I Would Kill For You

39. Tempus Fugit

❝ be happy for this moment. this moment is your life. ❞

omar khayyam

__________

"You're the only one who understands me." I whispered dramatically to Skittles, running my fingers through his immaculate soft fur. My cat raised his head from the bed, his ears turning sideways. He watched me with half-closed eyes, and I could tell that he was silently judging me for interrupting his sleep.

And so was my mom, but she wasn't that subtle.

"Need I remind you that your trial is in two days? That woman is going to testify against you. Thank God her appeal to the court was declined and they issued another prosecutor."

"Mom, try to put yourself in her shoes. She found out that one of her sons is...was a murderer and she lost him without getting to say goodbye. On top of that, the press is merciless; Joseph's face is all over the news, in the newspapers, wherever she turns. She's devastated and--"

"Did she try to put herself in my shoes?!" she interjected, her tone etched with indignation. "I could have lost my only child. What kind of mother doesn't realize her son is not in his right mind?" her voice quavered, and when I turned towards her, I saw that her eyes were glistening with tears. "She abandoned her children and moved to another country, for heaven's sake! That is no mother. And now she wants to take you away from me and put you in prison for saving her other son's life? Over my dead body."

She shook her head as heart-wrenching tears flowed down her cheeks, and it tore me apart to see how much she was hurting.

"Please stop crying." I beseeched her softly. "No one will take me away from you. You heard our lawyer, she said that the police have enough incriminating evidence against Joseph and I have nothing to fear."

"Why didn't you listen to me?" she reproached me with a sob. "I asked you to stay away from Damian, from that damned family. I knew something was wrong -- a mother knows. Do you know how many tears I've shed these past weeks? Too many." she walked to me and grasped my shoulders, shaking them slightly. Her hands were cold and she was hurting me, but I endured and didn't flinch. "Why, Rosie?"

I inhaled deeply and restrained my own tears, scanning her face. I noticed the wrinkles at the corner of her eyes and lips, her dark blonde hair in disarray with some strands turned grey, and the dark circles under her eyes. But she was still the most beautiful and the purest being on this planet.

"Because I love him, mom." I uttered weakly. "I love him."

She loosened the grip on my shoulders, her chest heaving with dolour. She caressed my cheek with one hand.

"Does he love you?"

I nodded with a melancholic smile. She pulled me into an embrace and sighed in resignation.

"Then I wish you nothing but happiness."

***

I never thought that going to school was going to give me a sense of normalcy, but it did. Walking down the halls, sitting at the usual table in the cafeteria, skipping gym -- it was all so familiar. It made me feel safe, protected somehow from the outer world. 

Except that I was walking down the halls alone. I was sitting at the usual table alone. And when I skipped PE, no one approached me to walk to Physics together. They regarded me the way they used to regard Damian: with caution, with curiosity, too intimidated to talk to me, but brazen enough to stare and whisper about me when they thought I wasn't looking.