Smile For Me (Student/Teacher)

Everything At Once

Hey everybody, I'm sorry I'm so sudden with this posting, but here's another chapter!

Someone said they needed some light in my last chapter, well this isn't much lighter, but I hope you enjoy, :-)

- cilla

I stared ahead of me, hearing Austin's voice in the back after a good amount of silence. It was after they spoke when he began whispering oh shit. oh shit oh shit, Diana.

"I'm guessing you're Diana?" The woman beside the man with the birthmark said. She was so familiar, too. I had seen that cloud before, the cloud on his jaw. Those eyes, and that relaxed expression. "We'd like a word." She said to me.

I probably looked like such an idiot then, hand on the door and hand at the frame, eyes wide and confused. I turned back for a split second to look at my brothers before going outside to speak with the couple. "How can I help you?" I asked, waiting. I didn't know what for, I grew with anxiousness and swallowed nothing. I wanted them to spit it out.

I told myself I had no idea who they were. When I knew...

"We're your grandparents." The man said.

That familiar birthmark.

But why are they here?

I turned shaky and pushed my hair past my ears. "Last night, we got a call-"

No.

I tuned her out and repeated the words in my head, the letter. Then I got mixed up.

This dress...

Dammit, no that was Andy.

-ever leave you...

"...Unfortunately didn't make it."

I stared.

"Sorry, what?" I choked out.

A look of sympathy passed over the two of them, but I didn't care about them at all. They left me, they left their son to hurt after his wife died. Left him with four children. I couldn't care less about those people standing in front of me, I just wanted to know if what I was hearing was true. "He was packing to come back home, and today he was supposed to be here."

I waited.

"Him and a few others were walking to the helicopters to go to the airports when they stepped over a landmine. It killed Hector."

Oh.

I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to feel, it hadn't hit me yet. What was she saying? It killed.

Killed, what did that mean?

It took me quite some time to hold my breath in realization.

I rushed inside, not being able to take a step further when slamming the door and collapsing onto the wall that faced the living room. I wanted to throw myself across the room, and for the first time in a long time, I could no longer hold it in.

I balled.

The fact that I was there foolishly awaiting a dead man's return? My conscience spat at my face, saying I was pathetic. Saying all this time I should've known it was too good to be true. I wondered who else saw it coming, and figured I was too blinded by the loving excitement and longing to realize he wasn't. Coming. Back.

I felt as Austin rushed past me and outside to speak with the couple standing outside.

I sobbed like a stupid baby, the first time I didn't care about how I looked to myself. I didn't care if I broke the emotionless streak was on, and I didn't care that I promised myself not to cry over the past. It was everything.