You Are My Only Sunshine

Chapter 19: Not Alone

Chapter 19

Not Alone

I found myself curled up in a ball the following morning, under my covers. I guess this is what it’s like, one morning I’m completely happy and excited, and the next I feel like I the pain is too unbearable to even get up. Under my covers I was taking deep breaths, trying to soften the pain I was feeling from just thinking again. My alarm started to go off. I let my arm crawl out of my covers, the cool air causing me to shiver, and hit the OFF button.

                I didn’t get up though.

                I don’t think I physically could.

                I pulled the covers around me harder and shoved my face into my pillow. I was thinking of mom again and it was killing me because I just wished she was here. I want her back, but she is never coming back, and that’s always unbearable to think about. When I wanted her like this, when I needed her like this, it killed me to know that- to know that she wasn’t coming back. Ever.

                All because she decided to leave.

                It was even harder to think about how she knew, how she had planned it. To think that she had planned her suicide. That she had written a note for dad to find, she knew that when she said goodbye to me, it was the last time she would ever see me. That it was the last time I would ever see her. She knew all of that, and she just didn’t care enough.

                And it was even harder to think about the pain she had felt. The pain she felt from cheating on my dad. The pain I feel now, about simply getting up to go to school.

                I lay in bed, the covers over me, and felt the tears leak down my face.

                Fifteen minutes passed and I heard my door creek open.

                “Quinn?” my dad asked. I could picture him stretching his head around the door, one foot in my room.

                “Hm?” I asked.

                “You need to get up for school. You’ve only got ten minutes left before you have to leave.”

                I peeked at my clock and pulled the covers over my head again. 

                “I don’t want to go,” I said, my voice cracking.

                “Why not?” he asked.

                “I think I’m sick,” I lied.

                There was silence and I heard the door open further as he walked in by me. But all I could think about is how much I wanted him to leave. I didn’t want him to bother me as I thought about mom. And I didn’t want him to see me crying about her. And I wanted him to go call school and then go to work so I could have the whole house to myself. But he sat down at the edge of my bed and tried to pull the covers down so he could talk to me, but I simply gripped them tighter so he couldn’t.

                “Are you sure you’re not feeling okay?” he asked me.

                If mom were here, she would have suspected instantly that I was lying. She would make me undergo a series of tests to see if I really was telling the truth. She would take my temperature, she would feel my forehead, she would look me in the eyes and make me tell her, that yes, I am sick, I am not lying. Then, if I were really sick she would call into work and stay with me. We would stay at home and watch movies and talk. If I weren’t sick, like I am now, she would attack me with tickles and make me admit I’m lying. She would ask me why I don’t want to go to school and maybe she would even let me stay home with her. She would still cancel work and stay home with me and we would watch movies together anyway.