Count to Three

Cowardice

Dedicated to xRetroDreamerx for being sweet and adding my story to her reading list.

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"For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Chapter 4:

Waking up in a bed next to your mother who was supposed to be dead is a strange feeling.

A sensation of confusion coursed through my body, followed by relief, and of course, elation. As my eyes fluttered up and down repeatedly, I noticed that mom is here, and I'm not just living in a dream world.

"Mom?" I croaked. I was in desperate need of a drink.

"Baby?" She noticed that I was awake and signaled for the nurses outside. She informed them of my current state so that they could inspect me.

One nurse checked my vitals while another handed me a glass of cool water, which felt amazing on my desert-dry throat.

"Mom, you're dead. Why are you here?"

I was still in a phase of sleepiness and confusion, and had no idea why mom was here instead of in heaven with dad. I needed some information.

"Sweetie, I'm not dead. I'm right here," she chuckled, motioning down at her body, which was in fact right in front of me.

Mom was alive.

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A week after the incident, I found out that mom wasn't in the house as it burned. She was at work, where she always was at the time of the fire. I guess I was just paranoid. She wasn't able to make it to see me because of the fire, obviously.

She was living in a hotel room near the hospital, and she was going to visit today to see if anything wasn't completely ruined after the events of the other day.

I was being discharged tomorrow, and I couldn't be happier. Of course, my happiness was compromised by the fact that I had no address to return to.

Mom wanted me to go back to school immediately, as long as I was feeling up to it. I told her that I was able to go - I needed to go back. I already had piles of homework to make up.

When I returned to school, I felt an overwhelming sense of regularity. The long halls filled with teenagers, the classrooms that inhabited grumpy teachers, the homework that I procrastinated on - I missed it all. I hadn't been to school for a whopping three weeks and two days. The number of tests that I will have to take this week will be ginormous, but I'm not worried. The homework and studying will occupy my time in my hotel room.

After getting the necessities from my locker, I headed to Art, which happened to be the class I missed the most. I wondered if Jaxon still remembered who I was.

"Well look who decided to finally grace us with her presence!"

Speaking of the devil. Not really a devil, just like a really cute guy who talked to me. Why did he talk to me again?

"Huh?"

I hadn't decided what my excuse for being absent was, so I had no idea what I was going to say.

"Oh, I don't know. It's just that you don't show up for three weeks and here you are, like everything's normal. I was starting to think that you transferred schools because I scared you off or something," Jaxon chuckled.

"Um, no, I didn't transfer. I was...visiting my Great Aunt Pam. Her dog died and we had a funeral and everything," I sputtered lamely. I mentally smacked myself in the face. Seriously, Camilla? Your Great Aunt Pam's dog funeral? What kind of bullshit was that?