Hunted

1

Zora laid in her mother's bed wrapped in a warm blanket. She took in a deep inhale to smell her mother's scent one more time. She tightened her eyes as hard as possible trying to hold back the tears. She knew that she needed to get up but she really wanted to just lay in bed and forget everything besides her mother.

She woke up hours later her body sore from laying down so long. She mustered up enough to get out of the bed. She walked into the living room that was filled with baskets of flowers and cards. All reminders of her mother's passing.

On the kitchen counter was the card from her father. A man she barely even knows. He sent a large bouquet with a note saying that if she needed anything to reach out to him. Zora knew this was all her mother's doing. Before she had passed she request that Zora reconnects with her father. Zora had no ambition to do that. He hadn't been there so there was no need to now.

She walked out of the kitchen and into the bathroom. She looked in the mirror at the bags under her eyes, her black curly disheveled onto of her head. The same clothes she had on the past few days. She just stared at herself, this thing that she was becoming. She closed her eyes and let out a deep breath. She did it twice more but tears rolling down her almond-colored cheeks.

She turned to the shower and turned it on filling the room with the thunderous noise of the water splashing on the shower walls. She undressed while looking in the mirror. Her body a curvy figure and her breast are still perky. Such a contrast of what she last saw her mother, a frail and sunken in person.

The shower was relaxing for her. The hot water running over her body made muscles relax that she didn't even know were tense. After a long show washing away more than just dirt from her body, she stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around her body. She walked to her room bypassing the living room and her mother's room. She quickly dried off and clothed herself before getting into bed once more and closing her eyes quickly driving off to seep.

The next morning she woke up to loud banging at the door and her phone going off at the same time. She jumped up out of the bed squinting her eyes looking for her phone. She answered the phone while she swung her body out of the bed.

"Hello." Her voice was shaky.

"Zo, what the hell? I'm at your house why aren't you answering?" A familiar voice said on the line.

"I was sleep, Gabby"

"Well I have been knocking for a while I thought something happened." Zora opened the door hearing her best friend in person and over the phone.

"You don't look as bad as I thought you were." Gabby threw her arms around her best friend holding on past the pull away Zora was trying to do.

"Thanks, I think."

Gabby finally released her and ushered them into the house. Gabby gasped as they walked int to the living room and seeing all the flowers and cards all over everything.

"What are you going to do with all of these? Are you going to throw them out? Or are you just waiting for them to die?" The last word trailed off as it left her lips. "I'm sorry Zo."

Zora winced a smiled before shrugging the questions off. Gabby walked over to the fridge and opened it. The fridge revealed container after container of food that she assumed came with the flowers. All of it untouched.

"Are you eating?"

"Yea." Zora lied.

She wasn't really sure why she lied to her best friend. Gabby knew Zora like the back of her hand. They had grown up together their whole lives. But ever since her mother died there has been such disconnect.