Radioactive

There were 5 things in life that Holtzmann was sure of.

1. No matter how lost she felt, she had a family now. And that family would always be there for her.
2. Feeling lost was becoming her permanent state of mind.
3. Giving up always seemed like the easy way out, but it wasn't. No matter how hard it got, it was always better to try.
4. The world was not an easy thing to understand.
5. Maybe she didn't have to understand.

Now there were 3 things that she was unsure of.

1. How to continue her life when it seemed there was no forward motion left.
2. How to create things when all her energy was focused on something- someone- else.
3. Erin.

She'd been steadily avoiding Erin for days. She'd taken to spending the day watching the food network and sucking her penknife, and the nights working on her inventions. Not that they were getting very far.

Holtzmann couldn't stop thinking about the rooftop conversation. How it felt when somebody had finally said her name. It felt like- it felt like she was finally home. Her whole life she'd been running, direction undetermined.

When she was six, her parents hired her a tutor from the local college. A girl with pink hair, shaved on one side. Jillian Holtzmann had been obsessed. The pink haired girl had made a passing comment about her name. She didn't like it.

Ever the problem solver, Holtzmann had said "Call me Holtzmann" and the girl had grinned. She liked that.

If the girl hated her name, then so did she. It had to go. From that point on she forced everyone to call her Holtzmann, and it just kind of stuck. The pink haired girl left after two months.

Holtzmann stayed. Over the years, she'd created a perfect personality for Holtzmann, brilliant in every way.

Except she wasn't sure that Jillian was the same person. And it didn't matter, except that when Erin had said it, she thought that maybe Erin didn't just see Holtzmann. Maybe she saw Jillian too.

-----

The black rose had died. It had been replaced with another, and another, and another. Each time Erin was sure that this would be the rose that did it.

It continued for exactly two weeks.

Abby and Patty had taken to having whispered shouting matches under the stairs. Erin knew they were about her. The tension built, and it built.

"For Christ's sake Erin! We aren't stupid!"

Erin jumped at Abby's shout. Abby never got involved with her life. She was content to be a sideline best friend, only really stepping in when asked.

Abby stared at her. Erin knitted her brows together. Then the tears came.

Erin cried for a solid five minutes. Abby just watched her and waited. When Erin's tears subsided into sniffles, Abby took a deep breath.

"Erin. Remember your first kiss, and how you threw up all over him?" Erin nodded. "I thought you were just nervous, but I was wrong. And yet you kept doing it, kept kissing him until it didn't make your stomach turn. Then you slept with him, and you told me it was the worst night of your life."

Erin shoved a knuckle in her mouth and started chewing on it, startling Abby. A nervous reaction from the old days. Abby surmised that she shouldn't have been surprised. This whole thing was probably putting her back in that headspace.

"And you kept having them. Worst nights. It was like everyone you ever dated was sickening to you. I'm sorry, Erin, that it took me this long to realise. You always wanted to be this perfect person, the person who'd been planned out for you your entire life. Be who everyone else wanted you to be.
Like you were afraid of being yourself. You didn't wear those clothes because they made you happy. You wore them to help you perpetuate a lie."

Erin's mouth was frozen on her knuckle. She looked as if she was biting it hard enough to shatter the bone. Abby approached and gently took Erin's hand from her mouth.

"And you didn't throw up because you were nervous."