He walked through the crowds of people, each face blurring into the next, until everything became colors on a canvas. He didn’t know where he was going; just knew that he had to find her. He was invisible to the crowd, his head down, his black cap covering his face, his music drowning out the sounds of passersby.

        The gray sky loomed over, the sun blocked by dark clouds. It started raining when he had left; it was as if the sky knew what he felt and wanted to cry along with him. For the past hour, all he thought about was the vase shattering on the floor, tiny pieces of glasses scattered, shining like little diamonds. His hand was stinging as rain hit the spot where the glass had nicked him. He hadn’t bothered to look at it or bothered to care. Her face kept replaying in his head, the shock on her face as she realized what she had done. It had gone too far. He didn’t know how he got there, how they got there. 

***

        “Where are you going,” Lillian had asked, leaning against the doorframe of the living room, when she saw him stuffing his things in his bag.

        “To find Lyria.”   

        “Do you have to go today? Can’t it wait until tomorrow?”

        He paused what he was doing and walked over to her. “Lills, she’s my sister. I can’t put her on hold.”

        “But you would put me on hold.”

        “Come on, don’t be like that. Lyria is my sister, the only part of my broken family that I have left. No matter what, she comes first. I can’t let anything happen to her, you know this.”

        “Can’t you wait just one day?”

        He sighed. “Lills, she can’t wait. I can’t wait. Any moment I don’t spend not looking for her is a moment that I could lose her.”

        “We’ve been dating for two years and you give me the same crap every time. I understand that your sister is important, I get that. But this relationship isn’t just me. You get so caught up in trying to find her every time you get that damn phone call, you don’t bother to think about the other people around you! We became distant as the months pass, and every time you came back from looking for her, it gets so bad to the point you won’t even talk to me. You’re so afraid of losing her that you don’t even care if you lose me.”

        “That’s not true. You know I care about you.”

        “That’s not what I meant! You don’t talk to me or tell me what’s going on. Shouldn’t I be the one to help you? I try to talk to you but you don’t say anything. It seems like you don’t even care anymore.”

        He ran his hand through his hair, frustrated. “I can’t have this conversation right now.” He put his hands on her shoulder. “I have to go. We’ll talk when we get back.”

        She pushed him away. “Really? After all of this and that’s what you have to say? You know why I wanted you to stay home today? It’s our anniversary. I was so happy you came home early so we could celebrate. But it turns out you didn’t remember and you were home early because you wanted to go find your sister. She’s an adult and she can take care of herself. You don’t have to worry about her every waking moment. But that’s fine. You are obviously going to go anyway- nothing I say is going to stop you.”

        Shit. Shit. Their anniversary. He had forgotten, even though Lillian had been going on about it for the past week, planning out what they were going to do. But his sister…

        “Lills, I’m sorry, but I have to go.” He turned to grab his bag to go when he heard the sound of glass shattering, a shard nicking his hand. “Why can’t you understand! Why can’t you understand that every time you walk out that door looking for her- you break a part of me! I care way too much about you and you don’t, you don’t-” she sobbed, collapsing on the floor.

He looked down at the broken glass. “That vase was the last thing my mother gave me,” he said quietly. His eyes travelled to her tear- streaked face and saw that her eyes were wide with shock. “I made a promise to Mom the night she died. I had promised to take care of Lyria, to keep that light that she had inside her burning. That no matter what happens, I would be right by her side. Losing Mom that night, watching her take her final breath as I held her in my arms and I couldn’t do anything about it- it was the hardest thing I had to do. If anything happened to Lyria, I don’t think I could live with myself. She’s the only part of the broken family that I have left. I love you Lills, but my sister, I can’t let anything happen to her.”

He walked out the door.

***

“To whatever end,” he had told his sister years ago. “I will find you and help you crawl out of whatever hellhole you got yourself into.” And he had kept his promise. Time and time again, he had paused his life, dropped everything he was doing as soon as he got that phone call about her whereabouts. His sister, someone who used to be so full of life and joy became someone who had shut out the world completely after their mother died. Now it had become a routine for him to wait for that phone call and then go find her latest beat-up boyfriend, pry her out of the filth that she lived in and send her to rehab facilities. Countless of times he tried to get her back on her feet, but it never seemed to work. In the midst of trying to save his sister, he lost himself, consumed by everything that was her.

        He couldn’t forget their last encounter, what she had said to him.

        “Life is a word that sometimes you cannot say, and ash is a thing that someday we all should be. When tomorrow comes, how different is it going to be?”

***

        He looked around. People were going places, even in the rain, their umbrellas covering their faces. Another face in the crowd. The rain falling sounded like chaos, like glass as it hit the top his umbrella, but still, in some way, melodic. The sounds of people talking no louder than just a hum. Not paying attention to where he was going, he had bumped into someone. He quickly apologized to the girl that he had just walked into, but he stopped breathing when he took in her face. She had blond hair, her eyes bright, and her smile. The smile that he hadn’t seen since that day Mom died.

        “Lyria,” he breathed, not quite believing that the girl standing in front of him was the same girl he had found wasted and high in her boyfriend’s basement two months ago.

        “To whatever end.” She cocked her head to the side, her hair tumbling out of the bun that she had, and grinned. “Nice to see you again, Ryan.”