HER KIND

Forget about CleaWard Valley

'Chapter 16'

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The idea of never seeing the one place she could rely on to escape left an uneasy feeling in Dria's stomach. The thought of never seeing the same walls she had grown up with and the same routine she was used to made her skin crawl, and the desire to vomit increased.

Dria was never one who thought about branching out beyond the town she grew up in. She never wanted to leave her roots. She wanted to dig her roots even further into the place, to make it her own in a way, even if the place was very welcoming.

She didn't care.

CleoWard Valley was her home; it is her home, and the thought of never returning was something she couldn't shake, and she knew it was dangerous. She knew they had a plan. She knew, but she just didn't want to leave everything.

What mattered to her were the small things and the small people who had made a difference in her life. She wasn't possibly going to see them again.

Dria remembered Tim from his waitressing job, and how he would shyly smile at her as she walked past him on his way home. They had never really talked. Timmy couldn't hold a conversation past 'how are you,' but he would make her smile before she started that horrible shift of hers.

Or Mark, the 7 p.m. bus driver.

He and his wife, Betty, had been so nice to Dria. The old woman climbed the bus every day to see her husband. It always made Dria wonder about love, the humility and patience it gained over time. She liked the idea of love when she watched them, and that maybe she could experience the same thing someday.

She had never asked why Betty did what she did, but if she had to guess, it was to be closer to him. It was for him. Betty would climb the bus and sit right behind his seat. He would have a big smile the whole ride, and she would listen to him speak about his day as if it wasn't the same as for the past few years, all the while wearing the same big smile.

Dria didn't want to forget the way the twins would run to the backyard after it rained and play in the mud, pretending to be monsters that could take over the world. They would then drench the whole bathroom with brown-colored water. They knew she would get angry every time, but oh, the fun they had.

She also didn't want to forget how they would exchange secret smiles when she asked if they had washed their hands before supper, always scheming a plan to convince her that they had, but they could never convince her enough.

The small things—the smell of Cherry's homemade ginger cookies she would bring over during the winter or the small cubes of watermelon she would cut during the summer. From dropping the twins off at school and watching them run off without so much as a goodbye, to having a brief conversation with Amelia when they bumped into each other in the university halls.

Dria knew she would miss them terribly, but she couldn't dwell on it.

"Too late," her subconscious chimes in.

She scowls, shaking her head before turning to the twins resting on her sides as they all watch their surroundings slowly fade from their lives. The evening was cold and wet, humid as if anticipating rain, and it made everyone's emotions run wild, their minds in constant turmoil.

Dria looks at Kane through the rearview mirror. This would be another significant change for him, and she hadn't even considered how he might be feeling. He had lost everything and everyone he ever knew. He had risked everything, the little he had, to find them, and when he had finally created some sort of stability, some semblance of a life, it was ripped away from him once again.