The Wish From Heaven | ✓

chapter 20 : dawn's room

After all, the older we grew, the lesser memories we started sharing.

Dawn still lives in this house, stuck as a seventeen year old high schooler, forever and evermore, just like he wanted.

Overwhelmed and on the verge of tears, I get lost inside the photographs, at the smiling face of my best friend in every one of them. For this moment, I don't want to get back to the physical world, where Dawn and his smile no longer exists.

"Cedar?" Her voice snaps me away from my reverie. For one panicked moment, I hesitate to turn back and look at her, expecting there to be an expression of contempt and disdain on her face. But when I do, I see Mrs. Ambers right there, looking at me with the same emerald eyes inherited by Dawn, which are now filled with a surprised happiness. Relief floods my heart.

"Auntie," I say, feeling so terribly happy seeing her that I forget to move. She walks up to me and gently grabs my arms with both her hands, and looks me up all over. Then her hands move to my cheeks, the smile in her face growing wider despite of the tears accumulating in her eyes.

I remember how she had been that day. Her face unrecognizable with immense grief, she was wailing sitting beside the coffin box, desperately asking her son to wake up. That day, for the first time, I witnessed a mother's sorrow upon losing her child, and it was the most heartbreaking scene that my eyes will ever see.

"Oh, my dear Cedar!" She pulls me to a hug, which I return. This is the closest I will ever get to a mother's embrace.

That day too, she had held me and Destiny tightly as she cried. She had told me how the night before, Dawn had requested her to bake a cake for his birthday. He had even told her to put a lot of cherries on top, because I love them. But they had run out of baking powder, so Aunt Diana told him that she would do it the next day.

But Dawn couldn't wait for another day.

I put my hand on the back of her head. I tell her, "I'm so sorry, Auntie."

"There's nothing to be sorry about," she says, pulling back. She caresses my hair, a look of profound affection in her face. I wonder why my own mother does not look at me with such affection, even though I do everything I can to make her happy. "I'm just so happy to see you again."

"Me too."

"Ah, I'm getting so emotional." She wipes the corner of her eye with a finger to remove the tears. "But I don't want to cry in such a happy moment! Today, when I woke up in the morning, I just had a hunch that something is different about the day. Which is why I made pancakes after a long time. And look, you came!" She laughs heartily, and I smile in return. I haven't felt so light in what seems to be a million years.

She smiles at me. It becomes smaller when she asks, "You want to go to his room, don't you?"

I glance at the closed door on the other corner of the house. I draw in a deep breath, turn my eyes back to her and say, "Yes, but first, I want to talk to you. And Des, too." I smile at Dawn's little sister, who is sitting on one of the sofas.

"Oh, then let me go finish the pancakes, first!" Aunt Diana says, "You can sit with Destiny until then." I nod. She pats my cheek and heads back to the kitchen, muttering how she has to borrow some honey from Mrs. Giovanna next door.

I sit beside Destiny. We smile awkwardly at each other. I used to get along very well with her, but I suppose now that all this time has passed, it is hard to make a conversation. I observe her features. She is fourteen this year, but her physical growth seems to be a lot faster than Dawn's was at this age. She has taken more after their father Mr. Adrian in terms of looks. She has had a bad problem of allergies since she was a kid, so her milk tea skin is filled with marks left by too much scratching. The one on the side of her neck seems fresh.