Chapter Text
Shock.
Laurel couldn’t get Moira’s words out of her head.
Sara went on the boat.
Sara was with Oliver.
Sara was dead.
Laurel was frozen on the couch. She couldn’t move, she couldn’t think, she couldn’t feel anything. She could only hear these words over and over in her head.
Her boyfriend and her sister.
Together.
Dead.
She was alone in the living room. Her dad had left the house not long after they got the news. He said he needed to breathe - how did one breathe? - or to drink. Her mom had a breakdown and went to hide in her bedroom. Laurel could hear her crying from here. She should check on her.
Laurel stood up and wiped the frozen tears on her cheeks. She caught sight of her reflection in the mirror. A stranger was staring at her. Her eyes were hollow. Her skin was looked drained. The blanket that belonged to Sara was still wrapped around her shoulder.
A sob escaped her lips and she put her hands on her mouth, trying to smother the sound. The girl in the mirror was shaking uncontrollably, tears falling on her cheeks, on her hands, on her clothes, on the blanket…
Laurel didn’t want to think about Sara or Oliver. Sara and Oliver. She didn’t want to think about what it meant. Sara and Oliver…
This couldn’t be happening.
Laurel fell on the ground. Her sobs were getting louder but she didn’t care. She wrapped herself in the blanket, inhaling Sara’s perfume.
This wasn’t happening.
Laurel felt like she was drowning.
Like Sara.
She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t breathe!
Laurel sat there for what felt like days. It’s only when her dad got home later that day, drunk, that she found the strength to move. She wiped her tears from her face and helped him to his bedroom. She cleaned up his mess. Her parents will need her. She had to be strong for them.
She caught sight of her reflection again in the mirror. The tears were gone but her face was blank. She didn’t feel anything. Something died within her that day.
Laurel thought she would never smile again.
Denial.
The first year, Laurel refused to believe that Sara and Oliver were dead.
Their bodies were never found. They could be out there, waiting. But no one was doing anything.
On a bleak Saturday morning, they buried Sara. An empty coffin.
Laurel didn’t want to come but her dad told her she needed to be there. She watched them lower the coffin in the ground. She still couldn’t feel anything. Her mother was sobbing on her shoulder. I am here , she told her, holding her close. I am here.
After the funeral, she got into a fight with her dad. He told her he couldn’t bear listening to her talking about Sara as if she was still alive. They had just buried her, could she have a bit of respect! He was stinking of alcohol.
No one believed her.
No, they just started to stare at her as if she was crazy. As if she was holding on to a helpless dream. Even her parents started to look at her that way. They stopped talking. She lost the few friends she had.
She didn’t need their pity.
Laurel spent days and nights researching the Chinese coasts, boats going through these parts at the time of the shipwreck, and contacting hospitals, embassies and consulates. She didn’t give up.
She couldn’t.
No one else believed they were alive so she had to.
They had all lost hope. She wouldn’t.
Pain.
The second year, Laurel stopped hoping.
Sara and Oliver were dead.
She was never going to see them again.
When that realization hit her, she didn’t leave her bed for four days straight. She felt like her heart had been ripped out of her chest. She was bleeding and bleeding and bleeding and nothing could ever stop it. A part of herself died on that boat with her sister and her boyfriend.
The only difference was that they were dead, she was still living. She had to live with that pain. Surviving sucked.
Not long after, her parents divorced and her mom left.
Her dad became a wreck. He drowned his misery in alcohol.
Laurel would come home and she would find bottles laying on the ground and her dad passed out in the couch. She would take him to his bed and clean the house. She covered for his absences at work. She helped him seek help. She stayed strong, for him.
But every night, Sara’s face haunted her dreams. Her little sister was drowning and she couldn’t do anything. She would watch her helplessly fall into the dark, terrifying sea but there was nothing she could do. She was gone.
Every morning, Laurel woke up screaming Sara's name.
She thought the pain would kill her one day. But she kept on waking up and living. Life became bleak.
Dying was easy. Laurel wished she was dead.
Anger.
The third year, Laurel just wanted to scream.
It was her last year of law school and everyone was still staring at her. She was and always will be ‘that girl who lost her sister and boyfriend in a shipwreck after learning they were cheating on her’.
Sara and Oliver might be gone but they would always be shadows in her life, following her till the day she died.
She wasn’t just Laurel Lance.
She was the girl who lost her sister.
She was the girl with the dead, cheating boyfriend.
She was the girl whose life had been ruined because of one decision.
Laurel couldn’t bear the whispers and the rumours. She was done hiding. She went on a date with a guy - the first one since Oliver - to feel alive. It was a disaster. They started screaming. He told her he now understood why Oliver cheated on her. She punched him in the face.
After that, Laurel couldn’t contain her anger anymore. She started with plates at home, smashing them against the wall until her dad screamed her to stop. She didn’t stop.
Next were her father’s bottles. He tried to stop drinking a few times but would always relapse. Laurel was done trying to be strong for people. She was exhausted, miserable and furious. If he wanted to drink, she would let him. Laurel couldn’t bear the weight of everyone’s pain. Not anymore.
She got into a few fights. The adrenaline made her feel alive. Her body was burning and punching felt liberating. She had no training whatsoever and would often end up bleeding on the cold ground. She didn’t care. She felt free.
One day, the university counsellor called her into his office. The fights, the screaming, the punching needed to stop or they would have to expel her. Laurel felt the need to yell at him as an answer. But she didn’t. Her degree was the only thing that she had, that was hers only. She couldn’t lose it.
So she used that anger towards her studies. She completely cut herself from the world. She had no life, no relationship, no friends. Sara and Oliver took everything from her. Except for one thing: her career.
Laurel graduated with the highest grade in her class.
Depression.
The fourth year, Laurel was drowning.
She was now officially a lawyer. She had a job and within a few years, she would become the DA assistant. Her dad finally got sober. He kept telling her how proud of her she was. Her mom even came to help her settle into her new place.
In the eyes of the world, she was thriving.
Laurel Lance, the pride of her family.
It was easy to say when her only sister was dead and gone. Sara never had a chance. She was her little sister and had so much to give to the world. Laurel had failed her.
People told her Sara would be proud of her, that she would want her to be happy and to live her life. But what did they know? Sara was dead. The dead don’t want anything.
Moira came to visit at the office she was working for. She took her hand in hers and told her she always knew she was destined for great things. But then, she started talking about Oliver. What a beautiful couple they would have made. What a beautiful future they would have had. All of it, wasted. . In her ear, Moira told her she wouldn’t have dreamed of a better daughter-in-law.
Laurel remained quiet. She had nothing to tell her.
Sara and Oliver. No matter the years, they were still haunting her. She would always have to live with their shadows.
She would never be Laurel Lance, lawyer. She would always be Laurel Lance, Oliver’s girlfriend and Sara’s sister. Laurel Lance, the girl who lost everything.
This was an endless circle and Laurel couldn’t escape it.
That day, she won her first case.
That day, she drank until she couldn’t feel anymore.
Acceptance.
The fifth year, Laurel started to breathe again.
She became the best lawyer in Star City. Every law firms wanted her. She started going out and reconnected with some friends from university. She would eat dinner with her dad at least once a week and her mom would call from time to time. She had a life.
Sara and Oliver were always there, with her. But she learned how to live with it.
They were dead. She was alive.
Laurel visited her sister’s grave as often as she could. She would bring her blanket and sit down in front of the stone. And she would talk to her. She would tell her little sister all about her day, her colleagues, her friends, her cases. She would tell her about mom and dad. She would tell her about Tommy Merlyn. How he has reappeared into her life recently and how he was making her feel so alive.
She imagined her sister listening to her with sparkling eyes and a mischievous grin. She always like gossips. She would love her stories.
Talking to Sara helped her heal.
Laurel visited Oliver’s grave from time to time. She would never stay long. But she would promise him to live her life as best she could. She would promise him to protect Thea. She would promise to make her a city safer place.
She forgave Oliver a long time ago. He was her past.
Oliver and Sara were dead. Laurel had a future. It was time she embraced it.
She would do good. She would work hard. She would be happy. Eventually.
But not for Sara or Oliver. For herself. She deserved it.
She was a survivor.
After five years, Laurel learned to smile again.