Sweet Revenge (English Story)

~ Chapter 5 ~

Jonna had never felt this way before.

It seemed like nothing really mattered anymore.

Days would end. Days would start again.

And she was right here, stuck in time.

Was it ten o’clock yet?

Why was she in her bed, trying to sleep, when she was really still wide awake?

Why did she feel so empty?

She heard her mother cry. Jonna could only wish that she would stop.

‘It doesn’t help!’ she wanted to scream. ‘He’s not coming back!’

He had left the house after one of their usual fights. Normally he would come back just in five minutes. But this time was different. He had been gone for already two hours.  

The longer he was gone, the more Jonna was convinced that he would not come back anymore. Why would he? There was no one to come back for. His crying wife with her withdrawn daughter that would never defend him, because she was simply too afraid to pick a side. He didn’t care about them anymore.

Maybe they were all better off this way.

When it was half past ten she really wanted to talk to someone. Her mother was in the living room. Jonna could hear the sound of a dramatic soap series, but she knew her mother wasn’t really watching.

She could phone Sharon.

Could she?

It seemed like there was a kind of distance between them. Like they weren’t on the same line.

How would Sharon react?

Would she cry, just like she did before?

What should she say anyway? That everything was going to be all right? Because it wasn’t. Everybody would pretend like it was, but she knew that nothing would be like once, when they didn’t only seem to be a perfect family, but were a perfect family.

Or not?

Maybe her parents had been pretending for years. Maybe perfect had lost its meaning. Maybe being perfect meant moving on, instead of being real. Maybe perfect wasn’t perfect.

Maybe it had never been perfect.

That thought made Jonna feel so… so miserable.

Suddenly she understood why her mother was crying.

There was nothing else to do.

Jonna definitely should’ve stayed home. She knew it when she saw Sharon waving at her. She couldn’t wave back like nothing was wrong.

She couldn’t even smile at her.

Sharon would ask what was wrong, of course, and Jonna couldn’t bare those questions anymore. She would just burst into tears and that would make Sharon feel so uncomfortable and she wouldn’t find words to say and then, when Jonna had finished crying, they would just sit there, trying to start a conversation, but eventually shut their mouths, and it would be… well, quite awkward.

No, no, no.

She just had to act like she was doing fine.

Which she wasn’t and she was just so sick of pretending she was.

She could still go back. Her mother would understand. Even the teachers would understand when they heard what had happened.

But would Sharon?