The Brink of Eternity

Chapter Sixteen: T Is For Trauma

Jude p.o.v:

Love.

Four letters that constituted a word widely used.

A different word in each of the hundreds of languages known to man, and just as many definitions.

An escape, a prison. A sanctuary, a violation. Perhaps a sky that you soared in, or an ocean that pulled you down deep.

Though no matter what we shaped it into, it was defined by how we reacted to it.

Cause if you looked hard enough you'd always find love lurking around in almost everything that humans were drawn to do.

Whether it was a mother and her child, a girl fantasising about her prince charming, or a boy waiting for the man of his dreams.

Because no matter how you shaped it, or what people you put together, love was forever going to be either the one thing that made you take a step back from the edge, or what made you jump off.

And as my father took a stroll down my memory lane he saw both sides of the coin.

The funny, yet weird, thing about our minds was how they choose to vividly remember a few things, but completely concealed others under masks of repression.

Which explained why my dad appeared roughly eighteen years younger when I remained the same age.

I watched him walk through my mind -literally- and looked around, wondering where to start. It was like getting a VIP backstage access.

I'd like to have said it was this organised place with doors and dates and titles and everything alphabetically sorted, but that was nowhere near what was actually there.

Apparently, my memories were conveyed through little souvenirs of monuments from the countries I'd run away to.

A small Eiffel Tower lay next to a ticking Big Ben and the leaning tower of Pisa.

The floor was littered with the souvenirs.

I kind of gave myself credit cause not one souvenir was like the other.

Though I did wonder how my dad was ever going to be able to go through them like this.

Dad quickly, and unknowingly, provided an answer. He picked up one that was shaped like my bed back at Heal House.

Everything came back so vividly; the pale white walls, the folds on the grey bed sheet. and the comfort that came from Kai holding me.

It was indeed a dramatic day, and night. And my dad watched it unfold. Kai was holding me while I sobbed, and that seemed like the one thing I was able to do.

This memory wasn't what was blocking me. Dad did not need to see it. I didn't want him to.

I tried to block it, but it felt like my soul was literally being dragged out of me at the slowest speed possible, making sure I felt every bit of the pain.

Imagine unravelling a ball of yarn, but from the centre outwards not the other way around. Something like that.

Apparently dad really did have a strong hold over me.

Soon enough he realised this wasn't what he was looking for, and we were back to the cluttered hallway.

I realised dad wasn't able to see me there when he walked right through me to discover more of the clutter.

He used one tiny statue of a tree, which I realised was the time I'd met Hazel and Adam. I spotted one of an acorn, and another of a big Ferris wheel thrown in the clutter but they didn't catch my father's eye.