Twice Burned

Zoe

Every day I woke up it was grey. 

Grey walls, grey bed, grey sky. Everything I knew felt grey. I could see the colors of everyone else's lives except mine, because mine felt empty.

Tommy Carter is my best friend. He and I were inseparable by age 21, and married at age 22. I love him with all my heart, and he loves me the same. But of course, he's a military man...just like my father.

My father died in the military when I was just 14, leaving my mother, sister and I with broken hearts and a broken family. He told me of wonderful things before he died, like magic and the moon's wishes. Of course, I didn't believe him, until three years after he died, and I made a wish on the moon. It brought me to a magical world named Fluttershy, where I became a fairy. It sounds crazy, and maybe it was, because that was eight years ago, and now I was left with nothing.

Tommy is overseas right now, fighting to protect me and the country. I love him so much, but I don't get to see him everyday like most wives do. I don't get to come home and see him watching a football game, or just settling down from a long day's work. I worry for him deeply, just like I did for my father when he was alive. But all I can do is wait.

Snow covered my windowsills as I sat up in bed, shining through to my eyes. I yawned and stretched, then after a long period of rest, throwing my sheets out of my way and getting off the mattress. It had been a year since I last saw Tommy, but I still carried the worry of his absence with me every day. When I went to work, I get to forget that pain in my kid's faces as I enter my classroom, but now it's holiday break for everyone, and I get to spend it alone.

I made breakfast for myself and sat in my empty dining room, the other foot of the table bare and lonely, just like I was. It was almost comical, staring at a blank wall by myself eating my eggs and bacon. For some reason, I smirked and took another bite.

And jumped when I heard my phone go off next to my coffee.

"Hi sweetheart!" I heard a voice say when I answered my phone.

"Hi Mom." I replied, hearing her cheery voice and letting it consume my pain inside. "What's up?"

"Well, I was just wondering if you would like to join me for lunch today, at Vivra Verra's?" She sounded like she wasn't inviting me, rather than asking for permission.

"What time, do you think?" I asked.

"How about, 11:30?" She replied. I smiled and nodded, even though she couldn't see those.

"Sure, Vivra Verra's, 11:30, got it." I replied. There was a small pause in our conversation, until I spoke my mind and wondered aloud, "Will Kayli be there?"

I could hear an audible sigh from my mother on the other side of the phone, and I could tell somehow that she had her hand on her forehead, disappointed.

"No, she's off in New York trying to get some of her fashion designs approved by her boss. She said she'd be here by now, but she called me this morning to tell me she switched her flight out for a later one. Sounds like Kayli won't be here until a week before Christmas." My mom explained.

"Oh, okay." I said, a little disappointed myself. "Do you know if her designs for this late fall came through?"

"I don't really know the whole story, but it sounds like one or two got passed and are being made for next year. It also sounds like her boss wants her to work in the lower levels of the industry at this point in her career though, or something like that. I don't know the exact terminology she gave me, but I do know she's not happy about it."