A Thousand Times Enough

* Chapter 46 *

XLVI. • °

Josie Pov

My blood ran cold, it felt as if my insides were being consumed by ice. I couldn't move even though every muscle in my body tried to move me, it was like my body knew the immediate peril before my mind had. My heart which was perfectly beating and available before had now turned to stone.

Though I felt every fiber and terror in my body for some reason I could not feel my heart, why was that? How could I not feel something that was in my body, it had to be there even if it had just been ripped apart.

It was fragile, very fragile I had always known but I kept my head high, or at least I tried to. My heart had never been whole, not since it was missing the important piece of it that had gone and died years before. But it had held on, through all the depression and anxiety and the thoughts of harm that I tried not to speak about or bring up.

I had tried the night my mom died, but I never spoke about it, I never told a soul. I had wanted to leave and be with her, but I couldn't fathom being selfish even though I tried and wanted to be so badly.

I couldn't help but feel covetous of the previous version of myself, because she was a completely different person than who I am now. I had no doubts or worries or pain, I was just trying to find myself. But how is it possible to continue to try to find yourself when you realize the person you were before is gone? Maybe still lives inside me somewhere, but I would never have a chance to experience her again.

I had worked so hard to put everything in the past, to acknowledge it and accept it. I wondered how I was functioning with no therapy. But me going through the pain in life, and the pain after experiencing my mother's death was my therapy. 

I had little time to grieve, I just kept going.

I lost everything that I had ever known after, and even though I felt that no one could ever love me and that I was collateral damage I still remained hopeful. When I thought I couldn't move forward I did. I was starting to.

I had fallen in love and made beautiful friendships. Most of all I had someone who had cared about me the same way I had cared about them. I had someone finally prove to me that they would fight for me the same way I would fight for them, to reassure me that I wouldn't be the only one fighting. It was new, it was something I didn't know how to accept, and it took time. But I did, I accepted it, and I let love come inside my heart, mind, and body to fill in the pieces I had lost.

All of it, every single thing that was helping me move forward had just been crushed right in front of me. I couldn't help but feel back at square one because the person who had truly broken me over anyone else, was standing right on the doorstep that I called my home, my new home.

There he stood, he looked so different I could hardly recognize him. Or maybe he was the same but the person I knew before I had blocked out. I blocked out his face, his voice, everything. He had become nonexistent like a distant memory.

Milton, it was him the person that I had called my father for so many years. How could he even look at me with those eyes? The same dark brown eyes he had given to me, his child. He cared nothing about it, and he had cared nothing about me. It made me sick, physically sick.

"Look at you," His voice was low and wavering as he studied me. "I would say it looked like you've gotten taller but maybe I'm the one shrinking huh?" He joked letting out a chuckle as I stood there still in disbelief lost in the sight of him. "I know it's been some time kiddo but I just had to see you."