Chap-2

The starting of a day…
Scarlett was there in the morning, and that was not okay.


I hadn’t known she was downstairs, and I definitely hadn’t realized she’d be all dolled-up and making breakfast. It was early in the morning; my father wouldn’t be up for the next two hours.


She screamed upon seeing me, my dark hair disheveled and fixing the belt of my robe as I walked. I was so caught off guard that I rammed my hip into the wooden chair and let out a sharp gasp of agony, falling to my knees. She was quick to help, dropping down on her ruddy knees next to me.


“Are you all right?” she asked, and I was glad she was sensible enough to wonder if I wasn’t dying from the pain first before she asked who the heck I was.


“I’ll live,” I wheezed as I stood up.


“Who are you?” she asked me as her cool hand touched my hip. I could feel it through my cotton dress, and she massaged it. “I didn’t know he had a daughter. You…are his daughter, right?”


I stared at her for a while, taking her in. Scarlett Mitchell looked like a fragile beauty with her pale skin and reddish-brown hair. She had greenish-blue eyes, large and doe-like. She was gorgeous, kind of like the how I secretly wished I was. She was nothing like my mother; Scarlett was the epitome of stunning. My mother had been beautiful, but she was homey and comfy. It was hard to think of my mother as stunning.


Scarlett didn’t even have a single curve out of place.
“Sara,” I answered, and I moved away from her. “Excuse me, but I have to go. I have school.” I went around her and got a bottle of water from the fridge and a Pop Tart from the cabinet. I put on my book bag, which I had brought downstairs with me. I put on my shoes and quickly pulled my hair into a ponytail. “Goodbye, Scarlett Mitchell. By the way, you’re really loud when conversing at night. Next time you come over, try to keep it down. The neighbors might hear you.”


I had wanted to say that quip all last night, and I even dreamt it. Watching her face turn pink, a quick blast of satisfaction entered me as I left through the door, letting the door slam behind me.


The yard was a perfect, picturesque lawn. The grass was as green as it could be and the fence that surrounded the house and its grounds painted a flawless, clean white. The impeccably made path of red clay slabs led to a spotless driveway where my father’s silver Volvo gleamed gallantly next to Scarlett’s shiny, red car. Looking down the sidewalk at the other houses, it was evident that this was the heart of suburban America. All the houses looked similar, and everything seemed….perfect.


Ten minutes for a walk was a tremendous length, but it was probably a work out on its own, especially since most textbooks felt like they weighed ten, twenty pounds all on their own. The road was empty, and the only sounds you could hear were the tapping of my shoes on the cement sidewalk and a random bird every now and then. I moved as quickly as I could, eager to get to my bus stop before six-twenty, which was around the time the bus arrived or at least the time it should arrive at.
The rush was for nothing. I got there at approximately six-sixteen, and the only other person there was a boy around my age. With dark hair that covered his ears and eyes bluer than the ocean, he leaned against the stop sign as he went through his phone, searching for something. He averted his eyes quickly towards me as he heard my steps, and a smile spread across his face.


“You just saved my life,” he blurted, and I couldn’t help but feel that sudden rush of confusion. He caught on and chuckled, shaking his head. “Sorry to sound weird, but I thought this would be another year that I had to wait alone for the bus. I’m a senior, you see, and four years of having to wait ten minutes for a half-empty bus would have been completely tragic.”


“Oh. Yeah. I just moved in with my father this summer, and I was beginning to worry that no one would be here. I have seen about fifteen adults, all about forty, and they all seem to hate sunshine, puppies, and children. And laughter.”


He grinned at my comment. “I’m Keats Brighton. And you?”


“Ava.”


“Quite a name, nightingale,” he joked as he lightly tugged on the tip of my golden ponytail.


“Much better than being named after a dead poet,” I shot but only teasingly.
“Touché. Truce?”


The bus pulled up just as he said that, and we boarded it. He had been lying when he had said half-empty; it was a clear understatement. There was perhaps seven other people in a bus that could support forty. I sat down in one of the seats near the front, and he took a seat across from me.


“I’m guessing since you haven’t agreed to a truce that you’re a bit mad at the bird joke,” Keats admitted shyly as he pushed his book bag onto the other side of the seat, by the window.


“Oh. Sorry. Truce,” I answered, holding out my hand. He took it, his hand cool and rough, and we shook on it.


“So, what grade are you in?”


“Sophomore.” He made a funny face, and I realized my answer was incorrect, at least, grammatically. “I’m a tenth grader, I mean.”


“You’re so…young,” he admitted, crinkling his nose. “You used to go to a different school, right? Which?”


“Lincoln River,” I told him as I pulled out my phone, checking for a message from Ellie or Cora. There was none.


“Gah. This school will hate you for that, what with our idiotic obsession with football. At least you’re not from Charlton.”


I laughed out loud, but I tried to cover my mouth. “Isn’t it funny that we live like right next to it? I mean to say, Charlton is about a five or ten minute walk down the sidewalk from my house. I think my father specifically chose that spot so that he could sneak peeks and make sure they don’t try anything funny at the games. He wants them all to lose.”


“Did your father ever go to our school or play for it?”
“Yeah, about twenty years ago. He graduated from here, and he played all four years. Football is his life.” I rolled my eyes.


“I take it you hate the sport,” Keats noted as he kept his eyes steady on me.


“Maybe more than it deserves to be hated.”


He smiled at that, shifting his face towards the front of the bus. “Nah, you’ve got your reasons. Must be good ones. Mine aren’t very good. I just hate Coach Danning.” My interest hit the roof. It was officially settled: I loved this guy. “You’ll probably hate him too. He is super-tough and obsessed with football, beating Charlton, and hitting on the female faculty. He actually once hit on my mom, and now she hates him too.” I tried to hide my chortle. “Besides, he can sort of kind of be a bit of a…well, a jerk. I used to play for him, but I got sick of his temper and quit the team.”


“Bless your heart,” I blurted, covering my face to keep from laughing. “Sounds dreadful.”


“You know something I don’t know,” he told me, “and I would really like to know.”


“No, I already know him. And hate him. My mother used to date him. He is a jerk and an arrogant one too.”


“At least someone agrees with me! Everyone seems to think he’s so freakin', insanely awesome because he beats every team—you know, but Charlton. The Charlton-Milton games are really close though, like twenty-twenty-three last year, with Charlton in the lead. The only time Milton has ever beat Charlton in the twenty years since Charlton was established was twice, and once was with Coach Danning. I dunno, some people just hold hope in their hearts that he’ll kick their butt again.”


“Maybe it’s the players,” I suggested.


“Or how cocky one win made Coach Danning. He overworks his players. They spend most of the practice out on the football field in ninety-degree weather, and no one is allowed in until after practice.”
“Wow,” I answered as I bit my lip. “I never knew he was so tough on the players.”


“Imagine having him for gym. It’s horrid.”


“I do. Next semester.”


“Bless your heart,” he said, but it was with a teasing voice as he attempted to smile. “No, seriously. If you’re Christian, count your prayers because he goes all out during gym class.”


I covered my face in agony. At least I had a semester until that awful day. I had to live with him at his house already; I didn't want to have to see him daily at school as well. That would have been absolute torture, especially if physical activities were involved.


“You look sort of green. You okay?” Keats asked me, his eyebrows furrowing together.


“I’m fine,” I lied, and he knew I wasn’t being honest. However, he also understood I didn’t want to talk about Coach Danning anymore, and so, like a gentleman, he changed the topic.

My mother died- it’s a flashback.
Most girls aren’t like me, and that’s good for them. Most girls don’t lose the only person they’ve ever truly loved with their whole hearts just as they’re growing up. They used to, when mothers frequented in childbirth and dying in it. But nowadays, everyone seemed to have a mother, even if they weren’t the fond of each other and maybe those girls fought with their mother, or their parents were divorced. Pity.



But I was fond of my mother.



I sat by her bedside, holding her hands. She was so drugged with anesthetics and morphine that she could barely speak or move—it wasn’t like she needed the strength to do that anyway. She had her eyes half-open to me, and I could see the fat tears that rolled down her flushed cheeks. I went up and touched the growing, small strands of dark brown hair. She had cut most of it off before it had fallen off, and after a few weeks off from chemo therapy and radiation, her hair had begun to come back.
“That was a miracle”, Dr. Bailey had said. I think that was what she said.



Too bad it didn’t matter anymore if she had hair or not.



“Ava,” she managed to whisper, and her face tightened at the pain of doing so. “I…love you. Don’t…worry. I’ll…always be…with… you…for…you…watching…you…”



Spiritually, maybe, but not physically. It wouldn’t be the same. She wouldn’t be there.



“I love you too, Mom,” I croaked out, and I was trying so hard not to cry. “I’ll miss you very much.”



“Your father…will take care…of you, I…promise.”



And she closed her eyes, too weak to say anything anymore. I lay my head down near her chest, trying to keep silent so I could hear the beats of her heart and her strained breaths. I wanted to know when she really was gone from me. She gave the last scrap of strength left in her to squeeze my hand, but it was so light a touch. It was like a breeze.



I watched her hand fall limp. I closed my eyes, hearing her rasp in her last breath and then rasp it out. Within the minute, her heartbeats stopped; her heart would be silent now.
Peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.
The sound of her heart monitor filled the room, a hurtful shrill.



I opened my eyes to the sorrowful doctor; I knew he had seen situations like this numerous of times before. He whispered to one of the nurses if she had managed to get through to my father and she said she had; he had told her he would be here as soon as possible.



But that was a lie. The hours ticked by as I sat in the lounge, where they had moved me after my mother had passed away. When he finally arrived, he simply took me by the arm and led me down to his Volvo. I got into the passenger seat and let him drive me to my new home, where my things had been moved to.



This car ride was the first moment we hadn’t spent our time together screaming and swearing at each other. Or yelling. Or throwing things at each other.



Upon arriving home, I rushed up to my new room and locked it. Boxes and bags crowded the floor, and an empty, lonely, bare bed was by the window. I threw myself on top of it and let myself weep. I cried for my mother, I cried for my father, and I cried for myself. I hated the world.



My father hadn’t been in my life for over fourteen years, and now, because of the dire circumstances, we had to play the part of daughter and father.



And now my mother was gone forever.



Some people would say that you died the way you deserved to die.



I was pretty sure no one deserved to die from cancer. Hell with that, I’m pretty sure no one deserved to die, except the bad guys.
I played with my chain. My mother gave me that when I was five years old.
I missed her. When she was gone, I felt this hole in my chest, and I can’t ever fill that hole.
But I hope. I hope and I pray.
I hope and I pray that someone, something can fill hat emptiness inside me.
I hope and I pray.
And I can’t help but get my hopes up.

Sometimes grief can take us by surprise. A loved ones dies. We feel overwhelmed by the grief welling up in us. We need a boat to hold onto, a hand to grasp.
Sometimes our grief is so deep that we can hardly feel it. It is more of an underground water reservoir than a flowing river. Yet we know it is there. We know we are not quite ourselves. We know we could use some help in bringing the river to the surface. Both a scary and a welcome idea.
And sometimes we just want some comfort. Comfort in the shape of words. Soothing words from those who have traveled the road of grief and loss before us. Who have gone through it. Who have let their grief and sorrow touch them. Change them. For the better.
“Don’t grieve because anything you lose will come back in another form.” Aunt Katelyn always says that. She’s my mother’s sister, and she faced no more of a loss than I faced.

Grief does not change you, it reveals you.

I wish I could convince myself to believe that.

Problem?
I can’t.

I’m crossing my fingers, and I’m praying to God I’m ready to move on. I have to move on. I have no choice.
To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.
To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.
To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.
It’s not letting go.
Letting go is hard. Holding on is harder.
Danielle L. Johnson once said, ‘a big part of letting go is to recognize when you can move on.’
Plus, you can’t reach for anything new if your hand is full of yesterday’s junk. Or rather, my mother’s memory.

I want to move on, but each time I raise my foot to step on the next chapter, my Mom comes along. This…cord inside me snaps and I look back, and grieve.
I have to stop grieving.

This is the point where I don’t look back, where I move on. I am moving on, with the existence of my mother restored in my reminiscence.
And if I’m going through Hell, let’s just keep going because grief itself is a medicine.
Sometimes, there comes a step in life where you don’t want to look back, but life forces you to, and that step makes you freeze in your spot. And you may, at that time, not be strong enough to resist temptation of the past.


It happened to me.

But now, I forced myself to look forward. So after this, fingers crossed I’m gonna go and I’m gonna move on.
Because I know that if Mom was here, she would want that.