Unbroken

The Alone Birthday

1 week later

Henrietta opened her eyes to the screeching sound of the alarm clock. She twisted her legs and the bedsheets beneath her skin had been warm. She banged on the clock to make it silent. She felt mice running inside her stomach. She wished to eat fresh chicken salad for breakfast today.

"Mom! I want chicken salad. Now!" She screamed and waited mom to reply.

When she totally woke up from her dreamy sleep, she realized mom wasn't there. She would never really to Henrietta when she wanted breakfast. Henrietta remained on her bed for sometime. Then, trying to forget every mourn, she got up and made herself ready for school.

She got out of the house and locked it. She walked with her white cane past the footpath toward the bus stoppage. Her school had students bus.Mom wasn't here to drive her to the school. The bus came and honked. She felt obstacles with her white cane and got on the bus. She moved her cane to realize what was in front. Getting a vibe of an unoccupied seat, she sat on that. Suddenly, she felt a huge slap on her back. She screamed with pain.

"Hey!"

A male voice replied, "What hey? Move from here blindy!"

"What do you mean by blindy?" Henrietta started getting furious. She was depressed beforehand, now this cruel boy was making her go crazy.

"Blindy means who is blind. Now shut up and get up."

"I won't. You don't have any right to tell me to get up from here."

That boy shut himself down. Another punk boy came and told with a rapping style, "Get up or I'll kick your ***. "

Henrietta felt her blood to boil. She got up to slap him and at that time, the boy held her hands and twisted them. She screamed loudly but that boy who was sitting besides her, covered her mouth and they both pushed herself to the seat.

"Sit as much as you can, because we won't let you later." The first boy whispered. He turned back to his friend. Henrietta was red with pain. Her hands were tremendously aching. She was wondering why the other students were silent. She didn't know there were no other students in the bus, these boys were the gang members of Jason. She didn't know either that they conspired to make the real school bus to reach her home late. While taking the advantage of her incapability of vision, they hired another bus to teach her the lesson.

Some more boys joined them. They were laughing like devils. One of them put out a knife on his hand and settled that on Henrietta's wrist. Suddenly, the bus slamed the break.

The next sound Henrietta heard was the most beautiful one she ever had heard. She heard Michael's voice.

"Henrietta!" Michael screamed.

"Michael! Help me!" She stated crying now.

"Oh don't cry! They can't touch you even." He almost ran to Henrietta. The bus stood still.

That punk boy interrupted, "Hey you, I know you're a popular senior of our highschool. But keep off!"

Michael held Henrietta by her shoulder and helped her to get up. Then turning toward the boy, he exclaimed, "Shut that bloody mouth down!"

That boy felt embarrassed,"Hey you son of a b****! Don't interfere."

Michael didn't care. He tried to get off the bus with Henrietta. Then, another boy blocked their way, "Why do you care so much Michael? We already know about Silvia Emerson."

This time Michael almost bursted with anger. He punched that boy with all of his energy that he had been nurturing for past seventeen years. The boy made a noise, "uck!" And fell on the floor. Blood was dripping from his nose.

Michael threw a demonic smile and got off the bus. They started walking through the wet path. Dry leaves of oak were falling on the streets. The weather was beautiful. They both were walking with blissful silence.

Henrietta broke it, "Hey, Michael, how're you?"

"Yeah yeah. I'm good." He didn't ask back how was she, because he knew she couldn't be good whose mother passed one week ago.

"So, how'd you get on the bus?"

"Because last night, Jason texted me that he would take revenge. I knew that something would happen. So, I was precautioned."

"No, my question is, how'd you know that I was in this bus?"

"Umm, that's because this morning, I was seeing you from the basketball yard beside your home."

"Really? But its only seven. What were you doing here?"

Michael stopped walking, he brought out the bouquet of flowers from his backpack. Henrietta smelled marvelous fragrance of roses.

"Happy birthday, Henrietta. These roses are for you. Sixteen roses on your sixteen birthday."

She couldn't talk. Her speech was blocked. She herself forgot her birthday while Michael remembered it. Tears of happiness rolled down her eyes.

"Thank you so much Michael, I forgot my own birthday! But you remembered it? Oh!"

"No thank yous on friendship. Just keep smiling."

"So you were near my house to give me these?"

"Yes, but more to make you secured. I knew Jason would try to harm you. But I didn't have any idea that he would send a bus to mislead you. This seemed kind of hypothetical to me actually."

"I don't have words to say right now. Anyway, from when you were here?"

"You need not to know."

"Please tell me, what's the problem?"

"Alright. Actually, I spent my night in front of your home."

She paused her walk. She was spellbound. Slowly, she moved her lips again.

"I can't believe you did this for me! Someone is actually there who cares for me. I am speechless."

Michael smiled. They walked down the road to their school. They didn't even accidentally get on the topic of Henrietta's mom. They pretended as if it never happened. The shinning bright road welcomed them warmly into a new future.

Henrietta wanted to forget again and again that this was her first birthday without mom. Every year on this day, mom would wake her up to balloons and gifts. She would give her a tight warm hug that never ended in a minute. She would make chocolate fudge for her, she would buy her a teddy bear every year.

Mom had been planning for this day since her birth. She planned a extravaganzic party on her sweet sixteenth birthday. But, its funny how only one hour was enough to destroy everything in a glance. She tried to smile.

She wanted to console herself thinking that, when one person went away from life then another would surely come to fill in that space. She though that Michael was that person who would fill this space for her that was occupies by mom till death. She felt relieved.

But little did she knew, Michael already belonged to someone else.