mon chéri [ sidonie ] blitz

For once, Sidonie didn't want to go to work. To her 11-year-old self, this would've been unheard of, a squandering of the chance to prove that she was just as capable as her siblings in the place where she felt most valued, but Jules being dead would've been unheard of, too. They'd tried to dress it up when they sent Jules home, a maroon and gold cloth draped across the casket as if it weren't simply made of wood, as if it weren't carrying someone who had lost a leg and an arm and screamed for mercy before losing her life.

She had awoken on the morning of the funeral with a stomachache, which hadn't been out of the ordinary in the days prior, but this time it spread to her back, and she occasionally paused while getting dressed to rub at the burn. "Want me to help you get ready, Noah?" she'd asked her sister, who had nodded and opened her palm to reveal gold earrings. Her favorites. Sid hummed affirmatively, leaning forward and gently securing them against Noah's earlobes. The movement made her stomach ache more, somehow, but she smiled despite it. This was what family was all about, wasn't it? You hurt just to see someone else happy. Sidonie knew Noah was in just as much pain as she and the rest of the family were, but something twitched deep within her, the desire to tell someone about her tummyache and have them comfort her. Saoirse wouldn't. Neither Noah nor Jules could.

The procession both dragged on and ended too quickly for Sid's liking. The heat made her black dress cling to her skin, and she tugged at her collar as she returned to the house, Jules' resting place far behind them. Her abdomen was screaming now, and she wrapped her arms tightly around herself, hissing quietly. Something trickled on the back of her thigh, and she instinctively swiped at it, expecting to find the same sweat that decorated her arms and forehead, but instead finding her fingers coated in red. She yelped and ducked into the bathroom, and there was blood everywhere and she was dying and panicking turned to sobbing. After a while, her mother had come and cleaned her up and told her that she wasn't dying, that this was normal, but nothing felt normal to Sidonie anymore.

So when the shop reopened, for once her heart resisted, even as her body went through the motions of putting on her best, to be good for business. She went through the motions, smiling at the few people who trickled in and left with their tails between their legs, nowhere near as aggressive as some of them had been in the past. When someone asked her a question, she answered. If someone called, she'd arrive. So when her mother's voice carried her name, Sidonie carefully lowered herself from a stepladder and crossed the floor. The sight of Noah curled up beneath the desk should not have surprised her, but it still filled Sidonie's body with a quiet exhaustion. She loved Noah, she did, but she wanted to be the younger sister for once.

Still, she nodded in her mother's direction and knelt to meet her sister's eyes. "Hi Noah," Sid said, making certain to smile. "Whatcha doing under there? Doesn't look too comfortable."