⇾ 𝐃𝐎𝐍'𝐓 𝐋𝐄𝐓 𝐌𝐄 𝐃𝐎𝐖𝐍 | 𝐉𝐨𝐡𝐧 𝐋𝐞𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐧 𝐈𝐈

𝚇𝚇𝚇𝚅

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚛𝚝𝚢-𝙵𝚒𝚟𝚎 → 𝙸𝚝'𝚕𝚕 𝙰𝚕𝚕 𝙱𝚎 𝙾𝚔𝚊𝚢 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙴𝚗𝚍

⊹ 𝟷𝟶-𝟷𝟶-𝟷𝟿𝟼𝟾 ⊹

My mother swore to me that she'd live long enough to meet her second grandchild. Unfortunately, it was hard to control something as large as life. The whole day had been a blur of black attire and cloudy skies. It reminded me of my father's funeral so long ago. I remembered hearing the crying around me, and I remembered leaving in the middle of the service with John. There was a difference, now, though. I was a whole lot more upset now that it was my mother who was in the casket that had just been lowered into the ground.

There had been a gathering at 20 Forthlin Road after the burial, but I hadn't wanted to go. I wasn't hungry for any of the food that was being offered. I wasn't in the mood for any of the condolences that the people there would surely have for me. I didn't even know half of the people who had been at the funeral, and it was hard for me to believe that they knew my mother well enough to be crying in the overly-hysterical way that they were.

People tried to soften the blow. They had tried to tell me that my mother was strong and that not many people could have fought the battle that she had. They tried to tell me that she was in a better place now, but that wasn't comforting in the slightest. I wasn't in a better place now. I was more depressed than I had been in years.

As soon as I made it back to my father's old house, I went to bed. I tore the horrible black dress from my body and crawled under the covers. I hadn't cried yet, not since I had been told of my mother's passing. I'd very nearly fainted when I heard the news, and I'd cried myself dry for the rest of the day.

Julian hadn't taken the news of his grandmother's passing so well either. I felt awful for him. This had all happened so fast, and I could barely make sense of it all. I couldn't imagine how he must have felt, too young to understand at all why his grandmother had been so rudely torn away from him. He had gone with Paul to Jim's house because Paul thought that John and I needed some time alone.

It was hard for me to believe that this was actually happening. I didn't want to believe it. It all felt like some dream, some nightmare that I just couldn't wake up from. It was like I'd downed an entire bottle of sedatives and taken LSD at the same bloody time.

My entire body felt numb, from my head to my toes. I'd been laying on my left side, barely breathing, since I'd made it home, which had been about three hours now. I wasn't sure where John was in the house. He knew that I needed space. I'd been snappy with him for the past few days, moody from the whole ordeal, but he had been so patient. He'd never once gotten short with me, something that he was awfully guilty of doing in the past.

For the first time in God knows how long, the bedroom door opened. The hinges creaked longer than I would have liked as John entered the room slowly so as not to disturb me too much.