Heart Of A Fighter

The Unexpected

Ducking, Lavender quickly turned over punching air. After a while, she began punching with all the energy she had left in her bones.

She hit hard for the mother that was six feet under and had decayed over the years. The mother she'll never see again. The mother who died because of love.

Lavender struck harder 'til she got her hand black and blue to the point where her knuckles bled. She didn't feel a thing though because anger did that to people. It left you numb to any form of pain.

Lavender was angry with Taylor, her father, and herself but more with her father.

Her father left without an explanation. He left with all of his belongings except for one.

His darn memories.

24 full hours sailed by, but he didn't come back to say it was all a joke. Yet he had the decency to leave his stupid memories behind.

Hours turned into days until days turned to weeks. Those long weeks turned into months. Months flew by, yet his hushed laughter was heard at the corners of the house, leaving both his wife and daughter there to listen to it all.

To grief.

To miss someone who probably had forgotten that they even existed.

A full goddamn year dashed by, still, he didn't have the balls to come back and say that he was sorry. Sorry for leaving. Sorry for being a dick who left and didn't take everything that belongs to him along to God knows where!

Two years waved goodbye, still, there was no sign of him. No news. No nothing. Nada.

You'd think that he was tired of being away for so long. Yeah so did Lavender. Those two years soon converted to three years. The man still didn't have a guilty conscious that would drag his ass home, so Lavender did one thing.

She stopped caring, but her mother didn't. Her mother never stopped hoping that one day he would return.

If her mother had stopped caring at the end of the third year she wouldn't have gotten sick. Sick as in I'm-about-to-die sick. Sick all because of the name of love.

She spent all of those years praying for her husband to come back 'till she got her lungs destroyed before their time. If only she had known better she should've prayed for herself too.

For three years she suffered from that lung cancer of hers 'till she died. Guess he squeezed the breath right outta her.

Lavender shook her head as she meandered to the side, missing an imaginary blow to the face. With her right leg, she started kicking with her knee and hitting with her elbow. Her legs got caught between the sheets, causing her to fall. She almost would've landed in a pushup position, but her hands gave away.

The pain shot up through her arm quicker than a lightning bolt. Quickly, Lavender rolled over on her back, intaking a large sum of air to cool down her burning lungs.

Tears were on the verge of falling, but a knock at the door had them rushing back. After composing herself she invited the person in.

The boy with the prominent green eyes slipped in, softly closing the door behind him. With one hand in his pocket and the other awkardly rubbing the back of his neck, he rocked on his heel nervoulsy.

"Uhh....hey, Lav-Lavender," Jacob shyly smiled.

His unexpected amiability humored her for he never once uttered a word to her after serving him at work that day. If they crossed each other's paths at home, they proceeded what they were doing with blind eyes to the other.