The Afterlife

19) Count with me, from One, Two, Three

Even the clouds in the sky were silenced, and not a single soul dared emit noise to face that which came from one of the rooms of Paradise Grove.

Hours came and went like that, and no matter what many things changed in the world through them, there was nothing to change the hold the family of four had on each other. It was impossible, and so it was never worth trying.

The tears on Mia's face never dried, but perhaps they only multiplied; they were no longer left to spill on their own, however. They were embraced in a warm tuck that felt eternal, a clench that took away all other beings and left just the ones the girl needed to breathe.

She cried for hours, and while sometimes she would say it was because how badly she missed them, other times she would keep shaking her head in utter disbelief. It was hard to make her stop, and even harder when she was not the only one struggling with comprehension.

As they all sat, drowning in one another's arms on that one bed, the sadness that stemmed from the longing, the lost years, kept seeping into their hearts until they felt like they were withering, until they felt like they would rather die than feel so much pain at once.

It was a truth that did not sound like so, a truth that defied all reason and meaning, and a truth that made itself bound to disappear any second, so it was hard for those hearts to accept that it just came by, that it was an unchangeable reality.

"You have grown," Mia had her mother's hug; she felt Sihyeon's arms around her from behind as well, but the very arms of her mother spread a taste unparalleled, "you flowered so beautifully, Mia."

In the back of Sihyeon's head, all she could think of was how true those words were, and how they sounded more than just loose words of reunion. In the back of her head, Sihyeon knew she did grow, and she counted the years over and over, but they never made sense. They were many, and they looked so void Sihyeon felt like she had lost them all, like she had never lived them at all.

She was thirty-four, and Mia was thirty-six, and the two of them were adults that lived so fully, but right there and then, none of it felt true, none of the numbers existed, and it spread like sharp daggers into Sihyeon's heart; it burned her insides, and the anger she tried so hard to subside kept growing.

"Look at you, my child, my baby," but Sihyeon's mother kept going, unaware of the fuel she was feeding her younger daughter's soul, "the last I have seen you," she chuckled, "you were shorter than me, so small I could easily lift you."

"You can still lift me, mother," Mia sniffled a chuckle between the tears, and she held her mother tighter, "I have grown, yes, but I am a small child right now all the same."

"You could have been with us," Sihyeon heard her father speak from behind her; her back was facing him, but his arms embraced his family well and enough. He spoke with a weight, and Sihyeon knew exactly what it was that was so heavy he had to take his time to breathe, "you could have been taken away, too.

"But Sihyeon saved you," his hand drew itself to pat his younger daughter's arms, and as much as Sihyeon would have loved for that touch to put out the flames, they were far to powerful to cease at that, "she pulled you, took care of you, and saved you."

"You almost sound like you have no clue, father," Sihyeon buried her face in her sister's back, and while there were no longer tears to spill, her teeth gritted when her heart twisted in her chest; her arms tightened around Mia with a quiver only the latter took note of, and she spoke with words darker than she wanted them to be at a time like this, "I am not the angel you see me to be."

"Yeah," Mia nodded, and she held Sihyeon's hand from where it sat above her; she eased the tension on the latter's hand with her thumb, and she looked up at her mother as if she reflected the rest of her family, "believe her, folks; she is no angel," Mia built a low smile, but one that was enough to tell of her following, sarcastic words, "she is a dumbass."