Olifina: Love And Trouble

34. Mother, Daughter, Strife

Throughout that Saturday morning I stayed locked in, asking myself why I couldn't experience the love of a mother like other people did. The time Mum tried to live with us, she had been good and bad at the same time. She did her duties as a mother but never as a wife. As I grew up I got to understand the strife in my parents' relationship and how they had been managing to keep it hidden from me until the day Mum decided she was leaving.

My pillow got soaked gradually as I continued to lay there in regret. Deep down, I felt guilty. I knew that if I had jumped earlier, Dad could've still been alive. But then I asked myself, why he didn't jump when he saw my reluctance to do so. The answer to my question came as fast as the question itself. Dad loved me. He loved me and his love killed him. It was the sad truth. Dad loved to a fault. His love made him run back to save a woman who was abusive to him, and had left him for another man for more than a decade. For his love, he risked so much-that was my dad.

I let out a forced, shaky breath as my eyes welled with freshly formed tears. My throat ached badly and my body trembled as I sobbed. Slowly, my sobbing morphed into more audible cries. Dad was gone. After all the effort I made to save him. The ugly hands of death snatched him away from me. What have I done? I asked myself. If I had just jumped, he would've still been alive. He would've still been here if I had just jumped. Stupid me. My fear of heights had caused me a much greater fear: living without my dad.

My head started to ache due to my crying but I couldn't help it. I stayed the morning, crying myself to sleep. I lay there with a worrisome thought lingering in my mind. "What if I had jumped?" It was a question I knew the answer to. But it made me feel so helpless.

Finally, sleep came to me. I did not know the time, and I did not care. I was just happy that my means of escape, though temporary, had come. My thoughts slowly drifted away, leaving me tranquil.

By evening, I woke up to the sun setting. It cast a golden hue into the room. My tears had dried but my throat still felt sore.

I sighed, then turned in my bed since I had been in one position for a long. I felt really hungry but wasn't ready to go downstairs yet. Rodas and Oliver were not the persons I wanted to see after my rash display that morning. I did not want to see anyone.

I sat up and checked my ankle. The pains had subsided. I stayed in my room throughout the night due to my lack of appetite. I felt weak as I laid on my bed, fighting the thoughts that waged war in my mind. The pressure was getting worse. It was a war between myself and the depression that threatened to drag me to its deepest, darkest, depths.

Slowly, after so much longing, sleep came like a soothing balm on a burning scald. My saving grace.

"Bam! Bam! Bam!" The door seemed to shake with the sound.

"Rufina!"

I groaned, turning to face the door.

"Who is it?" I asked, still drowsy.

My voice was faint so I couldn't be heard. After so much effort, I finally stood up and walked to the door. I unlocked it and pulled it open to see Oliver. He had a look of anger, or was it concern? Anyways, I was too tired to decode his emotions through his expressions.

"Are you okay?"

Without answering him, I walked away from the door into the room and he followed behind.

"You've been in your room for long. Are you... Are you okay?" he asked again as I laid back on my bed. I was hungry to the verge of falling sick.

Oliver came to me and held my hand. He used the back of his palm to feel the temperature on my head.