I've Never Cried

Chapter Fifty-six - "A Different Point of View (pt. 2)

"I've Never Cried"

Chapter Fifty-six

'A Different Point of View (pt. 2)'

Selena's POV

My mom and I were best friends.

Once, when I was eleven years old, she pulled me out of school early just so that we could have a girl's day together. We went to the nail salon first, and she let me get pink butterflies on my toes; something I had begged for ever since I saw them on an episode of Lizzie McGuire. Then we got our hair done, and she dyed hers a bright blonde, with long waves flowing down her back. My mother was always fond of long hair, she'd say to me,

"Selly, your hair is your crowning glory. If you cut it off, you lose your crown."

For the longest time I combatted this statement, because I wanted my hair short so that I wouldn't have to wear scrunchies. So, the day we went to the salon together, I was more than ecstatic when I finally got my cropped style that floated above my shoulders, without actually touching them.

"Well, would you look at that," she said once styling was finished. "Your crown shines even brighter."

Then we went for ice cream, and then the park, and finally made it home in time to cook up my favorite dinner: Ramen Noodles and dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets. And just when I got tired enough that my eyes were going heavy, I lied on the couch in her arms as she gently stroked my newly shortened hair.

"You're so special to me," she'd calmly sing. "You're my precious baby girl."

I never could sing along because she made up her own tunes as she went on, but I always loved it. Every verse was a surprise. Some were silly, some were delicate, and some were melodic enough to put me to sleep.

"This was the best day ever," I said through a yawn. And in those moments right before I fell asleep, I heard her say,

"Every day with you is my favorite day, my sweet, sweet Selena Marie."

The last time I felt my mother's touch was with the kiss she planted onto my forehead. I was fast asleep after that, and my memory has never allowed me to remember anything else of that night. All I had left of her was what everyone told me had happened.

"It was an accident..."

           "She fell asleep at the wheel."

"....a late night grocery run gone wrong."

          "She forgot she'd already taken a sleep aid."

I was eleven. I didn't know what a sleep aid was. I didn't know what it meant to die. I didn't know why she left in the middle of the night, or what could've possibly been so important that she had to leave so suddenly.

All I knew was that the day before my mom was there, and then the next, she wasn't.

Everyone expected me to be so heartbroken and so ruined, but I was okay. I was okay because I didn't know what else to be. I was okay because none of it seemed real. I was okay because I had to be okay. I was okay because if I wasn't, my father would fall apart- and he was already much worse off with grief than I was.

There was a time before my mother's death when my parents were in love. They were the picturesque couple; living in Minnesota with their white picket fence, rose garden and perfectly green sharply cut grass. We were a family- my mom, my dad, and me. I was his princess, he was my prince, and we were all the most royal family in the imagination of an eight-year-old girl.