Life After Losing You

Chapter 2: Troubled

EDITED: 7/11/15 ✓

Chapter 2: Undone

I cried throughout most of that night, replaying the first and probably last fight I'd ever have with my father. Even though it hurt, I wasn't particularly upset by his assault but instead, I cried because I realized everything I'd said was true. I did not regret saying those things, either. Throughout my entire life I had always imagined what it would be like to finally speak my mind and tell the brutal and honest truth. Now, after doing just that, I felt... dead inside. Some may call it redemption, others justice, but to me? I felt hollow and empty after releasing the pent up anger I'd smothered for many years. If I couldn't be angry anymore... then what other emotion did I have left to hold onto? Would I really just fall into a perpetual orb of melancholy?

As those haunting thoughts began drifting through my mind, I began gasping frantically in the darkness. No, please...

I should've known that I could not have experienced tonight without some sort of backlash from my fragile body. I had no choice but to ride it out the misery. Wild gasps and pants erupted through my lips as I attempted to control my convulsive shaking. The episodes were always maddening.

The panic attacks began the night of Cal's funeral. On most days, an episode will usually only last for a few minutes before I can collect myself again; however if I experience something more intense, then the episode could last for up to 10-minutes before declining.

In those minutes, my world crumbles again, and again, just as it did when I stood at the top of the staircase so many months ago.

There is no escaping this nightmare.

* * *

Sometime throughout my attack, I'd managed to drift into a numbing, exhaustion-driven unconsciousness. Colourful, welcoming dreams masked the day's dark events and soon, perhaps too soon, I felt the warm glow of the morning's light shine onto my pale eyelids.

With a soft sigh, I then reach up sleepily to rub my dreary eyes. I groan automatically once I realize the painful throb dominating half of my face. Even though I'd attempted to abolish yesterday's events from my immediate thoughts, I knew my dad had gotten a pretty even swing at me.

At a sluggish pace, I manage to tear myself away from my warm bed and in line to stare into the mirror attached to my vanity. Be calm, assess the damage, I coaxed myself mentally. The moment I looked into the mirror, I felt the familiar sensation of tears ache in the back of my throat. The corner of my left eye, and along with the top of my cheekbone, was now coated in a dark purple, swollen bruise.

Hell.

"Miss. Sophia," a small, brittle voice whispered hesitantly on the other side of my door. Louise. It took my mind a moment to shake off the shock; yet once I had, I replied very carefully.

"Yes," I croaked slightly, then cleared my dry throat.

"I've packed the belongings in your laundry hamper, and I've got your empty suitcases here with me, for whichever pieces you'd like to take with you from your bedroom," Louise spoke softly, revealing the slight edge of her faded Ukrainian accent.

I straightened suddenly as realization crashed down on my foggy mind. I'd been so wound up by my father and I's fight that I'd hardly realized the reason the whole event had occurred. My father was shipping me off to live in the state of Washington, today.

"Miss. Sophia, please hurry. Your car to the airport is expected to arrive within the next two hours," the woman spoke again, urgency leaking into her collected tone.