After experiencing a life-altering tragedy, Emersyn feels as if her world has collapsed. Attempting to accept her new reality, Emersyn wonders how she can possibly keep going when it feels like her life ended months ago. Until she meets Haven, and s...
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A full month passes while Haven sleeps.
Life does not wait on her. The earth never stops spinning–that's a fact. It did not stop its rotation around the sun when my life felt like it ended, going with my father. The earth does not care about feelings or failures or fatalities. It serves a purpose: to keep going. I suppose people could learn from this planet. It endures, no matter what takes place on its surface.
The earth does not stop spinning for Haven. Time is a gift. Time is a thief. The world does not wait on her to wake before continuing. The earth goes on, and soon it will once again be facing the sun. This is evident as warmth lingers in the air. Haven went away during the cold, while the earth had its back to the sun.
I remind myself that she is not gone. She is still here. Somewhere, everywhere, nowhere all at once. I take the planet beginning to face the sun as a sign. Surely, she will rise. Haven loves the sunshine, the warmth, the spring, all things as bright and radiant as she is. She will rise just as the sun does. Just as the earth keeps spinning.
Nothing changes while Haven is away and yet everything changes.
Tyler and I grow close. We are each other's source of her. He is the same Tyler he was before, and yet he is an entirely different Tyler all at once. Sometimes I see glimpses of the boy I met. Sometimes he still smiles and his blue eyes are bright, identical to hers, and he is just Tyler. Other times I take notice of the toll all of this has worn on him. I see it in the new lines that have formed around his lips from frowning, the wrinkles in his forehead from endless tension stuck in his features. The signs I have become accustomed to from having lived this situation before. The stress, the worry, the grief. I like to focus on the moments when he smiles. When he does, I see hope.
Mrs. Hartley bakes a lot. She did before. She is the same woman I met. Kind, gracious, warm. She is a ghost of the woman I met. Tired, frail, worn. It is as if the present and the past are parallels that sometimes align, in more ways than one. Sometimes I look at Mrs. Hartley and she is Haven's mother the afternoon we first met. Sometimes I look at Mrs. Hartley and she is Haven's mother, overcome with fear for her daughter's life. Sometimes I look at Mrs. Hartley and she is my mother after Dad first passed.
Mr. Hartley is quiet, as he has always been. Yet more so. He has pulled away from this life, stuck somewhere else in his mind. I wonder what he is thinking about in the moments I witness him dazed, staring off into oblivion. I wonder if he is picturing the life he hoped for his daughter, or if he is simply hoping for his daughter. I wonder what my father would have been like had he reached the age of Haven's.
My mother sees ghosts. Haven's health reminds her of Dad. I know because I feel the same. My mother sees the past in the present. And somehow she lives through it. She is the earth. She endures. She changes as winter fades and earth slowly turns to the sun. She becomes lighter. She smiles. She falls in love, even if she doesn't admit to so.
