The Art of Learning to Breathe

T w e l v e

I yawned loudly making all the attention snap back to me.

"You should get some rest, Addie," grandfather whispered, a sad tone laced in his voice as he noticed what I was looking at, or in fact who was in the centre of my attention. I nod before standing up.

"Goodnight," I whisper before grasping my bags and walking up the crooked staircase, which was in definite need of some fixing from the cracking noises as I stepped foot on each board, making me feel as if the staircase would fall apart under me.

I flick the hallway switch on and snap my head back to the constant chatter coming from the living room. My feet tap against the floorboard as I walk past the several doors that were scattered across the hallway.

Finally, after opening each door trying to remember which guest room I always used to stay in, I reach the room that I had always claimed first. As I walk inside and shut the door quietly, my bags seem to already be across the room thrown in the corner. I smile as I run to the other side of the bedroom and throw myself on the double bed that had elegantly been made.

With cushions and blankets thrown across the spread, surprisingly looking extremely elegant and neat, I throw my head back in delight and begin to throw my arms around as if I am doing a snow angel of some sort.

I stand up finally shaking my ridiculousness and childish behaviour off as I walk around the room, feeding my curiosity. My fingers slide across the wooden dresser as I glance at the photos that were displayed. Some of me, some of my father and his sisters, some of my cousins but mostly of grandma Louisa.

As my fingers glide across the rough surface of the wooden dresser and dust scatters in the air making me insanely begin to cough when the dust that was once flying in the atmosphere falls inside my throat, giving an itching sensation. I run towards the en suite that laid just next to the room and instantly turned on the tap in hope that the coughing would stop.

Thankfully, after what seemed like taking in gallons of water the itching sensation had stopped as well as the irritating coughing which almost sounded as if somebody was dying upstairs, and that person is me.

I walk back into the room and hover my fingers where they had previously been and squeezed my lips tight, trying to not choke on any dust as I had previously. My fingers come to an immediate halt as they hover across the frames on the dresser and stop when I notice a small book laying on the side. I grasp the hard cover and flop back onto the bed before opening the album ready to reminisce the past I so dearly hung onto in hope that one day, times would turn out to be just as good as they were years back, like the times which were trapped in between the dusty pages of the album.

A buzz vibrates throughout my whole body as I walked down the stairs as the sun shone through the windows in the door. I grasp my phone which I had placed in my back jeans pocket previously and my eyes scanned the screen which lit up with only a swipe of a finger.