His secret

Chapter 32

We spent our dinner in silence, at least that's how it was for me, silent. I'm sure gia Sophia and Alexis kept talking the whole time, gia even tried to make conversation with me when I first came down and I tried very hard to keep my focus to participate so that I don't come off as rude. But after having Alexis telling her several time to stop harassing me with her questions about my family and noticing my lack of enthusiasm she finally noticed that I wasn't in the mood for chatting so she turned to her grandchild instead and that's when I gave up my focus and zoned into my own thoughts. Thoughts about all that had happened and what I had just read in Miles's notebook and what's waiting for me to be read. 

I excuse myself after taking a few bites off my plate claiming that I had a headache caused by the long drive and needed to sleep it off. As I walked up to my room eager to continue reading Miles's notebook I couldn't help but feel guilty that I had left the table without helping to clear the table, but I promised myself that this would be the first and last time that I'd that, today was an exception because I really need to read this diary. Opening the door to my bedroom I spot the notebook on the bed where I had left it as if it was waiting for me to read it. I walk to my bed end settle down as I open it on the page where I had left a piece of paper as a bookmark. 

Dear notebook,

I couldn't stand staying in that house with her so I left. I tried very hard to understand her and give her time to change, thinking it was just temporary and that it was a phase she was going through because of my father's death because she loved him very much. But a little over a year after my father had passed away it just became too much. My mother went through different stages of griffe. The first one lasted during the first two months when she would just sit in bed all day without talking or even moving. Although my father's death was hard on me too I tried to handle it better than her because we couldn't afford to be broken down at the same time. 

I walked into her room several times a day, tried to talk to her, tell her about my day in school, and get her to go out with me for a walk, but nothing worked. She was completely frozen and wouldn't even look at me. I even lent a cookbook from the school library to cook some food for us but she didn't even eat. The only thing she did was take a shower every now and then and she would get out with swollen eyes so it wasn't hard to guess that she cried in there while showering. And even after showering, she didn't bother doing anything other than putting new clothes on and returning to her position in bed. I would always climb up beside her and comb her hair for her, excited that she at least had left the bed for a while and left something for me to help her with. 

And then sometimes as a reward for myself, I would just lay my head in her lap for a while in silence because it was of great comfort for me although she completely ignored me and kept staring straight at the wall. But I liked to close my eyes and pretend that she was stroking my hair and telling me that everything will be alright. Maybe that's what kept me going?

I remember longing for that period to end during it but then I found myself regretting ever wishing for something like that almost as soon as it ended. 

Miles

Yet another cliffhanger that left me with questions. I wanted to turn to the next chapter immediately and that's what I thought that I would be doing now that nothing was interrupting me but I didn't. Instead, I closed the book with one finger in it marking the page where I stopped reading as I tried to process the fact that I had just read about a heartbreaking childhood, a childhood that belongs to Miles. Little moments start flashing through my head. Moments of an eleven-year-old boy with ear-length dirty-blond fizzy hair and big ocean-blue eyes with a hint of green in them, trying to put his sorrow aside to help his mother. 

The boy probably spent somewhat an hour in the library to find a cookbook because their usually hard to find in school libraries, and then he spent another hour at home trying to understand the instructions and then following them, probably burning himself or cutting his fingers during the process. Did he even have groceries for the food at home or did he have to buy them himself as well? Of course he had to buy groceries himself, no groceries last two whole months. Now I'm picturing that boy going to the grocery store after school, wandering around in his uniform whilst trying to find the things that he came for, and then he would probably pay with money he was saving for something. Maybe a new bike? 

The boy in my head is now entering his mother's room with a plait of food but as he looks at his frozen mother he notices that her hair is wet which means she just left the bed and took a shower. He leaves the plate on the nightstand in excitement as he reaches for the brush and climbs up to the bed to comb the mother's hair. He then tries to get her to eat something but after a tiring failed attempt the boy gives up and heads to the kithes to clean up the mess he had left after cooking. It's been a long day and he's now tired and he's really sad too but he doesn't have anybody that can console him but he makes the best out of it. The boy walks back to his mother's room and climbs into her lap as he closes his eyes and starts dreaming about things he wishes were his reality, comfort, and reassurance.