Bridging the Gap

chapter six

"Cole?", said ninja flinched at the sudden noise and quickly wiped his eyes.

"Sorry for slamming the doors", he mumbled, didn't turn around.

He didn't even look up when his friends sat down next to him, on the grass in front of her gravestone.

"So, this is were you are going when you are upset?", Kai asked gently.

Cole sniffed. "Upset? I'm not upset", he said sarcastically and again wiped his eyes.

But the tears kept coming.

"How was she? Your mother, I mean?", Zane asked politely.

Of course they had often talked about Lily, but Kai was right - This was were Cole went whenever he was feeling down so talking about his mother may give him some sort of calm and peace.

Cole sniffed again and pulled his legs to his chest, put his arms around his knees.

"Better", he simply said.

"Better? Better than who?", Jay asked with a puzzled look Cole couldn't see, since he had buried his head between his knees and chest.

Somewhere in the trees above them a bird chirped.

An answer came from another one, several yards away.

The earth ninja huffed. "Better than Sabrina", he said in a harsh tone, the others never heard from him.

Cole usually was calm, gentle. He never holds grudges. He may not always forget, but usually forgive.

But whatever it was with his father - Cole didn't seem to find any peace with it. Not being able to forgive, nor forget.

"It may be easier to just tell us, Cole. I promise, this shit helps", Lloyd said, gently rubbing Cole's back.

He swallowed.

"Sabrina is... is... she...", Cole looked up in the sky, his face red from suppressing sobs.

"Yesterday... Lou... introduced me to his... his new...", he didn't even need to finish his sentence. (He also couldn't because another wave of sobbing shock his body, and this time he couldn't force it down).

"Lou has a new girl?", Kai asked.

Cole nodded.

"And I got so angry...", he admitted.

"But it took me by surprise. I... didn't think that was the reason he wanted to have dinner together yesterday. I thought we were... better now. Telling each other things in a more careful way and not... shoving this womans existence in my butt, once i entered the doorway"

Jay couldn't help but giggle at this expression, but quickly he covered his mouth and cleared his throat, as Lloyd shot him an angry look.

"I.. sorry... You know, Cole... uhm...", Jay was at a loss of words, he couldn't understand how this situation must be for Cole.

Kai neither.

But Lloyd.

Lloyd tried to imagine Misako having another man and so he said: "Is Lou happy with her?"

Cole looked at him in a confused way.

Lloyd tried to smile but his heart got heavy seeing his friend so tormented.

"I mean... the loss of Lily...", Cole flinched as the green ninja said her name.

"Losing her was so hard for Lou, but I don't think now he just forgot her. Or doesn't love her anymore. Maybe this new woman just reminds him of her, maybe she is just like her and that's why-"

At once Cole jumped up, his face glowing with anger.

"No one is like her!", he yelled, earning some confused looks from some other visitors of the graveyard.

Kai also jumped up, putting an arm around Cole's shoulders and gently brought him back to the ground, letting Cole lean on to him.

"That was not what Lloyd meant-", he began, but Cole interrupted.

"I.. I'm sorry, Lloyd, it's just.... I don't know what she is like. Sabrina I mean. But she is not her. Maybe she is nice but I would never know, since I snapped at my father for being an unsensitive asshole and blamed him on never even loving Mom the way she loved him. Lily would have never cheated, I said. He forgot her. He threw dirt on her whole existence. He..."

"That's what you said?", Zane asked.

Cole nodded and at once all anger and frustration and energy left his body, leaving Cole as a lifeless shell on the ground, where he cuddled up in Kai's lap.

"Damn.. How did he react?", Jay asked.

"Gave me a slap in the face and threw me out of the house. Telling me to not ever talk to him again or even bother getting into his sight"

The others inhaled sharply.

"He slapped you?!", Jay was mad.

But Cole only looked at him and nodded. "But I did deserve it"

"No-"

"Yes. It's okay, really. What I didn't deserve was... the rest. He could've warned me. Carefully introducing me to her. According to her, they were dating since two months!"

"So, you talked to her?", Zane.

"That's what I meant with he shoved her existence in my butt. She was the one to open the door. You know, that was MY house once too. I used to live there. And now SHE opens the door as if I was the stranger!", Cole expressed.

"'Hey, you must be Cole?' As if she didn't even know who I was?! 'I'm Sabrina, me and your father are dating since two months now, I am so happy to finally get to know you!' Ugh"

"And Lou didn't say anything?", Lloyd.

"He came out the kitchen, the food was already cooked, we wanted to do that together, it's a new tradition! And he was like: 'Ah, I see, you already became friends' and blah blah. I had blocked out after 'dating'. I think my father then told me about how they had met and some shit. I asked to talk to him in private in the living room. She looked so concerned and kind of pissed. Maybe she had noticed how distant I was, but what did they expect?! The worst? - Every. Single. Picture", Cole pronounced each word in a harsh tone.

"Every single picture that had Mom in it - gone. You were at my father's before, do you remember the drawings I had made when I was a child? Of course they were horrible, but... GONE. The white Lillies he always buys at the market and puts in a vase next to his keys - all gone. And I asked him why. Before anything, I asked him why. Restart, he said. A new beginning. What. The. Heck.

And Sabrina only stood there, watching us go into the living room, a grin on her face! A grin. ???? I mean... what?"

As glad as the others were that their beloved black ninja finally was talking about his feelings - there was nothing they could do.

How could they help him?

That was something between him and Lou, but as it seemed, their relationship was now unfixable broken.

Cole sighed. "It feels like, every time our relationship gets a little bit better, we take three steps back! It.. it feels like", Cole snorted, kind of an unfitting sound to this hopeless situation.

"It feels like there is this gap between us. And it has probably around Lily's size, since it exists ever since her death. And I have no idea how to bridge this gap!"