Tyler and the Valaholics: The Beginning

Chapter 3

Song of the chapter- 'The Show Must Go On' by Queen

'The show must go on,
Inside my heart is breaking,
My make-up may be flaking,
But my smile still stays on.'

"Val..." Cramer trails off as she pulls me into a warm but tight embrace.

I stiffen in response, extremely unsure of what to do or say, now that the person who helped me with all of this before is gone. What are we going to do?!

"Val, I'm so sorry," she says, perhaps trying to coax me into responding a certain way.

"It's not your fault, Cra--"

She cuts me off, "Stacie."

"Okay," I say.

"I'll, uh, give you some time," Stacie says awkwardly as she walks out.

I sit by Mom, wordlessly looking at her for a while. There are a million things I could tell her but none of them match up and roll off my tongue the way they ought to right now.

"Bye, Mom; I love you," I say simply at last, kissing her on her cheek.

I walk straight out the door after I reach the point where I can't look at her anymore. She's become a thing of the past and, no matter how much I wish this hadn't been how things eventually panned out, it's the harsh reality right now. I need to let go of her, no matter how hard it will be, if I am to keep the three of us together now. Unfortunately, letting go is far much easier said than done. Plus, I've known her for the entirety of the twelve years I've lived and from such close quarters as well. It's going to take a whole lot of time and effort to let go.

"Stacie, can you get the kids home?" I ask Stacie in a small voice as she nods in response.

Telling Van I'll be home in a while after a short walk, I race straight out the hospital, blindly crossing the road. My instincts begin to overpower the basal urge to look out to make sure I cross the road safely as I walk by, my thoughts floating away and my eyesight blurry as my eyes feel unfocused. I don't even have to think about where I'm going, my feet automatically take me there.

In a while, I reach the cliff. It's the one place where I can sit in absolute peace, no one can sniff out my presence here and the one place where I can completely be myself. Now I just sit at the edge and stare out mindlessly into the abyss. I'm so numb at the moment that I can't feel a thing.

I haven't even noticed it's raining cats and dogs until I look up at the sky. Still, I don't feel cold, or even soaked to the bone, which is what any sane person would be feeling at the moment. Fortunately or unfortunately, I've long since accepted my insanity.

I don't feel a thing.

So I just walk all the way back home, the rainwater sloshing around my soggy shoes as I trudge back to the place I call home. I've had a long day, but I don't feel tired physically. I'm just far too numb to feel anything right now.

When I finally make it home, I use my key to open the front door. When I walk in, I see Vi enraptured in whatever's playing on the tv.

In a way, this is good. At least, this way, she doesn't experience too much trauma. When she finally does realize though, it's going to be bad. Even if she never consciously bonded a lot with Mom, she still knew her for almost six years.

Pushing the thoughts away for the moment, I am about to go and lie down on my bed when I hear a voice. I follow the voice to see Stacie standing in front of the stove and Van seated on the counter. It's Stacie telling Van that it's all going to be okay one day.

I mentally scoff at this.

While mental scoffs may not be too noisy, water dripping from all of my damp clothing is noisy enough for Stacie to notice me and stand still, frozen in her spot. Van, however, gets up and comes to hug me, stopping short when she realizes I'm dripping wet.

"Val, I know you're dismissing that thought right away, but just consider it. Maybe that day's far away, but it's real nonetheless," she tells me.

I pull away and say, "Well, that's what you think."

"What I think, right now, is you need to change out of these wet clothes, have dinner and get a good night's sleep."

Unthinkingly, I reply, "Okay, Mom."

I stiffen, apologise to no one in particular and head out to my room. I change, but I've lost all my appetite so I drift over to Mom's room and take in all the memories. I do remember back when Van once argued with my mom about our shared room and Mom said Van could have the entire room once I moved to Mom's room if anything happened to her. Guilt washes over me as I see how Mom kept the much smaller room just so Van and I had more space. Tired, I lie down on the soft blue sheets that still smell of her scent and nearly drift off when Van knocks on the door calling me for dinner.

"NO!" I yell back, food seeming unappealing to me as I feel nauseated even though my stomach is growling.

"Val--"

I cut her off, "I'm not hungry, those buns filled me up. Don't disturb me. Let me sleep!"

"Fine," she says and goes back out.

I pick up the telephone connection in what is now to be my room and call Lau, enquire about her health and wish her a good night, omitting all and any details about Mom. I know I won't, though.

Because Mom was there to calm me down after the nightmares I got when dad died.

But now, I'm alone.

And in charge of a ten- year old and a six- year old.

With no one else but Grandma to rely upon. Grandma is plenty busy herself, though, and is barely able to take care of herself. All my pent-up anger now explodes and I throw a pillow hard at the wall. Yeah, like that'd work...

I realize I can't leave all of this rage the way it is so I quickly cover up again and then walk out through the front door, locking it up behind me.

And I wind up at the cliff again, but, this time, ready to utilise it properly, like I haven't been doing all these years...

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Hey there! Thank you for reading and be sure to let me know what you think of this story so far and read ahead! This chapter and the previous were initially one chapter but, while I was editing it out, it expanded into a chapter too big so I split it...

What do you think Val is going to do?

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