{carry on} | riley standalone

I was never the strong one.

That was always you, always your job. It always fell to you to pick us up and dust us off when any of us stumbled over one of the obstacles that the world decided to throw at us on a constant basis. That was your job, as much as it was mine to simply act as the too-weak glue holding the broken fragments of what used to be a family together. I was never good at picking up the pieces, and it's an impossible feat when we're all shattered, empty things and there's a gaping hole where you used to be. I was never the strong one, but I promised you I'd try, and we keep our promises to each other, you and I. Forever and always. There's a part of me that screams unfairness at the world for a new weight on my shoulders and the duty to be something I'm not (but there are far more unfair things than that in this life, and I've gotten so used to pretending to be someone else that I really don't remember who I was to begin with), but if there's one thing I've learned in months of tears and fruitless bargains with fate it's that no amount of anger or pleading or burying reality under silence and scars can set things right in a world where you're gone.

Life goes on even while the rest of us are stuck on an endless loop of the worst kind of grief, like being forced to walk on a treadmill while the rest of your life passes you by. The seasons change, the sun rises in the mornings, the twins grow faster than anyone expected them to (Siobhan has your cheekbones and attitude but no one wants to mention it out loud. If we don't talk about the pain then it isn't real, because we're Lightwoods and that's how we work). The leaves on the tree in the yard burst into verdant buds and grow again. Your roses bloom in a brilliant flash of color, and Alphonse and I take care of them in a silent sort of agreement that although we'll never get along, this is something we both have to do for you. The grass turns green, the air smells sweet, there's another X on the calendar every day and it doesn't make sense because the world keeps on turning even though my world shuddered to a halt on its axis months ago.

How does it feel, Riley Lightwood? Luke Marling shouted at me only seconds after yanking me out of the mangled remnants of Fenn's basement, saving my life and destroying it all at once. How does it feel to know that someone took your sister from you and there was nothing you could do about it? How does it feel?! I couldn't answer him. I still can't. There's a sort of exquisite, shattered beauty in pain that deep in the way that it's something that defies description. Luke and I had that in common, that searching for another person who couldn't explain what we felt but could at least share it, even though it took us a screaming match, a handful of empty cigarette cartons, half a bottle of tequila and eventual shared sobbing to realize that our similarities outweighed the animosity we started with. He's back in Five now, left when the rebuilding was done. Just another way that life goes on even when it feels like it shouldn't.

Our house isn't a home anymore. Everything is foreign and new and wrong after we stacked our lives back together from the ground up (because we're Lightwoods and that's how we work). It feels stilted and out of place, new floor plans and the smell of fresh paint and the undeniable absence of something we won't speak of hanging thick in the air. The nursery is bigger, an extra crib tucked into the corner for when Lucy finally gets here - it's the only thing that makes me think that maybe things will be better one day, knowing that new life can come even after so much loss. The living room is emptier; dust sits thick on the television since no one wants to turn it on for fear of encountering scenes from a cruel game we all wish we could forget. The library is quieter, a hallowed sort of shrine that only I ever seem to enter anymore, sitting in the paper-scented silence and trying to find the sound of your voice or the memory of a rare smile pressed somewhere between the pages. Your room is no longer yours. That was what set off the only occasion on which I've ever yelled at our mother, when I got home from the hospital after being rescued from the basement and found that the whole house had been remodeled and the place where you had laid your head at night was our new music room.

It's not as bad as I made it out to be at first though, sometimes Keela and I sit in there together (it still smells like you, sweat and roses and strength I'll never have) and let the notes speak where words have always failed us. It's not much in the scheme of things, but sometimes it almost feels like we're comforting each other in the only way we know how to.

The sun feels wrong the way it always does, the breeze too hopeful and the world too bright against what feels like a whole universe of monochrome beneath my skin. Everything is too present and real for it to be altogether comfortable. Things are easier to deal with when you're so far away that nothing can touch you. That's the most valuable thing I learned from Luke Marling's particular brand of wisdom. But there's so much more to lose by locking myself away from the world (watching the twins take their first steps, seeing how Fenn's starting to actually glow, hearing Bridge laugh, all the little bright spots that seem to hide so carefully in the dark). Things are still wrong and unbalanced and it all hurts in a raw, deep way that's impossible to heal. Chyba still cries when he sees roses or falls and realizes there's no one there to catch him. There's still a deep, silent kind of sadness in Keela's eyes that nothing can take away. Edana still seems to hate me, Aris is farther off balance than ever, and Mom still hides in a world of her own creation where nothing can really hurt her.

I still come to my senses staring at a stained blade in my hand and feeling the exquisite ruination of the only thing that feels real anymore running in crimson rivers over my skin. I was never the strong one. I warned you.

Sometimes Antoinette and I sit on the couch and try to fill the empty space between us, the third piece that was always the only real connection we ever had, but it never works. There's an odd thing about loss in how it can pull people together and push them apart at the same time. Just yesterday, she hugged me for the first time in probably ten years, only to burst out crying and storm off a few seconds later when we remembered that the last time we'd been that close you had been there too. It feels like we're the only ones still fighting for your memory sometimes, hackles raising whenever someone calls us the Lightwood twins - Goddammit, we're still triplets. We'll always be triplets. Always. It feels odd, but there's a sort of nubile hope that at least I'm fighting with her instead of fighting against her, and I start to think on occasion that maybe one day we'll bridge the gap between us that you always filled, and we'll be better, even though we value distance above all else because we're Lightwoods and that's how we work.

Maybe it's just springtime in the air that makes it a little easier for my lungs to function, the sun baking into my skin and the smell of the roses in my hand heady and strong as my feet move softly over the grass of the cemetery. The back of my mind cringes knowing that I'm stepping on the final resting place of so many other fallen tributes, so many other stories that were ended too soon, but it's a means to an end as I come to the end of the row, knees sinking into the soft ground as I prop the bundle of flowers over the unyielding stone. "Happy birthday, sis."

There was no celebration at home for Antoinette and I. We didn't want one, didn't want to mark a passage that you always shared with us, didn't want to see two little birthday cakes instead of three. There are some things that we simply can't deal with (taking your toothbrush out of the bathroom, putting your books back on the shelf, remembering that we don't need to leave the light on because this isn't just another night where you'll be home late), and you can't really blame us for that. We were never strong like you. "Keela and I are writing you a song. I'm doing lyrics and she's doing music. It's not done yet, but it's going to be good. Really good. We've been writing it in your journal, it seemed like the thing to do. Hope that's okay."

People say that this isn't healthy, isn't good for my closure, that talking to a rock with your name on it doesn't mean you can hear me. But the slight increase in the breeze and the warmer glow of the sun on my back tells me different.

"It's still hard. We still miss you and things are still broken and I'm not doing very well at keeping my promise. I'm not strong like you were. But we're getting better. I'm getting better. And that's sort of what the song's about. Us getting better. Because that's what you'd want." With liquid fire lapping at the backs of my eyes, I flip to the back of the leather book in my hand, carefully tearing out a piece of paper covered in my own messy handwriting and tucking it under the weight of the roses so the wind doesn't blow it away. My fingers trace the indentations along the stone, cool but steady and reassuring, standing up against whatever the world has to throw at it. I knew someone like that once. The thought makes me smile as I get back to my feet, eyes scraping along the words of the page before I turn around and head for home. "I love you, Avon. We all do. Always."

We are not, we are not shining stars
This I know, 'cause I never said we are
Though I've never been through hell like that
I've closed enough windows to know you can never look back

If you're lost and alone
Or you're sinking like a stone, carry on
May your past be the sound
Of your feet upon the ground, carry on
Carry on, carry on

Life goes on, and so will we.

Because we're Lightwoods, and that's how we work.