Celia: Introduction Story

     At last, Celia emerged from the house, having set Cece’s journal back in its rightful spot within the drawer. She spotted Alex sitting by the curb in front of the fence-gate, waiting there as he said he would.

     Noticing her approach, Alex looked over his shoulder, and quickly scrambled to get up in eagerness to hear what Celia had to say.

     “Well, do you… remember anything?” The hopeful expression spread across his face meant he was clearly expecting a positive response.

     Celia’s expression, however, betrayed no such intention-- her face was as stoic as it ever was, and yet something glimmered in her eyes anew. She remained silent as she considered what to say or where to begin, whether with herself or with Cece. 

     “I…” she began, eyes trained on Alex. “I’m not going to stay here. Not with you, not with the people that live here.” This time, she saved herself the trouble of continuing down the path of excusing her gaps in knowledge with amnesia. Cece’s life wasn’t hers to live, and now she had resolved herself to make sure of it.

     “Wh-- why? What happened?” Alex gestured for Celia to elaborate, nervousness now spread across his face, but he could only watch as Celia closed the house’s front door behind her and make her way out of the front yard.

     Now, Celia stood squarely in front of Alex. “This isn’t my home. It never was,” she stated flatly, unflinching even as the worry on Alex’s face intensified. 

     It wasn’t her place to freely distribute the inner thoughts of someone who held her dreams so closely to her own heart without telling anyone for fear of burdening them too. What she said would have to be enough for Alex. 

     And so she turned, ready to leave this place behind-- until a hand tightly gripped her arm, bringing to mind a memory from just early that day.

     “Please… please! Don’t go!” Desperation choked Alex’s voice, its unsteadiness a sharp contrast to Celia’s. “You gave me a second chance, so-- so please, let me make things right!”

     Something new writhed within Celia’s mind, but it was not quite the recognition of desire that she felt moments before when reading Cece’s journal. Not a wanting for herself, but a wanting for the sake of… someone else?

     “It’s too late!” Sharp words jumped from Celia’s mouth, filling the air before she even had the chance to think about them. “It’s too late for a second chance. What you had before is gone.”

     With Celia’s outburst, Alex’s grip fell limp, and he took a step back to watch the person whose face burned in a newfound anger for someone he once knew. His lips tightened as he appeared to search his mind for the truth-- who was it that stood before him, as visually identical as she was to Cece?

     Suddenly, his gaze fell low to the ground, “I wanted to convince myself that I could try again,” Alex murmured, his words feeble and threatening to break. “Even if that last entry in her journal told me otherwise. I wanted to hold on to that hope, even as the months went by…”

     The apparent lack of dust on Cece’s journal and the drawer it was contained in now made sense-- if her own mother and father were so uninvolved in her life to have not cleaned her room a single time since her disappearance, then who else would have read her journal before Celia arrived?

     The anger that flared within Celia cooled as Alex made it clear that somewhere, he knew that Celia and Cece were not one and the same.

     “You knew?” she asked, recalling how the journal’s contents described Cece’s halcyon childhood days with Alex.

     “From the beginning,” he replied wearily, taking a seat on the curb once more, “but I never wanted to believe it. Even if you remembered nothing of her life, and acted not a thing like her,  I couldn’t bring myself to. Whether you’re a lookalike, an angel, or a ghost, I still wanted to believe that a miracle brought Cece back. But…” he buried his face in his hands.

     “Still, I knew it couldn’t be true. I saw Cece taking that early morning train, and that was the last time I ever saw her. If I just had the strength to take hold of her arm, maybe she’d still be here, but if I couldn’t do that a single time in the last ten years, how could I have then?

     “When we were young, and as we got older, I only watched as she started to crack under the pressure. I convinced myself everything would be alright, because it always turned out fine. How was I supposed to know that I was the only one who could tell?”

     After a heavy silence, Alex at last lifted his head to look at Celia, but it was clear his eyes were focused on something beyond. A final memory of the two sharing time together, perhaps. 

     “I… I’m sorry for stringing you along like this. It might not have been the miracle I was hoping for, but it was definitely some type of miracle that I found you one day. You might be colder and blunter than Cece, but…”

     Celia hesitated to say anything more, seeing as now was her best opportunity to leave given that Alex had no longer intended on stopping her departure. 

     “I think… you’re just as kind as she was, too. I don’t know if anyone else would have gotten mad at me on a stranger’s behalf.”

     Her path on the way back to the train station was already set, but Celia could still hear the last of Alex’s words from his spot on the curb once her pace steaded.

     “Whoever you are… I hope you can be happy. And wherever Cecelia is, I hope she’s happy, too.”

     Celia didn’t look back as she left. She departed from Cece’s hometown on a brisk winter afternoon, with her sights set on what else may lay beyond the horizon.