Soul Harbour

0.15|when sitting on a kitchen floor|

0.15|from Sabah's tape-recorder: when sitting on a kitchen floor|

Auburn found me slumped beside the coffee machine in the kitchen. I felt her come and sit down beside me but my brain refused to register anything except for the thick, damp blanket of the past that surrounded me, echoes of angry, hurtful words seeping into my brain, bitterness new and old rocking my bones, making me shiver as sixteen years of pent-up tears fell down my face thick and fast.

"Hey, hey," Auburn was whispering in a scared, low voice, rubbing my arm but what use? She didn't know how I felt, she could never understand. It was too much, this double pressure of wanting to just come clear for once and the fear of losing this little fistful of sunshine that I had here. "Its okay," she was saying among mumbles of words my ears couldn't understand. "I'm here. You can tell me if there's something...Come here. Don't cry."

"They wouldn't talk to me," my lips formed words and that made me cry even more. This, this? No. I couldn't. I can't. "All these years and they hate me. Every single one of them."

"C'mon, Tony and I, we like you, we love you," Auburn said, consolingly. "You're amazing both as a person and as a coffee-maker."

I let out a half-sob, half-laugh.

That brightened her voice, "You shouldn't listen to what other people say. I don't know what they've been saying but you know, right? You know that you're the first good thing that happened to me since I left home. You've made me feel home, stopped me from giving up and running back so many times. So, if someone's jealous of your awesomeness, ignore them."

I shook my head, the ghost of a smile on my lips, remembering and hating every part of a memory Auburn couldn't even begin to fathom of. "M-my husband, he said I was a dis-"

.

.

.

.

"He said I was a disappointment as a wife and a mother, both. He wasn't wrong. I was. Oh God! I was horrible but they left me! He left me and he took Julia with him. My daughter, my daughter! I loved her, you know. She-she was beautiful, innocent and when I hugged her I could find a way to love myself."

I looked at the ceiling smiling at the memory of Julia's happy face. "She was around seven when I last saw her nicely. After that, I tried to see her when I got clean. I swear, I did it for her. Only her. All those days with...trying not to...not to run away...not to scream..."

I looked at Auburn who still held my large, calloused hands in her small ones. That was the first time I noticed how small her hands were, like a child's. Her eyes were on my face, a fierce protectiveness burning in them, all attention on my words and oh God, the kind of sadness that sometimes I saw in a mirror. What was I doing to this young girl's life? Why was I colouring her sunny life with the miserable touch of my suffocating sadness?

I smiled at her, to reassure her that this, this breakdown would pass, that it was nothing great, nothing worth talking about more. "She had dark brown hair, just like yours , and she had the most beautiful, dimpled smile. You remind me of her. Well, you're too pale but you're just like how I would have liked her to be."

I wiped my face and laughed tightly, "I'm sorry. You must think me a weird, old woman, babbling stupidly. I'm sorry, it's just that...it's just...I miss her so much...so damn much."

Usually people don't know what to say after hearing such things. I should know. I have seen people's eyes glaze over when having heard much more of my past, their lips twitching for words they clearly don't mean.

But Auburn?

"We'll find her," she said in a voice ready to break and I stared at her, surprised.

"Why are you crying?"

Auburn sniffed and wiped away a stray tear from the corner of her violet-blue eyes, looking ashamed, "I don't know. When people around me cry, I cry too. It's stupid and pretty useless. I'm sorry."

She made me laugh which was strange, this state of crying and laughing was strange and yet I liked it, the comfortableness that came with it. I heaved myself up and she hugged me.

It's funny now when I think about it but I cried again then. There's something so cathartic about hugs that you have to let go of everything, every tear, every pain in them and if it's the right person, it works.

[this has been the toughest chapter to write, as some of you might know I have a few prewritten chapters in my psychology notebook and I type them out one by one as I update but even typing this was tough. I don't know if you guys felt it too but it's so emotional and sad and just so-aww I wanna hug Carlotta too.

Her story will eventually be known fully. Until then be awesome and vote for this chapter. Do comment and let me know what you thought of it because I'll be waiting with hot chocolate ;)

Ilyall]