A Twist In Time

Chapter 21

JULY 26, 2011

I woke up with a light feeling in my heart. I looked around me. I was in my own room. The date today said that I was in year 2011. I was in the present. My long journey was over, and it just felt like a dream. It wasn’t a dream. That was reality.

The hourglass on my bedside table started to run all over again. As I looked at it absent-mindedly, I felt pain tear me out. I was away with Sean, and it feels like living our lives from this year forward is our only way to be together again.

I looked at my feet, and thought I was barefooted. The left sandal I wore on my eighteenth birthday was lying on the cold floor. I picked it up, and when I stared at it, I remembered my last goodbye with Sean. After all, we were just intertwined by destiny, and got unlocked through time. And if we ever meet again, we would be strangers at face… and maybe by heart.

I shifted my eyes to the hourglass again, and I totally arrived to a decision. I had to throw the hourglass, or break it otherwise. The curse had to end, and I knew I was the only one who could do that.

I went out of my room to see if my parents were there. Mom was the first too see me. She ran and hugged me tightly.

“Carmel! I’m so glad that you’re back. Where have you been?” she said.

I gave her my tightest hug.                                                                                

“Mom, I’ll just tell you later. I miss you so much…” I sobbed.

Dad came in and hugged us both.

“I miss you, sweetie. Where the hell have you been?”

“I’m so sorry, dad.” I sobbed again.

“Happy birthday.” my mom said, almost whispering in her tears of joy.

I froze for a while. I broke free from the hug and ran to the nearest calendar posted on our wall. July 26, 2011. Today. It is my birthday. I am nineteen years old. I was away from them for a year, and found true love in another time.

This scene made me even happier.

“Thanks mom, thanks dad.”

“You’re welcome, sweetie.” dad said.

“Oh! Here comes Angela. She’ll help me in cooking our food, Carmel.”

Angela came in with the one-year old Sean Keates. He was so adorably cute, and I somehow found wit and intelligence in him.

Angela was shocked when she saw me.

“Carmel, is that you?” she asked, obviously doubting if it was really me she’s talking to.

“Yeah. It’s me.”

She suddenly hugged me.

“I miss you so much, dear. Are you okay? Where have you been?”

I smiled to myself. ‘Where have you been?’ that’s the question that I myself couldn’t answer, and it would cost me more than ten thousand words to tell them the truth.

As I hugged her back, I looked at the one-year old kid who was also looking at me in the eye while sitting beside my mom.

“It’s a long story.”