diamonds | river phoenix

epilogue

"Mum! She hit me!" I heard my son call.

I was tired, exhausted to the point of collapsing. I threw the duster I was holding down and rushed into the next room. Brushing my forehead rid of sweat, I said,

"Can't you two sort this out yourself?"

My daughter crossed her arms and stamped her foot.

"He's being mean!" She yelled.

I ignored them. I'd just gotten home from a long, hard day of work, and I couldn't be bothered dealing with my two beautiful, yet annoying kids.

I went back into the other room and picked the duster back up. I was brushing down the cabinet when a picture caught my eye. It was sitting behind a tea cup.

I pushed the cup aside and pulled out the picture. I took a deep breath and braced myself for all the emotions that I knew were coming on. The picture was one of River and I. We would have been 13, maybe 14 at the most. We were both looking at each other in awe, smiling and laughing. So many memories came flowing back to me.

I stood there, clutching the picture and staring intensely at it. I was so concentrated that I didn't hear my two kids creep up behind me.

"Who's that?" Asked my daughter, standing on her tip toes and peering over my shoulder.

"Oh, just an old friend that I haven't seen in a while." I responded. I knew I would break down if I went into too much detail.

"What's his name?" My daughter asked.

"And why don't you see him?" My son added. I sighed and smiled sadly. I sat down in an arm chair, squeezing the photo to my heart.

"His name was River." I told them. They say down on the ground below me.

"Funny name." My son scoffed, peering around the room.

"It suited him." I said, my voice soft and delicate. I smiled again at the photo, beautiful memories were everywhere. I could almost feel his warm presence in the room.

"I don't see him anymore, because," I started. My eyes began watering. I quickly brushed a tear away so my kids wouldn't see.

"He mixed with the wrong people, and they made him make some bad choices." I said, now shaking uncontrollably. I desperately didn't want my kids to see me like this.

"Sounds like an idiot!" My daughter said, getting up and walking off. My son followed.

"He wasn't an idiot. He was the smartest guy I knew." I whispered to myself.

I put my head in my hands, remembering the night it all went down. I was with him. I was there. I saw it all unfold. It was scary and sad and frightening and so many different things all at once. But the worst thing was that I couldn't help him. I was useless to him. I couldn't fix it. And we never got our happily ever after.