𝙒𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙀𝙮𝙚𝙨 𝘾𝙧𝙖𝙙𝙡𝙚 [discontinued]

Chapter Fourteen

They say that time heals the deepest wounds. That it heals what reason cannot.

But time, will being a universal balm, also brings you pain and misery, regrets and anguish. It gives you wounds that you wish for to fade, but they never do.

For weeks after Dad's funeral, we were paid visits; neighbours, distantly related cousins, whom I had not seen since a long time. Others were Dad's colleagues, in training and at the base.

They all brought the same wishes, the same prayers, the same support. But little that they know that mere words could never console the gaping hole left in our lives.

To be honest, I was worried the most about Mom. She had tried to hide her emotions, building a mask behind which resided all her fears, all the indecision, the doubt that had surfaced after my father's death. It worked well; to stranger's eye, she would look like a strong women trying to recover from the trauma befallen her.

For a week, Carren and I stayed home, confined by our grief. Conversation had all but died down in our house, the frequent laughter now seemed redundant, and was replaced by heart breaking sobs that echoed from Mom's room and continued deep into the night.

● ● ●

Early morning on Friday, I surfaced from my uneasy slumber, my body aching due to the uneasy position I had fallen asleep in.

I dragged myself out of bed, stretching my arms, and lumbered over to the bathroom. I splashed water on my face, not even bothering to look at my refelction, for I knew I would have looked terrible after a week of continuous days that were spent crying.

Carren was sitting up in bed when I came out. "Morning," she said.

"Morning," I echoed.

Carren managed a faint smile. "Ready to go back to school?" She asked.

"Ugh, no way," I moaned. "I think I'm done with people's monotonous wishes for one lifetime. "

"Yeah. I know this hard, but I think we should try getting things back to normal, you know. The world won't stop for us."

I sighed, "Honesty, I'm not sure Mom will see that. She's a wreck, Carren."

She wrung her hands together. "We'll think of something alright? We're all she's got now."

● ● ●

Huffing thankfully, I dropped the heavy stack of books on the library table. They landed with a thud that resonated through the hush spread over the room, causing the librarian to look over her glasses and scowl at me.

Flushing with embarrassment, I sat down tinidly, at opened the first book entitled, "Making algebra fun and easy." I scoffed at the cover. As if math could ever be fun or easy.

I flipped through the pages, desperately trying to find a section that would help me with the huge load of school work I had to cover.

In the week I was absent from school, I had missed a lot. Some teachers, understanding my situation, had excused me. While others, including Mrs. Cole, had not been so sympathetic.

"I'm afraid you will have to catch up with the class, Miss Mason," she had said, glaring angrily at me. "I shall not be repeating your missed lectures again."

Thus, here I was, torturing my brain yet again.

A while later, somebody turned on the furnance in the library. The warm air enveloped the room in its embrace.