In Waves -Book 3

Chapter 1 - Shower

Life did change those years ago and I find myself writing again, I guess it's because I am not satisfied that my story is finished, I feel like there is whole chapters I don't know and still every day I am navigating this , one day at a time with a large vacancy by my side.

So the parts you do know, I am Katalina Truva Kim, the same girl who wrote the story of how love changed her life and almost ended it , and how even now as the years advance on me, I don't know if I'll ever fully understand it.

I am a Mother now of course, something that I never dreamed would be in my tapestry of life experiences, and a complete suprise and the lasting vestige of him, The reason I put these words to paper, the reason I type and let our story be known, because maybe as every day goes on and his embrace and its memories are further away from me , and I worry that maybe i'll forget it all, maybe I'll forget his touch, his smell, the feeling of his lips on mine and that one final time he told me he loved me, even though in reality it was the first, because our fucked up pasts convniced us both that it was an evil word.

But I saw evil , Evil took him from me, Evil shot an arrow and took his beautiful heart away from me.

Love and hate they saw are a hares breath away from each other, and sometimes I agree with that, sometimes I feel that they are one in the same, because this world must fucking hate me at times for all the shit it has thrown my way and for taking the one person who truly loved me like no other.

But as I tell him, to the voice in my head, his heart went elsewhere.

She is amazing, and I try to see her family in her and try to see those people I feel like I knew but in truth they died many years before she was born , and Namjoon never overly talked about them, whether that be because of the pain of their death or he was again protecting me and wanting to preserve what he could.

But what I do know, is he is in her, Aera is her father in every facet and she is the product of love, I just wish he had known, but again that invisible voice I can hear in my head tells me he does know her now in some distant far off dream world that is just for me and him.

It's almost Christmas here and she is snoring in my bed after an excited phone call from one of her favourite people, Hobi. 

I swear he is like a special friend to her now and his face lights up when they talk and he is Bo Bo, and he doesn't mind it , he doesn't mind the cute nickname from my daughters mouth because sometimes H's just have a habit of tripping her up.

But he is a friend, a nice connection to Korea and someone I'm sure in time Aera can learn from and know her heritage a bit better than I could ever teach her.

He is another example of hate sometimes being a massive waste of time, I should never have treated him how I did , I should never have spat in his face that day he escorted me to the airport when I had to leave the country I had left Namjoon in, I saw the pain in his eyes , but I was too immersed in my own pain to notice, He had no choice and looking back now I know if he hadn't of put that bullet in that bastard Jungkook, then Me, Aera and Namjoon and perhaps countless more after us wouldn't be here.

I don't think he would ever accept being called a hero, but when I looked into Aera's eyes the day of her first birthday and saw that smile that was the mirror of her father, I needed to forgive, she needed me to forgive and that's when I told him, and like a sandcastle , it took time to get right , even if waves of emotion threatened to wash us both away.

He is my friend, he was back then, he was in an impossible situation and he could never have known Namjoon and the immensity of this.

But the days move on, and some I feel as alone as I did the day he left me.

But then I think of Aera and she is our blank canvas.

So it's time once more to write this story down, I have to, I need to.

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It comes screaming back, those visions, the blood the chaos and as I shudder under the roaring shower head in my bathtub, I try to marry up my tears with the cascading water, for the nightmares never stop.

It stings my back, it's hot but I need to feel something other than this shaking, I need to lose the fear, I need to be able to scream if I can and not worry about waking her up. This is where I let it all out , its the only place I get to cry and let the pain out and not have my beautiful angel so it all, plus maybe I am trying to wash it all away even if with every litre it's never going to work.

Its PTSD, its something that never left me, it haunts my dreams, it makes me paranoid, it makes me shudder in the night, It makes me see Jungkook and Taehyung in the shadows even though I witnessed both of their demise and they are both in hell where they should be.

But I always feel them around me, and maybe that's why I don't let anyone in, maybe that's why my little family is just me , Aera, and my Cousin Ella and her Partner Charlie, maybe if I don't have a large family, then no one can snap off the branches and let it bleed everywhere.

I need to get out of this shower, I need to stop crying, I need to know that the tiles on the wall next to me that I spent ages picking out when I first bought this apartment, aren't going to crack and cave in on me and cut me into a million pieces.

'Fuck sake Kat! , breathe what the fuck is wrong with you?, do what your therapist taught you!, learn to deal with this! they are dead ! they are fucking dead and rotting in the ground!.....get a grip !!' I say to myself over and over , holding my wet hair like a security blanket around my face.

but then it hits me ......

:: BANG BANG BANG:: 

My soul feels like it'll leave my body , but I can hear it.

'Mama......Mama' The little voice utters from the other side of the painted wood.

'Mama, I had a scary dream'!! I could hear her little voice say in a quiver and nothing grounds you quiet like hearing your child scared and trying their hardest not to cry.

'ok baby, Mama is just getting out of the shower, go and sit on the sofa with Mi Mi and Mama will come chase the monsters away' I answer back and reach behind me to shut off the water.

My back is sore and red but I guess it didn't work, but this is just one of the standard panic attacks I get, I am so used to this after nearly 4 years, that it's just like a never ending auto-pilot.

I have to go and hold her and tell her monsters aren't real, and be the best Mother I can be.

But when will it ever leave my head, when will I believe monsters don't exist?.

Because as I wipe the steam from the Mirror in front of me and see my sore face from my own acidic feeling tears, I know , I just do.

Sometimes monster are very real.

'Aera, I'm coming baby, Mama is coming, it's ok!' I smile to myself in the mirror and I stop momentarily to kiss his ring, the ring he gave me as it adorns my  left ring finger,and I breathe.

'I can do this .....for her' I saw , my own voice wanting to quiver and my eyes wanting to cry.