September 25

We carried water from morning until evening until my arms could barely move anymore. If there's any consolation, it might've been the best day out of these shoddy few days because I finally got a breather from Mom and Dad.

I guess I was thinking about it all last night, but I realized that I never actually said sorry to May for what I did. And since she wasn't listening to me, I had to go through Mira to get my message across. And to get Mira to transfer my message, I had to talk to her about what I did.

And I nearly made up enough excuses not to do so.

It'd be too awkward to tell Mira, and May would eventually understand that I'm sorry. Mira would be extremely judgmental and give me one of her lectures about the importance of telling the truth in the beginning. But the biggest excuse would be just that Mira wouldn't understand what I did. I know that it was irrational, but it's better to always expect the worst so that your expectations can never disappoint you.

I thought I wasn't going to be able to do it, and I'd let my fear of embarrassment, of judgement, of change get into my way. But I guess I managed to push all of my reservations down, just for a couple of seconds, before they came spiraling back. By the time it happened, the words had left my mouth.

"Can you tell May that I'm sorry?" I asked.

"Are you talking about what happened on Saturday?" Mira replied.

She looked at me curiously and with a tinge of pride. Since the words had already escaped, there was no going back from my pathway.

"Yeah," I said. "Can you tell her that? She'll understand what I mean."

"Okay," Mira said, and she went over to May and told her my message, but May just angrily waved Mira off, and she returned back to me.

"She didn't take the message, right?" I said.

Mira shook her head, and I sighed. "I really, really messed up."

She nodded and looked at me, and I could tell that she was committed to listening. So this once, I let open the floodgates and spilled everything, so that hopefully, she'd be able to tell me how to move past this mistake of mine.

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"Mom and Dad weren't supposed to find out that the Hunters owned the axe because May and I had a plan to get rid of the engraved name on the bottom. I was the one that had to execute the plan, but I just couldn't and told her that I'd tell Mom and Dad the truth. But even then, I couldn't make myself tell Mom and Dad the truth, which was how we got into big trouble."

"Damn, that's a lot," Mira said with a sigh. "You know you guys could've asked me for help."

"I know," I said, kinda saying the truth and kinda not. "But May was worried that with your whole neighborhood watch approach, you wouldn't support us and rat us out to Mom and Dad."

"Of course I'd support you," Mira replied. "The Hunters told us that we could use their supplies, which is completely different from taking supplies from other people's homes."

She paused before adding, "You guys aren't doing this, right?"

"Obviously not," I lied. "But about the supporting part, I think you should tell May that since she's the one that needs it. You may want to leave out the last part."

"The one about not looting the homes?" she asked, genuinely confused. "What's wrong with that?"

"Extraneous information," I said semi-jokingly. "Removing that might make your message of support more meaningful."

Mira nodded before saying, "I think what May needs is space right now."

"Space?" I asked. "But wouldn't that make everything worse because she wouldn't know that I'm sorry about screwing everything up?"

"I think she knows already," Mira replied. "What she needs right now is time to process everything and work past the anger. Making things better comes later when she'll actually take your sorries to heart."

"It's just so weird," I replied. "We've never really fought like this."

"Trust me," she said. "I have way too much experience with fighting with Mom and Dad, so I'm kinda an expert at this."

"Totally," I replied sarcastically. "You want to tell May what we were talking about earlier? Maybe to help her process."

"I already heard it," May shouted. "You guys really need to speak quieter!"

"Oops," I whispered to Mira. "That was awkward."

"Don't worry," she whispered back. "See, it was good opening yourself up."

"I guess."

"We should do this every week."

"Now you're making it weird."

"I'll stop," she said, and we walked in silence for the rest of the day, outside of a couple of short conversations.

Today was about as good as it could get. I didn't have to see Mom and Dad until very late, when they plopped into bed and went to sleep immediately, so there was no need to make awkward conversation. No one was yelling at each other, and, minus my panicky heartbeat when I blurted out the truth to Mira, I didn't feel like I was going to die from stress.

If today's the calm after the storm, then tomorrow has to be the rainbow that bursts from the clouds in a prismatic dazzle of light. Maybe everything's going to get better between my family and me, and maybe I'll have a revelation on who I am. Maybe everything will turn out to be alright.