Smooth Enchantment ||P. Kane||

Chapter 12

I haven't been back at work for two weeks. Two whole weeks. A little too long for me to stay away, but the impact of the call that I received right before I took work off, got to me.

My mom is no longer alive. The first time the hospital tried to call me, it was an urgent call to tell me about her passing earlier that day. I'm only glad that I answered the second time to receive the news before some other source told me, but at the same time, I felt numb.

I think it has been such a long time since I've seen my mother for almost eight hours in a day, before she fell sick. And also before work started to eat up more hours of my free time. It really sucks that I couldn't be by her side all of the time since she became ill. Like I said before, I haven't seen my mom for so long in a single day.

The two weeks I've spent away from work and everything else, I've been trying to pack up everything in the house. Melissa and I will now be living back in my old apartment in the heart of Chicago, the one before I came back to my actual home. We were only taking little of our belongings back, and everything else was either going into storage or hopefully sold in some yard sale.

During my absence, I also had to plan everything for my mother's funeral. It was a lot of work ad money to have done. It made me feel a little better that a lot of people; friends, family and some people I work with at the firehouse, came to the funeral. Out of all of the people that attended, Ryan was always there for me. I was so numb that my feelings towards Ryan, the hatred and other mixed emotions, all went away. I only wanted someone to be there for me and give me comfort. Well, Ryan was the first to step forward and help me.

He comforted me throughout the whole funeral as I was a mess. I'm pretty sure every minute that passed, I was at least crying or tears were only falling down my cheeks. Melissa, too. All of this was a struggle for the both of us, knowing that we only have each other now and neither our mother or father.

The week ended along with the day of the funeral. I ended up taking another week off to get settled back into my apartment and finishing up all of the parking of my old home and eventually get it on the selling market.

Of course, Ryan still was there for me. He helped me on his only day off to get everything settled at my apartment, and we both finally got everything out of the house into storage, too. We ended up donating the remaining things left.

Ryan wasn't going to stay away from me. After his shifts, he came over to my apartment, food in hand and occasionally brought a pack of beer. Every single time he was over at my place, we would always watch TV or a movie. And every single time, Ryan would get closer and closer to me when we sat on the couch.

The last night before I was going to go back to work the following morning, Ryan decided to stay the night. I only wished Melissa didn't occupy the extra bedroom in the apartment. The only options left for him was the couch or sleep with me. I wasn't going to be rude and kick him out on the couch for everything he has done to help me.

That night, it was around midnight, close to almost one o'clock in the morning, I was already laying down in bed, just staring up at the ceiling. Ryan took a shower before coming into the room. Knowing him, he walked into the room with only a pair of shorts and no shirt.

"You ready to go back to work?" Ryan asked me when he plopped on the other side of the queen sized bed.

"I don't know, it's been so long," I replied, not looking over at him

"It's not the same without you," he said. "Your fill in on the ambulance, I don't like her. She's not you, basically."

I only imagined an attractive woman in my head when Ryan continued to babble about my fill in. Maybe he was only trying to make her seem a lot less than what she might be.He was probably all over her, but she denied him instead so that could be a possible reason why he now disliked her. Unfortunately, I wouldn't be seeing her so I won't ever know.