GOLDWING (ing version)

chapter 38

VICTORIA'S POV

"Life won't give you something you can't handle," many around me used to say. But that's a lie. Of course life does. No one is prepared to bury their child, to say goodbye to a person they raised. That is a lot for a human soul to process and endure. But, we have no choice but to survive it.

It has been 2 months since that horrible dawn in that French hospital, and since I left the hospital. 2 months that in a way, my world came crashing down. There wouldn't be enough hugs or enough affection to minimise the pain, it was always still there. When I woke up, when I slept, and while I slept. She's like my mother. I remember her every day, even though it's been almost 10 years since she left. Her little face was etched in my mind, even though I never had the opportunity to have held her. I stayed in the ICU for 2 weeks. On the sixth day, the day Angel died, I went into a diabetic coma, and only woke up days later. And the day after I woke up, my room filled with doctors again, family members.

 "Angel's a little star now, Victoria". Those words hurt me in a way no blade could. 

1 week after remaining under surveillance, I was discharged, though I rejected almost all food but water and some specific cookies. Walking out of that hospital without my Angel in my arms was something I had never thought of doing. Already walking, I walked to the van, hand in hand with Dam. We needed some time alone, to grieve, to rest. For weeks, I clung to Dam in his bed as I cried myself to sleep, and he would wipe away my tears, shower me with kisses and make me well until I remembered Angel minutes later. He was always with me, everywhere. I couldn't see my body, who was once a harbor for someone, as a beautiful place as I used to see. My belly wasn't flat, almost no pants entered in my hips. The world kept turning, but to me it felt like it was standing still. We had gigs scheduled around Europe as part of our new project that had to be postponed as soon as we heard I was having "health problems", and had been scheduled for next month. As it turns out, next month arrived, and I would have to move on. Damiano, Ethan and Thomas kept insisting that I should wait, and rest. 

However for me, staying home only made me even more buried. I felt like I had died, and that they had forgotten to bury me. But when I studied for university, or when I played bass, or even when I had sex with Dam, I felt a little bit alive again. It was what distracted me from the subject.

 My recovery was excellent, in the doctors' words. I had a scar about 10 centimetres across my lower belly and scars on my psyche that I wasn't sure will heal very well. My belly was still swollen, and slowly, I was losing all the weight I had gained in pregnancy. For a long time, I had on a small chair in my room what I had put on before coming to Paris: a new baby outfit, a very small pair of Dr Martens and a whole maternity bag. Admittedly, I wasn't the mother who worried the most about her pregnancy, but I used most of my free time to take care of everything that would make Angel comfortable. There was a room in my house that used to be full of old clothes stuff or food reserves. Two months ago, I had emptied that room with my sister's help and all the things I already had for her were there. Inside a cupboard in my room, were her little clothes, which were not many. In that room, there were 4 pieces of unassembled furniture, 1 bathtub and a rocking chair that I used to sit there and rest. One day, I took advantage that Damiano wasn't home, and ignoring the doctor's orders to rest, I slowly assembled her cot, with some pain in squatting and picking up heavier things. But I put it together, after four hours. I was dying in pain, but at least I had done that.