Guilty

This was it. I was going to jump. After this it’s all over. I glance at the rushing waves striking the jagged rocks, maliciously beckoning me to jump. I am going to do it, I tell myself. All you have to do is jump.

But what if something happens?

No I can’t afford to think like that. Just jump. I swallow my fear and resistance. I glance at my mother. She is rubbing a golden locket which was an old habit. I get prepared to dive, trying to not let my cautious senses take over and convince me to stay put. I jump. It’s that simple. I lept off the cliff, the waves rushing at me. Its icy fingers wrapping me in its cool embrace.

    “CUT!” I hear Mr. Smith, the crabby old director, shriek as I hit the water. “Send in a rescue team,” he speaks once again, a little bit after, calmer this time. How can I hear that. I shouldn’t be able to hear that. It’s impossible. My whole body was underwater. Yet I could.

How? I don’t know.

Something happened. Something unexplainable.

No… it can’t be. Only then did I realize I was slowly sinking to the bottom of the lake. There’s only one explanation… I try to move my arms to swim upward in the now calm water. My arms don’t move, my eyes never blinking. I see the rescue team trying to find me even though my head is limp, facing the other direction. I’m here! I’m here! I yell, but no sound comes out, my mouth not opening. I feel myself floating to the surface, my body only sinking lower and lower.

    “I found her!” Billy, the oldest boy on the rescue team, shouts. I’m right here, I try to whisper. But no one can hear me, not even myself. I hear Billy whisper something just loud enough for my mother to hear. My body lies out of reach, motionless, not breathing, not blinking. My mother puts her head in her hands, trembling, alone and afraid, like a lost puppy. I wish I could reach over and comfort my hysterical mother. But it is no use. I have to stay and watch her cry, not being able to help in any way. Guilty, guilty, guilty of making my mother depressed and lonely. I know she will cry for weeks, same as she did for my only sibling Sylvie and my father when they passed. This time she has no one left. Just a  lonely widow. And it is all because of this stupid movie.

I see the her golden locket dangling from her neck catching the tears that escape her pruning hands. That locket was passed down for 24 generations. Except the only thing different about that locket is instead of the picture of my ancestors it contained a picture of us. The last picture we took as a complete family: my dad, my mom, Sylvie, and me.  

I will never leave her side. I promised myself that after Sylvie died. And I will stick to that promise whether I am  dead or alive.