Blanca Like Snow

Chapter 35 - Nature

     February goes as fast as January does, which means I've been four months in the Dream House. Four months since the accident, since I almost died. It's hard to think it's been so long since then when it feels it just happened last week.

So much has changed, I myself feel like a different person. Perhaps the Blanca I was before indeed died that day in that car, and a new one was the one who escaped before it blew up. When I look back at the person I used to be I can understand why Will thought I was a monster. For someone who could only see what I projected, I could only look like a spoiled brat who did nothing but pretend to care by doing to charities that were just fancy parties for rich people who wanted to look like philanthropies. I looked like someone who didn't know or care about other's suffering because I had it all. That was the kind of life I showed, even if it wasn't exactly like that.

When I go back, people will talk so much about me. The missing heiress who come back from the dead. Then all the corruption hidden in BEEB Group will be revealed, Laura's true intentions and her doing to get me killed. People will be so happy to have so much to gossip about, won't they?

Usually, I wonder how I'm supposed to go back to that kind of life, where I'll have it all or the power to have it all, where I stop being just a girl with no memories of her past, even if I barely care about that and just live normally right now. How do I go back to an empty house after spending all this time with so many kids around? There's no Dad, just Laura in our house and I'm planning she'll never set a foot inside again. Nora has her family, but I have no one at home. My mother would never come here with me, she couldn't do it before, she won't be able now.

It is no surprise I'm reluctant to go back to such solitude and silence when it's so warm and joyfully noisy in here. I won't hear the kids running back inside after a day of school, chatting loudly and getting excited to be home again. I won't hear their stories of their days at school at the dinning table. I won't have anyone to play outside on the weekends, chasing pigs or feeding the goats. I won't be in a room where even after I wake up from nightmares, the even breathings of the girls around me can calm me down and remind me I'm safe.

I'll be all alone.

That thought alone is so terrifying and suffocating. Loneliness didn't bother me before, but now... after I've been surrounded by so many people, it scares me. I dread it.

Even if I'm scared to go back, even if I don't want to be alone, I don't have much time left. My birthday is coming, at the end of April, which means I have two months left at best. If nothing happens before that day, that's when I go back.

Two months until this lifestyle ends and I go back to my reality.

Nora is aware of my struggles and fears, my reluctance to leave this place, so she's doing her best to keep me cheerful and creating memories with everyone. I'm sure she's even talked to Will so I'm not alone, because if I wander alone I get lost in thoughts, fears consume me and it's too painful.

That is why the first weekend the weather is nice, we go for our hiking experience. Will is going to be our guide and we're supposed to camp there for the night. He says there's this lovely place we need to see before we leave. So we take the van on Saturday morning and head as close to the forest as we can get before getting all our things and start the route.

Will insisted we needed to take the drone with us so it could record our trip, so I'm the one wearing the smart watch that makes the drone follow us from above, and like that we head into the forest that doesn't look like many people come in.

Even if our path is difficult and we have to make our way between trees, and rocks while going up the hill, it's a wonderful experience. The air is so fresh and clean, it smells like rain, and it just feels so earthly, even if my muscles burn from the strain that it is hiking, even if my lungs want even more air, I'm enjoying this. The scenery is beautiful, with tall trees, covered in green leaves that aware waiting for spring to arrive anytime now, rocks that are half my size, the sound of animals living their lives peacefully in the shelter of that forest.