Dead by Tomorrow

Chapter 33 | The Unlikely Candidates

Several days had passed since I last saw Ace. He didn't call, I didn't want to call. He was never around anymore, and I never wanted to search for him. It seemed like we were a part of a really short story that ended abruptly— like high school creative writing tasks tend to. I wasn't mad anymore, he hit me and I will never forget it, but I wasn't mad. Yes, he was drunk but drunk people can control themselves, I know they can. He just lost his way shortly, and I don't plan to help him find his way back to me unless he wants to do it on his own. I'm done helping people, it always comes back to taunt me.

I helped Caleb, he screwed me over.

I tried helping Ace, I screwed us both.

I won't try anymore.

Love is a terrible thing. From the moment we are born, we learn about loving others and accepting their love. They teach us that it is pure and good, that we need it, that we strive from it, that we are nothing without it. They tend to teach us only about love as a necessity, and they keep forgetting one thing. Love can be the end of us, but nobody teaches us about that. 

"Mia," Brie was at the other side of my bedroom door, trying to make me leave my room.

"Go away," I said.

"Mia—" she didn't know what to say. 

"Mia DePrentiss, you have exactly ten seconds to open that door, or I swear, I'll rip them open and then I'll rip that boy of your open as well and throw his heart in there." To say that grandma was fed up with my solitariness would be a heavy understatement.

"Grandma, please —"

"You're in no position to ask for anything right now! I'm heading home tomorrow, I want to see my granddaughter!" Damn, I forgot that she was leaving. 

-

Sitting at the kitchen table, I tried to avoid all the questions from Brie, but grandma was the one that surprised me. Every time Brie tried to pry, she'd shut her up. Every time I would look out the window, grandma would give me space. 

She knew what heartbreak felt like.

"Grandma, would you mind if I went to see some friends?" I asked, moving the plate away from me, my lack of appetite showing.

"Not at all, deary," she smiled at me, her eyes holding the sincerity of her words.

"Thank you."

I tried to sit with them for a while, but I was nervous. I didn't want to speak, I wanted to do something else. I wanted to feel at peace. And that is how I ended up visiting my old safe place.

I was wandering the forest that used to be my safe zone, only hearing my feet tread, and a few birds kicking the branches with their wings. Underneath my feet, the twigs were cracking and leaves softly murmuring under the heaviness of my foot. The smell of sadness hovered in the air. I passed through the family of oak trees chatting together, and I was finally there. 

It looked like nothing had changed. All the decorated pit-like rings were still there. A yellow shabby couch nested on the yellow grass. Old fire pits held only ashes inside them, the fire was long extinguished. There were markings of different colors on trees, arrows, and dashes showing the way around for those that would come there for the first time. Everything was the same, yet everyone had changed. The place can hold so many memories of people that once exited there, but those people could change so much that the place wouldn't even be able to recognize them.

We all changed. 

Maybe it was for the better.

For God knows how many times, I threw myself on the yellow couch, and lifted my head up. The sky was blue, with only a few little, happy clouds hovering over me. It was beautiful, peaceful. A soft breeze caressed my face and I smiled at it, as it could have seen me. All of a sudden, everything turned pitch-black, and in the periphery of my vision, I saw a silhouette standing next to one of the oak trees.