One more day. You can do one more day. Come on, Althea. You've done over six months, you can do one more day.
The internal pep talk that you give yourself was starting to sound so routinary; wake up crying, pep talk, head to the bathroom, give yourself a pep talk in the shower, eat while stealing yourself for the day ahead, go to work and stare at a memo on your desk that read 'You can do it. One more day.'
It had become so ingrained in your everyday life that the one time you forgot to eat breakfast and your third helping of encouraging words from yourself, you almost had an emotional breakdown in the middle of the office cafeteria when Rude came on shuffle from your Spotify playlist; luckily, Batchi was there to help you calm down.
There were a lot of bad days.
There were some good ones.
Despite the time that had passed since Jade's accident, the pain of your loss did not dwindle. Not even a little. Every day you still wake up wishing that you were living in some kind of nightmare world where Jade no longer existed. Every day you wake up and wish that you could go back in time a be with her again; and every day you wake up with the crushing realization that none of your wishes could ever come true.
Jade was gone.
Taken all too quickly because of-- "Althea! Althea!" Gabriel sobbed before his strong arms wrapped around you.
You're not even aware of what happened or what was happening around, the only thing you could focus on was the body being rolled out of the facility which was covered with a bloody white cloth.
"Where is she?! Where's Jade?!" You cry out in panic but despite wanting your voice to carry towards the small building where the Paul Tanchingco's Save A Life Foundation was located, your eyes were glued to the body that was being placed into an ambulance.
As if on instinct, your feet begin to lead you towards the corpse but before you could climb into the vehicle, the voice of a man pierces through the haze in your mind.
"They all deserved it! They all should have died! I was going to kill them all like they killed my son!"
Gab suddenly lunges forward and lands a solid hook on the man's jaw, "we did our best to save your son, you fucking bastard! You fucking incestuous pedophiliac!" He growled angrily, landing another and another blow to the man's face before the authorities could pry him away. "My sister did nothing to you! She was innocent!"
The world seemed to suddenly zero in on the covered stretcher. A gust of wind passes and lifts the blanket just to expose on limb, the left hand; and there on the fourth finger was a wedding band identical to yours.
No. No. No. This is not part of your routine. You are not to think about this. You were pretty sure you couldn't handle it.
"Althea?" Batchi calls from the door before she opens it.
You yank your gaze from whatever your were looking at on the computer to look at her, "Hmm?"
"How are you? You okay?" she asks quietly but the concern in her voice was palpable.
You shrug, raising your shoulders up tightly then dropping them like you were carrying the weight of the world, "I'm fine."
Batchi sucked on her teeth as she entered your office, closing the door behind her. "You've been staring at a dead screen for the past hour."
The skin on your forehead creases and you turn towards the screen, seeing the screen saver. You knew you should come up with an excuse to why you've been spaced out for however much time had passed, but you couldn't find the energy to do so and "Oh." was all you could answer.
She takes your hand in both of hers and holds it tightly, "hey, don't worry about it. Why don't I take you out for lunch? My treat."
"I'm okay. I promise. Just... Distracted, I guess." you lie unconvincingly.
"It's only because it's the first time without her. You need people to distract you so you don't think about it too much."
Batchi's words make your head spin in confusion, "what are you talking about? The first time for what?"
