted at the
nurses. The nurses looked solemnly at
each other.
"Someone tell me what's going on!!" Jay shook a
nurse by her shoulders.
"She's had arsenic poisoning. She drank a lot of it,
someone had to have put it in the water, it's not natural. We did what we
could, but it was a lot of poisoning. She had a seizure, and is in a coma right
now, and we don't know if...if she's going to be ok." A nurse spoke quietly and nervously. Jay let
his arms drop down to his side, his face completely blank, his whole body in
shock. Hendrick was kneeling at the side of the bed, holding onto Isabelle's
hand, head hanging down toward the ground. Isabelle just lay there. Eyes
closed. Oblivious to the pain, heartache, and love that surrounded her in the
room.
_____
"Where am I?" Isabelle looked around her, but all
she could see was a white fog.
"Fenghuang? Is that you?" A woman's voice came
from somewhere in the fog. Isabelle looked around frantically. Then out of the
fog a woman dressed in light blue gown stepped out, a look of worry on her
face.
"Mom? Mom!!" Isabelle started running toward her,
but no matter how hard she tried, the ground seemed to be made of sand that
held her in place, dragging her downward. The woman reached an arm out to her.
"Stay still." She said, "You're in a coma.
You can't move." The woman seemed to drift closer until she was in front
of Isabelle.
"Mom, what are you talking about? I'm...oh..." the
memory came flooding back, drinking the water, the pain, everything becoming
dark.
"She was just jealous. Don't hate her too much."
Isabelle's mom reached for Isabelle's hand, but her own hand passed through
like it was nothing more than a cloud of smoke.
"Who? Who did this? Where are we? Am I here forever?
Mom, tell me!" Isabelle tried to touch her, but her arms went through the
smoky image of her mother.
"We're in the in-between land, between earth and the
heavens. I felt you come here, and came down to meet you. But don't worry, you
won't be here for long."
"What do you mean? But I want to stay here with you!
" Isabelle felt herself crying, but there weren't any tears on her face.
"There's people waiting for you to go back. Don't do what I did and leave them behind."
Her mom's face became sad suddenly. "I'm sorry I didn't go back. Unlike
you, I didn't have very long to stay here, I didn't have any time to make a decision,
and...it was too late." A small silvery tear rolled down her cheek. "You
can stay here for as long as you like though. As long as your physical body is
ok, you consciousness can stay here until you're ready." She tried to
smile again.
"Ready for what?" Isabelle asked quietly.
"Ready to go back. Or, move on." Isabelle became excited again.
"You mean, I can choose to stay with you?!"
"Sure. If that's what you want." The smoky figure
of her mom seemed to ripple like a puddle of water. "I have to go soon. I
can't visit here for long."
"How do I choose? Who do I tell?" Isabelle began
to panic as the image of her mom began to ripple even more, distorting the
image.
"Let the sand, or the clouds take you." And with
that, the image was gone.
Isabelle could feel the sand around her ankles, keeping her
grounded to earth. She lifted her hands, trying to feel the foggy clouds, but
they couldn't be grasped.
"Where do I go from here?" She knelt down and
hugged her knees. "I want to be with my mom again, but I also want to be
with..."
"Isabelle!" A voice rang in the distance.
"Hendrick!" Isabelle jumped up and searched for
the dorky boy with glasses. "Hendrick where are you? What are you doing
here?" But there was no sight of Hendrick.
"Isabelle! Can you hear me?" The voice came again,
seeming to come from beneath her.
"Yes! Hendrick! I can hear you! Where are you?!"
Isabelle tried getting as close to the ground as possible to hear him.
"I don't know if you can hear me but..."
Hendrick's voice echoed in the fog. "If you're in there...can you like,
squeeze me hand or something? Please? Let me know you can hear me."
"I...I can hear you Hendrick!" Isabelle shouted.
"But how do I...how do I squeeze...I can't!" Isabelle moved her hand
in a squeezing motion, but she couldn't feel his hand.
"If you can hear me..." Hendrick continued,
"Just know that I'm always here. It's been a month now...but I'll still
come every day. I promise." The sound of his voice rang through the
emptiness Isabelle stood in.
"A month? I've been here a month?" Isabelle began
to realize that every minute she spent in the in-between, was an entire day
back on earth. "I want to go back." She thought. But then she looked
upward, "But...my mom. Maybe my dad? I won't have to be sad over my
friends anymore. I won't have to deal with the stupid paparazzi..." She
started to feel lighter, as if the fog was lifting her up. She felt lost in her
imagination, of what it would be like to be free of all her worries. But then
the voice came again.
"Isabelle! No!! Isabelle please don't go! Don't leave
me. Please." Isabelle jumped at the sound of Hendrick's shouting voice.
She looked down and realized she was high above the ground now. She had let the
clouds lift her up without realizing it.
"Wait! No...I...I can't!" Isabelle struggled
against the clouds keeping her afloat. "Hendrick! I...I have to go back.
Please." She finally felt her feet submerge into the sand again. She knew
that even though there would be trouble and heartache, she still had a lot to
do.
She closed her eyes and thought of Hendrick. Thought of her
dreams, and what the music had said to her. Slowly, she felt the sand pulling
her down, creeping up her leg, past her knees, up to her hips, and engulfed
her.
______
"Oh my god. Isabelle!" Evie grabbed the door
handle about to open the car door.
"No!" A hand reached over and grabbed her arm
stopping her.
"But she's...is she ok?" Evie watched as the
ambulance put Isabelle on a stretched and pushed her into the back, Jay and
Hendrick jumping in after her.
"Why do you care? This is what we wanted!"
"But I...I..." Evie flashed back to a moment a
week ago. She saw herself standing next to Raj, at his makeshift laboratory in
his room, pouring chemicals into tubes and stirring beakers on a hot plate.
"So what's that you're mixing into the
water?" Evie peered over his
shoulder.
"This is arsenic. It's colorless, odorless, and can be
very fatal if taken too much. But, I'm working on a theory, that maybe in small
amounts, it could potentially kill cancer cells in patients, while causing
minimal, reversible damage on healthy cells." Raj swished the tube a
little and set it aside.
"What would happen if someone were to...drink it?"
Evie eyed the large stock of arsenic he kept in his storage box.
"Well, if taken in an extremely large dose...it would
probably kill someone. Or make them
really sick. Depends how much you give
them really."
Evie returned to the present as the ambulance lights flashed
as it drove by her.
"What have I done?" Evie looked down at her hands.
"Don't worry. You only messed up her room a bit. I'm
the one who actually mixed it in. Besides, she deserves it. After taking away
what we both wanted. They all need to be taught a lesson. Now get out of my car
before anyone sees us together."
"But..Cera...I have to tell someone..."
"No! Evie, listen to me, don't tell anyone. Or else
it's over for your music career, and over for my acting career. Got it?! And I
won't hesitate to do the same to you if you decide to betray me. I'm much more
famous and powerful than you, I can make anything happen. Understand?"
Evie nodded, terrified.
"Good. Get out."
Evie frantically opened the door and rushed out, hurrying
toward the building and dashing inside.
"No one messes with Cera Chan." Cera flipped her
hair over her shoulder, turned on the car, and drove away.
Tonight, I'll be crooked.
~Evie
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