Sex Drive

🔞 Chapter 27: Time Heals 🔞

"Hey, Mother. Are you all finished yet? Should I start on supper?" But when she heard the soft sob from the other line, she began to panic once again as dread began to fill the pit of her stomach. "Mother... what's wrong?"

"I'm so sorry, honey. It's your Father. He's... gone."

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Sakura sat in her bed, hands placed loosely in her lap, as she stared blankly ahead of her. Her eyes had since dried up, her tear ducts now fully emptied and her cheeks flush; skin tight from the lines of dried up moisture still clinging to their chapped surface. Her eyes still stung and her heart felt heavy as the weight of her mother's words reared their ugly head again, the weight of her grief pressing down on her shoulders.

Her father was gone.

No longer capable of giving her his famously warm hugs.

No longer able to comfort her when things were to hard for her to handle.

No longer physically apt to come home again.

He had been sick, stricken with cancer, for months and her parents had decided on their own...that it was best to keep her in the dark; never knowing just how much her father had truly suffered, until it was far too late.

She would never get to tell him how much she loved him again.

Never got to tell him how much he had comforted her in those instances when Sakura had needed it the most.

Never got to give him one final embrace.

Never—

Suddenly, her mother's hand on her thigh startled her from her nearly catatonic-like state and she shifted her gaze up, tilting her head to meet her mother's sorrowful expression. It hurts to even look at her mother right now... the pinkette concluded... when a turbulent mixture of feelings (both old and new) steadily swirling inside of her brain; and she has to fight the sudden urge to scream at her, for she was privy to how much this was hurting her mother when she gazed upon her stricken features.

The fight almost immediately left her body feeling numb as her shoulders sagged even further. "Why didn't you tell me sooner? Why, Mother? I never got to say goodbye. I never got to tell him I love you. I just want to know... why did you both decide to keep me in the dark," she finally questioned as a single, freshly crafted tear rolled down her cheek. Her mother lifted a hand to her cheek and brushed it away with her fingertip as more flowed freely from her own eyes. She allowed her hand to settle there on her daughter's face as she tried to compose herself. When she finally did respond to the line of questioning, her voice was slightly trembling.

"Your Father, he didn't want to worry you. He didn't want to burden you with his illness. He— wanted you to remain his happy little girl. That's how he wanted to remember you."

A fresh wave of anger washed over her, and she clenched her fists in her lap tightly before growling out, "That wasn't your choice to make. I should have at least had a say in it. I should have known, so that I could at least try to prepare. Try to..."

"Sakura—"

"No! Please...," she whimpered, ripping her face out of the slightly wrinkled hand's loose grip... turning her body away from her mother fully to shield the fresh wave of tears from her prying eyes; tears of both fury and sorrow. "Just, leave me alone, Mother."

"Honey, I—"

She displaced some of her anger by shouting, "Please!!! I want to be alone!!! Just, GO AWAY!!!"