to actually brush out my hair well, and apply some make-up generously.
I almost looked like myself again, but I could see past this.
As I looked at myself in the mirror of my bathroom, noticing my long dark brown hair had seemed to turn a shade darker; into almost an onyx black, I could tell. Behind these blue eyes, sat a little girl on the inside, crying, and scared. But I couldn’t let others see this little girl. I had to act like I was ok, then maybe they would forget about me, and let me alone to my thoughts, and my problems.
I jumped as the face of Daniel’s reflection appeared beside me.
My heart exploded into a race as he appeared fully in the reflection of the mirror.
“Daniel,”
At his name he smiled, but as I took another step towards the mirror, I watched as he disappeared.
Don’t go.
I quickly squeezed my eyes shut to hold back tears, and I turned from the mirror.
Was I going crazy?
Daniel hadn’t been there, it was just my imagination playing tricks on me. Just like when I had woke up this morning. Daniel hadn’t been in my room either, that had to have been a dream.
Why did my mind have to come up with these things? Was I trying to torture myself?
Walking out of my bathroom I shook my head, taking a breath before walking down the old creaky wooden stairs. I made an effort to not slip on the bottom step like I always had, but of course that didn’t work. I ended up slipping off the last step, but the only difference this time, was Daniel wasn’t there to stop me from falling.
The impact to the ground wasn’t too hard, but it knocked the wind out me in an instant, and I felt a slight pain rise in my back.
“Jade, are you ok?” My father’s big voice called out from the living room.
Before I could even say anything, he and my mother came rushing over to me, kneeling over me to look for any sign of being hurt.
“I’m fine, I just slipped,”
My father slowly helped me back to my feet, his hand staying on my shoulder as he led me towards the kitchen.
I wanted to swat him away, and insist that they both stop treating me like I was made of glass, but I didn’t really have the energy to put up a fight over it.
My parents always have treated me like this, even before the… accident.
They had tried having a baby so many times, for years, but my mother kept having miscarriages. The doctors had told them it was going to be extremely unlikely that my mother would be able to successfully give birth.
So when I came along it surprised everyone.
That’s all I could figure, as to why they babied me so much, and treated me like if someone was to breathe too hard on me, I would break in half.
I couldn’t say that it didn’t bother me sometimes, but it was better then having parents that didn’t really care what happened to you.
“Are you sure you’re alright, that sounded like a hard fall?” My mother asked, walking over to the counter to retrieve a plate for of pancakes, and a glass of tea.
I slowly lowered myself into a seat at the table, watching as my father took a seat across from me, and continued reading his newspaper, only glancing over to me a few times, as if to make sure I was alright.
“I’m sure, don’t worry about it,”
Hopefully the pain in my back would go away soon, I wasn’t sure if I like it being there, it was distracting, and it reminded me that when I’m hurt, or about to fall… my Daniel wouldn’t be there, I didn’t have anyone.
Just my parent.
And that wasn’t wrong, and I knew that, and I knew I should think of myself to be lucky to have such caring parents, but honestly… they didn’t understand me. They didn’t know what I was going through, all they saw was their daughter locking herself up in her room, away from the world, just because she is sad her boyfriend died.
That wasn’t what I was feeling at all.
I mean, I was sad yes. But there was so much more to it then I was able to speak about. In my mind I see his face, I almost still feel his touch lingering over me, but what really hurts the most was that knowing that it was my fault for him not being here.
His parents blamed me for everything, which I didn’t blame them, although they never would admit such things out loud, I saw it in the way they had looked at me that day I had found out what happened.
They believe that I have taken their son away from them, and they were right.
But they would never understand the pain this caused me to.
“Jade dear, eat up, the pancakes will get cold,” My mother said sitting down in the seat beside my father, watching me with slight concern in her features.
I hadn’t even noticed that she had set the plate down in front of me.
“Oh, sorry,”
Slowly I picked up my fork, ignoring the trembling of my hand as I stabbed it into my pancake, cutting each piece up into squares.
It had been so long since I had eaten something freshly made, and warm. I usually just stuck to eating the stalled potato chips that I had found in a bag under my bed or the crackers that my mother would slide under my door.
The first bite of it had sent a sensation through my mouth, triggering my appetite.
In no time I had ate all the pancakes, and was chugging down the warm tea with silent satisfaction.
“How was that?” My father wondered, now having the newspaper set down, watching me closely.
I shrugged, for the first time in week, almost giving him a smile.
“It was really good,”
My mother now beamed, standing up quickly to get my plate, and cup.
“Do you want some more?” She asked eagerly.
I knew that if I did stay here, and let her cook more then I would end up getting sick, and puking, and that was something I didn’t want to do again. I had a hard enough time just keeping down the potato chips, and crackers I had ate this for the week.
“No, thank, I’m good,” I nodded, and stood up, looking towards the front door of the house.
“Off to greet the neighbors?” My father asked, standing up as well, lifting up his cup of coffee to his bearded face, taking a big swig of it.
“Yeah, I guess,”
My mother raced back over to me after putting my plate and cup into the dishwasher.
“Make sure you wear a jacket, it’s getting chilly,”
“I will,” I nodded, and let her lead me to the door.
“Take your time alright,” She continued watching me with a motherly expression.
I wanted to roll my eyes at her.
There truly was no need for me to take my time to greet new neighbors, I wasn’t going over there to socialize, I was just going over to make her happy, and hopefully stop her from trying to push me into doing anything else.
“Ok mom,” I muttered, and slipped my jean jacket over my shirt, buttoning it up, before opening up the front door, taking in the frost that covered the grass in out front yard.
I swallowed, glancing around at the world around me, noticing the movements of others people walking around, cars zooming past, and children’s laughter echoing off the trees.
I had almost forgotten what the outside was like.
So alive…it was like the events of Daniel’s death didn’t even happen. The people all still walked around, and smiled, greeting each other, offering joyful conversations. Dogs still snapped growls at anyone that passed their houses. The birds still flew around the skies, landing down on the trees to watch the children run around, squealing as they played.
This only seemed to darken my mood more as I stepped out onto my porch, gently closing the door behind me.
A feeling came over me as I did so, and I shivered. The pain that once hung around inside me, that every now and then would give it a stab, was gone, and replaced with a hollow, numb feeling.
I wasn’t sure I liked it, but I forced my legs to continue on,
down the few stairs of my porch. Taking my time I looked around at the weeds that had grown up through the gravel of my driveway.
My father must have been busy lately, he hasn’t tended much to the outside work, and not even the grass was cut. The yard was overrun by a forest of green, and patches of weeds.
Hopefully this wasn’t because of me that he hasn’t been able to go out and take care of the house. I didn’t want to be the reason that my parents had to sit around and constantly worry. They had their own life to worry about as well.
I didn’t even make it to the end of my driveway, before I heard a familiar voice calling to me.
Biting my lip, I turned slowly in the direction of the voice, trying not to frown as my old neighbor, Sam Matthews came jogging over.
“Hey Jade, haven’t seen you around forever,” He stated, giving me a warm smile, that I didn’t really find necessarily reassuring.
He was obviously looking for explanations from me; he wanted to know if I was cracking on the inside, purely so he would be able to tell the whole world the big news. That yes, I was having trouble with Daniel’s death.
“Yeah, I’ve been real busy,” I lied smoothly, taking in his grey eyes as they analyzed my outfit.
“Lost weight I see,”
“Yeah, um, my mom is kinda on a heath kick I guess,”
He nodded coyly, and patted my shoulder. “Are you doing ok, after what happened with Daniel?”
I paused, gritting my teeth for a moment, forcing myself to stay emotionless towards his words. At the same time, I tried keeping my eyes from watering up again.
I was tired of crying, I was tired of being asked if I was ok.
“I’m doing fine,” Was all I said, before walking forward, letting