Fearless?

Fearless? - Chapter Fourteen

‘I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear,’

- Nelson Mandela

Chapter Fourteen

Azelie lay awake on her bed, wide awake, her memories playing with her brain. Her thoughts drifted back to Cole and his sister. How much they loved each other. Would Azelie and her younger sister have been like that? Would they have loved each other that much or would they had fought like her cousins back in Florida had? 

Azelie had been seven when her sister died. Azelie remembered perfectly kissing her younger sister on the forehead. Her hair had fallen out because of the chemotherapy a few months ago, but she still looked as beautiful as she had before they found out that she had cancer. Azelie hadn’t understood just how sick her sister had been, she hadn’t understood exactly what cancer meant. To her, it was like the flu. It would make her really sick for a little while, but then the doctors would give her some special medicine which would make her all better again. But of course, cancer isn’t like the flu, at least her sister’s hadn’t been. 

Azelie remembered helping her parents put her to bed that night, her father carried her sister up the stairs, while her mother held Azelie’s hand. Her father lay her down softly on her bed, watching as her eyes weakly shut. He slowly leaned down and gently kissed her on the forehead, her mother doing the same, tears streaming down both their faces as her father held her mother while she attempted to stifle her sobs as she gazed at both her daughters as Azelie bent to kiss her sister on the cheek before whispering goodnight to her. The action caused Azelie’s mother to let out a loud sob, unable to control it any longer. Azelie hadn’t realised until she was older that her mother and father had been expecting her sister to die that night. The doctors had told them earlier in the day that they had done all they could, that it was a matter of time. They had taken her out of the hospital, away from all the machine which could no longer help their youngest daughter. She died peacefully in her sleep, surrounded by those who loved her.

Tears rolled down Azelie’s cheeks as she tried unsuccessfully to choke them back. Seeing Cole and his sister had been too much. The girl was only a few years older than her sister had been when she died. It had brought up too many memories. 

Haley had been the first to die. The first on the list of seven names.

Every Sunday after her death, her and her parents would make their way to her grandparents house. However, little did they know that in only a couple of months, while driving their usual route to the little cottage where her grandparents lived, a truck driver would fall asleep at the wheel - and crash straight into their car. 

They were the second and third names on the list. The list of seven names that haunted Azelie in her nightmares.

Her alarm clock rang, signaling 6AM, Azelie instantly jumped out of bed, glad to have a distraction, before changing into her joggers and a t-shirt and slipping her running trainers on to her feet. She grabbed her ipod from her bedside unit and left her room, tip toeing past Ted’s bedroom and down the stairs. She swiftly walked into the kitchen, digging her water bottle out of one of the cupboards before filling it up to the brim with ice cold water. She then made her way out of the kitchen, holding her bottle in one hand and her ipod in the other as she walked up to the front door.