The Offering

Chapter 35

Dear Alice,

I've always known you were different to the rest of us, but it was only when I fell in love with you that I learnt just how truly special you are. And it was only when you loved me back that I realised I could be a better version of myself than I ever thought possible. I need to thank you for that.

I've never wanted anything in my life as much as I want to stay and be with you. But too much has taken place for that to happen. There has been too much blood shed, too many tears, too much pain caused by my family for me to stay. I know you don't blame me for that and that you never would but I can't help but blame myself and know that perhaps you would have been better off having not met me.

Every time I look at you I am reminded of the pain I have caused you, it's too much for me to bare. Somebody special to both of us once said that when you truly love somebody you put those people before your own selfish needs, you hurt yourself to stop them from hurting. I know that is what I have to do.

I have to leave. I have to give you a chance at something better than what I can give you. It will kill me to do that but I will do it for you. When you get this letter I will already be gone. But I couldn't leave without telling you- Alice Thompson you are extraordinary. Don't ever forget that-I won't.

Jake x

I folded the tatty piece of paper in my hands, as I had done so many times previously. I'd received the letter almost a month earlier and read it more times than I could recall. But it still hurt every time I took in his words. Jake was gone and I had no idea where to or if he'd ever return. I wanted to be angry at him, to hate him for leaving me but I couldn't. His father was dead and his mother had been indefinitely institutionalised after barely surviving a gunshot wound to the chest. A wound Jake, her own son had been forced to give her in order to save me.

He had sacrificed so much for me already and I knew that in his heart he felt that was what he had done by leaving. But knowing that didn't make it hurt any less, didn't stop me from trying everything I could to find him (unsuccessfully), from hoping that one day he'd come back.

But I couldn't wait forever, Angela had told me firmly that life still happens while you're waiting. So I knew that I had to try to get my life back and that was exactly what I'd tried to do over the past month. Passing my exams and graduating so that I could have a future, live my life as I knew Jake and Clara would surely want me to. I placed the letter into a small wooden vanity box before placing it inside of a large cardboard box along with many more treasured items from my bedroom.

"All packed?" I heard Angela chirp from behind me, I turned to see her stood at my doorway with an optimistic grin.

"Just about finished," I replied with a forced smile, before closing the lid on the box and quickly taping it shut.

Angela grasped another box from the floor and we headed out together to the car, loading both into the minute space still left available on the back seat.

"I can't believe you're insisting on driving me there, surely this will only encourage bullying?" I sarcastically quipped.

"Well if you'd passed your driving test then you could have driven yourself?" Angela retorted, I glared at her playfully, "so are we all set? It's a long drive ahead so we better get going," Angela said as she slid into the drivers seat.

I nodded and joined her in the passenger side before adding, "I just have to stop somewhere along the way."

***

I ran my hand over the cool marble surface, tracing Clara's name carefully with my finger. Even now a part of me struggled to accept that she was really gone, that all I had left of her was this gravestone. And that in itself seemed peculiar to me because of course I knew that while her body was here she was not. Still there was something I had to do before I left town.

Clara's spirit was gone, I had seen her find her peace and pass into whatever was waiting for her beyond her torment. She had visited me before she'd left, the same night as Jake's mother had been arrested for her crimes. That night she had visited me while I slept but it hadn't been in my dreams, it had really been her and she had been radiant and beautiful once again.

I had been sleeping yet able to watch as she had stood over me and placed her now warm hand upon my own. She had smiled and then a blinding light had come to take her away to somewhere better. I had woken to the pitch black darkness of my room, overwhelmed with relief that she had finally gained her peace but also disappointed I had not had the chance to say goodbye.

And so here I was. I took my hand back from the marbled surface and held the heart shaped pendant around my neck between my fingers. With my other hand I reached into my back pocket and brought out Clara's matching pendant. There I dug a shallow hole in the ground with my bare hands and placed the necklace inside before covering it once again.

"You'll always be with me and I'll always be with you," I said out loud as a tear streaked down my cheek, "I hope you're causing hell up there," I added, chuckling to myself slightly as I envisioned her wild ways.

I stood and inhaled sharply before turning to head back to the car. In that moment I realised that I was not just walking away from my past, I was walking towards my future. A new opportunity to be what I had always wanted to be, to start over and to leave the pain and anguish of my past behind.

"You're smiling," Angela quizzically observed as I returned to my seat.

With that I reached up to my face with my hands to feel my upturned lips and the crease in my cheeks. As if I needed to check in order to believe that I was really smiling. I was. I really was and I was hopeful that I would smile for some time to come.

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