Four Broken Pieces ✓

Fifty One

I woke up in a soft bed to the smell of cinnamon and coffee. The ceiling was the unmistakable wooden paneling of Violet's cottage and I just continued to stare at it. Movement seemed unnecessary at this point. My mind felt empty, my body light and the whole world seemed to have dulled to a monotonous gray that seemed so serene. I must have some kind of drug running through my system that kept the pain at bay.

My mother was dead. The thought still created a tsunami of grief inside me but I buried it down. This wasn't the time to drown. This was the time to swim. The bandages on my side, the warm sunlight on my face and the breathless clarity that had suddenly come over me told me as much. Death wasn't ready for me just yet and thinking of my mother would only kill me slowly. I'd just have to pretend it was all right until it became reality.

It was better this way; to shut it all down and not feel anything at all. Feeling too much had always been my weakness. I'd loved, hated, grieved, and been joyous with everything I had and it broke me. I needed to learn the consequences of loving someone so deeply. I gave away pieces of my heart without thinking of what could happen if I lost those pieces forever. It needed to change.

This monotony, carelessness, was like a breath of fresh air. I hadn't been thinking clearly for so long. I reached my hand to my side table and felt blindly for my phone before picking it up. It had been incessantly beeping for quite some time now. They were all messages from my grandfather. He was grieving. The whole family had come down for my mother's funeral, which was apparently supposed to take place 4 days after she died.

Apparently, the funeral was over, which meant that I'd been out for 4 whole days. No wonder my body felt so sore as I slowly sat up and put my legs over the side of the bed. It was cool under my feet. I stood up slowly and immediately felt the ground began to sway. I mumbled out a curse that came out louder than I'd intended and in seconds, the front door to my bedroom swung open. Violet came in followed by an equally worried Troy. They looked positively deranged as they looked me over for injuries of some sort.

"I'm fine, just got a bit dizzy." They nodded before timidly approaching me like I was about to explode any second. Violet came to sit beside me and put an arm around my shoulder while Troy sat in front of me, pulling over a chair. His eyes were soft and concerned, full of pity as he took one of my hands in his. He looked like he hadn't slept in days and it warmed my heart to know he cared so much. I didn't deserve this kindness.

He was holding a murderer's hand, a foul hand that had taken someone's life.

Thoughts, images swirled in my head but I shut them down with a willpower I didn't know I had. My hand remained steady in his firm grip. I couldn't drown in the past. Not today. Not ever. I would never survive if I gave into that sadness I'd felt when my mother had passed away.

I'd felt its intensity in those few moments. It would destroy me and it scared me to just think of those moments. I'd lost everything, my mother and myself in those moments. So much pain had assailed my heart all at once.

"Do you remember everything," Troy asked and I snapped back into the present. I remembered everything that had happened in excruciating, vivid detail that couldn't even be put in words but I didn't want to tell him that. It would only make that pity increase. It might even scare him.

And even though the tiniest part of me knew he'd never judge me for the mistakes I committed, I still didn't want to tell him all I'd done, all that had passed. He didn't need to know of the darkest parts of the world that existed right under our noses that we were so oblivious to. It made the world a far more frightening place to live in.