"I don't get how my mother could drink that." Amber made a face as she tasted the bitter liquid. She liked drinking coffee, but only when it had enough sugar in it. That morning, she had decided to drink it the way Natalie used to. Heavy and black, with not an ounce of sugar, always saying that sugar destroyed the pure taste of coffee.
She put the mug aside at the coffee table and turned to looking through the photos that were scrabbled along the couch. It was just the next day since she had arrived to Seattle, meaning that she didn't have much time left. So she was still trying to find what she had been searching so she could finish the letter.
Tom was still with her after they woke up from their sleep. He was looking through family photos when Amber was young. Amber was avoiding those. She was looking at photos of her mother, old ones and recent. Mostly photos of the two of them or her and Mark. Anything that it hadn't Isaac in them.
"Oh how old are you here?" Tom showed her a photo of her, Natalie and Isaac, hugging each other and smiling happily, like nothing had happened that teared them apart. A sunflower field was right beside them. Amber was obviously young, but her eyes still shined the same. "You're so cute." Tom remarked.
"I don't know, I look 10. But I don't remember where we were." Amber said as she took the photo in her hands and just stared at it, trying to remember. But it seemed impossible for her.
"You know, you have your father's eyes, right?" Tom commented.
"Yeah, it's pathetic." Amber scoffed. "My mother has way more beautiful eyes." She paused as she realised she was talking like she was still there. "Had. She had." She corrected herself and threw the picture on the coffee table.
"Hey, let's just take a break from this." Tom suggested when he realised that Amber was drowing into her grief again. "Look at me."
Amber looked at him and she smiled. "You're pretty." She commented.
"Yeah, so are you." Tom replied and wrapped his arm around her shoulder.
Amber laughed and cuddled up against him, but her eyes gazed back to the photograph on the coffee table. The photograph of three smiling faces. Faces that, even though Amber knew her whole life, seemed so unfamiliar. Mostly because she could barely remember the time her family was happy. All her last memories of her parents was full of yelling and so many fights. And the past was stabbing her in her heart once again.
