Being orphaned not three months ago, Allison Levi and her younger brother, William, were still trying to deal with the pain and inconceivable grief that Death left behind as he stole away their parents.
All Allison wanted was to be left alone with...
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Allison's POV
Insomnia's a funny thing. Your mind knows that you need to sleep. Your body feels the effects of the exhaustion. Unfocused bloodshot eyes stare back at you, barricaded by black circles, but despite this. Despite everything, sleep remains an elusive criminal hellbent on making your life more agonizingly painful than it already was.
It had been so long since I'd slept through the night without being disturbed by something, and last night wasn't any different.
Plagued with nightmares, I woke up in a cold sweat, panting as if I had just run a marathon, and I found myself near tears.
Not because the nightmares were terrifying, not because of the ever-darkening circles under my eyes, but because I was just so tired. I was tired of being at war with my own mind, and I was tired of having to go through the days pretending I wasn't exhausted.
I was just so tired.
I was tired, and I was alone. I didn't have anyone to talk to, to confide in, and I was drowning. The weight of my own grief was pushing me under the waves of fatigue, and I couldn't breathe. I just wanted one night of peace.
Was that too much to ask? The universe had taken my parents. It had taken my innocence and my youth. Could I not keep my sanity? I'd already lost too much, and it just kept ripping more away from me.
Was anyone safe? Would I ever be close to someone, to love them unflinchingly without the fear of them being stolen from me?
My answer was silence.
I could've called Caroline or Dot. They would have listened to me or sat with me in silence, and that would've made me feel so much better, but I didn't want that. If I was completely honest with myself, I didn't want this suffering to go away.
I didn't want the grief stamped upon my soul from my parent's death to dim because if it did, it meant that I was okay being in this world without them, and I wasn't.
I wasn't okay living my life without my mother by my side, braiding my hair, scolding me for my bad behaviour, only to yell at my Dad for laughing.
I wasn't okay continuing on without my Dad standing behind me like an immovable wall, scaring away boys and teaching me how to change a tyre.
But no matter how badly I wanted them to come home, to walk through those doors hand in hand with beaming smiles and twinkling eyes, I had to accept that they never would.
They were gone, and I left with a hole in my heart that could never, ever be filled because they were irreplaceable. No one would love me as they did, or protect me with such ferocity, or guide me so tenderly.
So, here I sat. On the floor in the middle of the kitchen, staring at the wall as if it held the answers to all my troubles.
