Fragmented

Chapter Nineteen

TW: Mention of death

A few lone stars hung low in the lightening sky, reluctant to fall beneath the horizon. Bare tree limbs whizzed by overhead. Birds were beginning to wake and fill the air with song as a small car rushed by, left alone on the road at that hour.

Sabre glanced over at Alyssa. She was resting her head on her hand as she stared out the window glumly. She had changed into a dark green shirt and black leggings that morning. The car was silent, save for the radio playing softly in the background.

He decided to break the silence. It was risky, but he couldn't stand the stifling awkwardness it pressed on him for much longer. "So... what can you tell me about where you left your weapon? You know, for when we get there."

"Hm?" She glanced over at him. "Oh, uh... I hid it in a pile of leaves against a wooden fence. The fence was a light brown, I'm pretty sure. Better hope that we can see it easily in the dark."

"Where did you find a sword, anyway?"

She didn't answer him for a moment, her lips pressed tightly shut as she stared out the window. "I think we should focus more on how we're going to get to it than where it's from." It was a suspicious answer, but she was right.

"Okay. Well, what does the area around it look like? Is there anything to hide behind so we don't get spotted?"

"Yeah, there's quite a few large bushes that mostly hide the area. I can't guarantee complete cover, though. You can partially see through the branches. We'll have to be in and out."

"Yeah." They sat silently. Sabre was running out of things to talk about. He tried another very risky approach.

"What can you tell me about yourself?"

Without looking back at him, she responded, "I'd rather not talk about it."

"Oh. Uh, that's okay."

"What about you?"

"Me?" He didn't see the harm in sharing his life story. If he did, then maybe some of her walls could be broken down and he could finally have a complete conversation with her. "Well, I was born in the suburbs of one of the big cities around here. My dad left when I was little, so raising me was my mom's job. It was... rough, to say the least. Money was tight, and my mom was working two jobs just to support us. Because of that, I didn't really have any friends.

"Then I met Lucas and Ryan. We were around six or seven, but one day I stumbled upon their base in Ryan's backyard. They asked me to join them in their game, even though they didn't know me at all. After that, we were inseparable.

"The first time I went to Lucas' house, his mom was shocked by the amount of mud that we were covered in. We had played outside for a while and fallen into a large mud puddle." He smiled at the memory. "She made us change after that. Then she asked for my mom's phone number so that she could let her know of any other messy situations after that.

"I'm pretty sure that Lucas' mom learned about our financial situation pretty early and began helping out, because a few months after we met, my mom decided to go on a shopping spree with me. She let me pick out my own clothes for the first time. They were brand new, a rarity back then for us.

"When I was seventeen, my mom grew very sick. We didn't know about it then, but she had had cancer for such a long time... No one knew until one day in early May when she told me that she was feeling constant nausea and dizziness all the time. We went to a doctor, and..." He sighed.

"She had stage four breast cancer. It was such a hard thing to hear, for both her and I. She was tough, I had thought. There was a good chance she would survive." He was silent for a second, reliving bits and pieces of the memory in an instant. "She died a few weeks later."