The Girl Who Was Supposed to Die (GirlXGirl)

Chapter 17: The Shadows of Her Past

That night, I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling as shadows stretched across the room like dark fingers creeping in. The quiet hum of the night crept into my bones, cold and relentless. Outside, the wind rattled the window, but inside, the air was still, thick with the weight of memories I had tried so hard to shove into the deepest recesses of my mind.

I had always hated the silence. It had a way of pulling me back into places I didn't want to go, unlocking the doors I had bolted shut long ago. And tonight, like so many nights before, my mind began to wander—back to a time I'd spent years trying to forget.

I rolled over, squeezing my eyes shut like that would magically conjure sleep. But nope, sleep was off somewhere having a party without me. Instead, my past crashed in like a tidal wave, drowning me in memories that stung like a slap across the face.

It started with my mother's voice—soft, melodic, like a lullaby drifting through the walls of our tiny home. In my earliest memories, that voice was comfort, a tether keeping me grounded in a world that felt safe, where love was something you could actually feel. I could still hear it now, like a ghost haunting me.

"Brush your hair, sweetie. One hundred strokes to make it shine." Her words floated through my mind, so clear they might have been spoken only moments ago. I remembered the feel of the brush, the gentle pull through my dark curls, her hands steady and calm. Those were the good days—before the heaviness settled in her eyes, before the smiles became rare and forced.

But the memories twisted like a knife in my gut. The warmth evaporated, and I was pulled back into the coldness that consumed the later years of my childhood.

I was eight years old when everything changed, when my mother's laughter faded to a whisper, and the lines on her face deepened like a damn road map. The woman who used to whip up pancakes in the shape of hearts and braid my hair before school started disappearing into the shadows. I'd tried to be the good girl she wanted, thinking maybe if I could just nail that performance, I could bring her back. But nothing worked. Nothing was ever enough.

The images blurred, like some amateur filmmaker's idea of a flashback, and suddenly I was standing in the sterile white of a hospital room, that awful antiseptic smell clawing at my throat. My mother lay still on the bed, her pale skin almost translucent under the harsh fluorescent lights. The machines around her beeped steadily, each sound slicing through the silence like a knife, making me feel more helpless than I already was.

My small hand gripped her limp one, desperate for warmth, for a heartbeat—anything that screamed she was still here. But there was nothing. She was already gone.

My breath hitched as the weight of that memory crashed down on my chest. I could still feel the coldness of her hand, the finality of death, a concept I had barely wrapped my head around at that age. I stood there, frozen, staring at her unmoving form, waiting for a miracle—anything to flip the script. But of course, nothing happened.

The silence in that room had been suffocating, thick with the absence of life and love. My father had been there, but his presence was as distant as my mother's had been in those final months. He hadn't cried. He hadn't held me. He'd just stared at the floor like it was the most interesting thing in the world, grief locked away in a vault I couldn't crack.

I rolled onto my back, my eyes burning with unshed tears. I hated how easily the past still had a grip on me, like a clingy ex who just wouldn't take the hint. Even now, years later, the memory of my mother's death left me hollow, like I was still that lost little boy begging for someone to rescue me.

My throat tightened as another memory resurfaced. It was a week after the funeral, and I had stumbled into my mother's room, her scent still lingering in the air—lavender and something soft, like an old perfume that had seen better days. I crawled into her bed, yanked the covers around me, and waited, hoping she'd walk in any second and say this was all just a sick joke. I waited for hours, my small body curled into the sheets, but of course, no one came.

My father hadn't come either. He barely spoke to me after the funeral, retreating into his own world of silence and stoicism. I'd tried to reach out, to understand why he seemed more like a ghost than a father, but every attempt was met with a wall of indifference. He never talked about my mother, never acknowledged the gaping hole her absence left in our lives. It was like he thought that if he just ignored it, she'd magically pop back into existence, smiling and flipping pancakes like nothing had happened.

My fingers dug into the sheets, the fabric rough under my palms. The tension in my body was unbearable, a ticking time bomb of all those unspoken words, the grief I could never fully process, choking me like a noose. My mother was gone, but the pain? That lingered like an unwanted guest at a party.

Her voice echoed again in my mind, soft and distant: "I'm sorry, Dylan... I'm so sorry."

I swallowed hard, my chest tightening. That apology—I'd heard it so many times in the months before her death. But it was always vague, always half-whispered, like she didn't have the strength to explain what she was really apologizing for.

Was it for leaving? For letting the heaviness take her? Or was it for something deeper, something I'd never grasp?

The flashbacks hit me like a runaway train now—her hollow eyes, my father's silence, the loneliness wrapping around my heart like a thorny vine, squeezing the life out of me. I'd tried to cut it away with cynicism and indifference, tried to keep the world at arm's length, but the scars were still there, buried deep beneath the surface like ugly secrets.

I shot up in bed, trembling as the memories finally retreated, leaving me feeling raw and exposed. I wrapped my arms around myself, pulling my knees to my chest, as if I could shield the fragile parts of me still breaking.

In the stillness of the night, I realized just how much my mother's death had shaped me. The isolation I clung to, the sarcasm I used as armor—it all stemmed from that moment, from the loss of the one person who was supposed to protect me but couldn't.

And now, years later, I was still hiding, still running from the pain, from the fear of letting anyone in.

As I sat in the dark, I whispered into the emptiness, my voice barely audible.

"I'm sorry, too."