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Ch.25-This is Us

I was going back to Nevada.

I couldn't decide if I was happy. I could have been ecstatic, or even devastated. I just didn't know anymore. I hadn't felt anything since walking out of that visitation room in Clear Water three weeks ago. Not a single fucking thing.

I pretty much let Jasmine lead the operations. I was a ghost of Lilia, floating about and doing what she was told; what was expected of her. That was about all I could manage. Anything more was asking too much of the brain I didn't want to use, and the empty cavity inside me that once held my heart.

I was a robot. A zombie. Anything like that would do.

My grandfather had more appointments, so he was gone until next week. I was alone, supposed to be packing up, but every time I unzipped my suitcase and was faced with the intimidating emptiness inside of it, I couldn't do it. I couldn't bring myself to fill it with contents to take away from Heart and back across the country. Back to Nevada. To where my problems started.

I couldn't do it.

And I was given yet another opportunity at procrastination when a front blew in from the south with heavy rain and destructive winds. After a crackly phone call with Jasmine telling me she couldn't make it over and the flight was delayed, I was left alone in the empty house, the sounds of the storm booming around me. I felt inconceivably small, insignificant, like nothing compared to the roaring winds and monstrous cracks of lightning lighting up the sky.

It was just me. And I was lonely.

It was a dreadful storm. The phones lines went dead first. I watched the news for as long as I could on coverage of the event until the cable blew out. After that I had enough time to microwave a plate of meatloaf halfway before the power shorted out, and I had to eat it cold.

It was a pathetic night, but just as well, as I felt like the most pathetic being on earth at the moment.

I'd never been a huge fan of storms. It stemmed from a horrible experience when I was little, when I picked up the house phone and lightning happened to strike at the same time, and the shock zinged through me. It didn't cause any real damage to me internally, but it did mentally. I'd never thought of storms quite the same way since.

When you were alone, and the power was out, and you were sitting in the dark with one of the worst storms in North Carolina's history brewing around you, old childhood nightmares were bound to resurface.

I curled up on the couch and pulled the hand-knit afghan around me, just wishing it all to pass. Wishing someone was there with me. Wishing I didn't feel like my life was swirling down the big metaphorical toilet.

I wondered how Jasmine was doing, holed up in a hotel somewhere. Maybe the staff was giving complimentary drinks at the bar, and she was flirting with the waiter and persuading him to give her some even though she was a year underage. Maybe she was worrying about me. Maybe she was trying to find out when the next soonest flight for Nevada could be. Maybe she was sleeping through the whole storm, and my mind was just running in a million useless directions for nothing.

And maybe I was scared. Maybe thinking a million things at once kept my mind off my current situation.

My thoughts transitioned to my grandfather. He was in Georgia, I was pretty sure. Seeing some doctor for some treatment option he couldn't get in North Carolina. I hadn't yet told Jasmine about the leukemia situation, but that opportunity would present itself with time. It wasn't so bad at the moment.

I wondered if he was facing the same storm, or if it had passed. I wondered if he was thinking about me, and thinking these same questions.

Maybe he was scared, too.