Toxic Love - the beginning of the end Part | LH FF (Part 2/English version)

T H I R T Y F O U R

The atmosphere during the meal was nice, no question. Not least because Lewis was there and it didn't look like my dad was against it. But the sight of the empty chair still gave me a stab in the heart. It could have been so beautiful, I thought, while my gaze flew over the corner of the table.

And suddenly something happened, I was sure my head would play tricks on me. But it felt so real, it looked so lively. She looked as lively as she sat there. She swirled the wine glass and then took a sip before putting it back in its rightful place. Her lips moved as she talked to my grandparents. I didn't understand what she said, it was like a thick glass pane was separating us. But I still heard her voice. Deep inside me, too deep for it to be in my consciousness. Her smile, it was so bright, so incredibly beautiful, cheerful and contagious. I'm sure I could list a thousand more words that could described her smile. But it was one thing that hit it particularly well. It was fake. An evil prank on my imagination, and before I could realise that, I was torn back into reality.

My gaze twitched at Lewis, in the corner of my eye the square i saw that the chair was empty. Again. But he didn't look at me. Lewis was talking to my grandpa and had turned his eyes away. I didn't understand what was going on at all. Only after a few moments I realise that he was holding my hand and must have pressed it a little tighter as soon as he realised that I had drifted away.

This is how the evening progressed. I actually managed to stick to the matter and not constantly think about my mom, and how it could have been now. Because none of this counted anymore. I had to accept reality as it was, after all, I couldn't change it. You can't undo the past, it's hard to accept it, but there's no way around it...

It was already late when Lewis and I went to sleep. I was so infinitely happy that he was with me, otherwise I probably wouldn't have survived this evening... The food was heavy in my stomach. Harder than I would have thought, and I had the depressing feeling all the time that something was wrong.

The evening was nice, very much so, but it wasn't as I would have liked it in my childhood idea of life. I missed my mother, and now that I was lying in bed, I realised that again. Actually, she should have been with us today, instead she wasn't. She's up there, all alone, while we're desperately waiting down here for all this to be just a dream and she sits at the breakfast table and smiles the next morning. Oh, that was ridiculous. I knew very well that this wouldn't happen, but I still wished for nothing more than that. See her radiant smile again, look again into her sparkling eyes. Tell her about my day once again...

Why can't you just be here, Mom?

My thoughts rolled over and I felt my heart start racing. The feelings held me tight, seemed to tear me in the deep and I woke up. I drove up, panicked for air and didn't realise what was happening around. My environment crumbled on the sides, blurred was what was before my eyes. My chest lifted - and lowered unevenly, the snap breathing threatened to suffocate me.

„Liv!" The voice was kilometres away. „Liv, Livia! It came closer, closer and closer and then it was there. „Liv, calm down, I'm here..." Reality struck on me in one swoop. I felt two hands on my glowing cheeks, tears poured down them. And I saw Lewis trying to calm me down.

„It's all okay..." I shook my head, pinched my eyes together in the hope that the pictures would disappear. „I saw her." My whimper was so quiet, maybe only in my head. „Who? Who did you see?" Lewis' voice sounded so calm, when I opened my eyes again, I looked directly into his face. Suddenly I no longer believed that Lewis could ever make my mother's loss more bearable. Because if it were so, why does it hurt so damn much, even if he's there? Maybe all this was just an illusion, a wishful thinking of how it could be.

But that was ridiculous to believe that the pain would ever get better. You may believe that, but when you least need it, the repressed feelings pick you up and you collapse.

„Liv. Who did you see?" He asked again. „My mother." I still saw her. Lewis didn't have to go into this further to know what that meant to me. He wrapped his arms around my body, it trembled and threatened to break into himself. At that moment, I didn't know if Lewis would be able to hold me together, collect my shards and patch them together again. But I hoped so much. I was too weak alone, I needed help...

We just sat there for a while. The longer I was in his arms, the less and less my whimper became. My eyes became heavier and so did my body. I felt so infinitely weak, so powerless that at some point I only realised how reality passed me by and I didn't even really realise that we were lying and no longer sitting anymore. The only thing I somehow got together was that Lewis didn't stop keeping me with him. And I was so infinitely grateful to him for that. That he doesn't go when I need him. Then he has already done that twice, a third time I would not survive...