Page 65 - Magazine 2020-2021 Final.cdr

The Confession

Aanchal Bolar (FYBFM)

Emma was slouched on the sofa, a textbook propped open on her lap and arms around her slender waist. She was
swinging her head back and forth, trying to remember a definition from her book. She lifted her head and looked out
of the window. I could hear her soft sigh as she observed the glint of a pale winter light on the snow that was on our
roof. Mom used to always tell us how lucky we were to be living on the topmost floor of a thirty-storey building. I
never understood why she said that, but now when I looked at the buttery light falling on the glorious mountains far
away that we could see from our window and the beauty of Mother Nature, I know what she meant.

Stuffing my hands in my coat pocket, I walked in. Emma's room was so much like her - happy on the outside and
broken from inside. She looked at me and smiled, her eyes filled with fatigue and oblivion. I grinned back and crept
across the room to sit beside her.
“Hey,” I said, trying to break the ice.
A sad nod was her only response, so I continued, “I was thinking maybe we could go for walk? It's beautiful
outside”.
I could see the obvious shock all over her once-cheerful face as we had not had a proper conversation since Mom
passed away. Emma had locked herself inside her own body. Mom's death had shaken us both and all we wanted
everyday was her touch and her comforting voice. Emma looked at herself in the mirror and decided that she did
need a walk and someone to talk to besides Mm's clothes. She slipped into her coat and both of us stepped outside
under the sunset stained sky.

We walked for hours and Emma actually came out of
her shell and opened up about what was bothering her
most. She told me how she and Mom had had an
argument just an hour before Mom fell off the terrace.
She blamed herself for Mom's death. She said that if she
could just live that day again, she would change
everything she did and everything she said. She would
tell Mom how much she loved her. She said how every
night she would sleep wearing Mother's clothes
because they smelled like her. And then, Emma did the
most unexpected thing, she hugged me and began to cry, which was a big deal because she had been so shaken by
Mom's death that she had not even shed a tear at Mom's funeral. It had been as if she thought it was all a lie and that
Mom would just pop out from somewhere and yell, “Surprise!”

After about three hours, we reached our favourite place in the world, a hilltop which Emma and I often visited as
kids. This hill was behind our tower and had a mesmerizing view of the entire town from the highest point. We sat at
the edge of the cliff and looked at life moving around us. Both of us then looked at each other as we had a déjà vu and
my baby sister grinned with feral delight. I then gave her a sad smile and said, “Emma, listen.” She looked at me
with genuine lightness and joy in her eyes. I moved close to her, sighed and confessed, “Emma, I want you to know
something. Mom didn't fall off the terrace; I pushed her with my own hands.” As Emma looked at me with disbelief,
I pushed her off the cliff just like I had pushed my mother.

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