Masks

Chapter Ten

Going home that evening was the worst. Dad had heard the news. He grabbed me the second I walked through the door and pulled me into a hug so tight I couldn’t breathe. The shoulder of my t-shirt felt wet. Dad was crying. I was crying. Neither of us could stop crying.

                “I’m sorry,” I murmured.

              “Don’t be ridiculous,” Dad sniffed. “None of this was your fault you hear me. Not this fire, not us moving here and not your mother and I getting divorced.”

I don’t know when things became about the divorce but the relief that came over me when he had spoken those words only caused me to cry harder. I gripped tightly onto his shirt and sobbed into his shoulder and I had never felt so small before.

                “I know it seems like she doesn’t love you,” Dad said. His voice was dragging. The words clearly weren’t easy for him to say. “But she does,” he went on, “her judgment is just clouded by her anger with me understand?”

I nodded wiping the tears from my face. Dad smiled wobbly. I had never seen Dad cry before. His face red and his eyes puffy, it was all so wrong. He tilted my chin so he could meet my eye.

                “And even if she didn’t, which she does,” he said, “it wouldn’t matter because I love you enough for the both of us. Okay?”

                “I love you too Dad,” I said.

                In true typical fashion I found myself staring out of my bedroom window that night and peeking up at the stars. I kept the tips of my fingers against the glass feeling the coolness of it calm me. I suppose it’s not all that surprising that after a near death experience you tended to do a lot of thinking. Thinking about yourself, the people around you and life and the universe in general. All the big unanswered questions of the universe seem to get bigger, seem to get more important and seemed to get more.

                It surprised me how much it bothered me that The R hadn’t been around. It felt like the only security that I thought I had had wasn’t there anymore. I realised I was being pathetic and I tried to forget about it.

                I screamed a lot that night too. My usual nightmare had changed, morphed so I wasn’t even sure it wasn’t real anymore. The line between my dream and reality was blurred. I ended up lying awake instead. I kept running through words and phrases in my head. I could hear them perfectly clearly.

“He’s not coming. No one is coming.”

“Avery!”

“It’s not that high I promise.”

“There isn’t always going to be someone there to save you!”

“He’s not angry with you. He’s angry with himself.”

“It’s not that high I promise.”

“It’s not that high I promise.”

“It’s not that high I promise.”

How had she known? Her power was wind. She couldn’t read my mind. No, the only one who came close was Mortal, Robinson had said so. But then how did she know? The question kept plaguing me. I envisioned her by shutting my eyes and forcing myself to remember every detail of her. Her face, her eyes, her smile, her small shoulders, the way her hand felt warm and light on my shoulder. It was all so familiar.

                I didn’t sleep a wink that night. Every noise bothered me; the creaking of the house, the wind outside, the birds, the cars, the squeak of the bed as I rolled over. I swore that around midnight I heard footsteps outside my window, and then the window being pulled open a crack, but when I looked there was nothing there. I told myself it was my being pathetic again.