Silhouette

One

PAID BOOK

Chapter One
• • •

Steady eyed, I stared at the door on the right side of my room through the gloomy shade of twilight as I lay awake on my bed. The sound of rain beating on the roof, the wind howling all along like a mourning song, was deafening. . . but not even close to the piercing screams of silence that swallowed me.

God, I wish . . .

The silence was tearing me apart inside, so very slowly, making me feel every bit of the pain as it sliced in deeper and deeper. . . until a tear slipped from the corner of my right eye. I didn't care to wipe it off. I let it be. I only cared to pray that this silence would break in defeat to my mom's loving whisper.

It was the seventeenth of August. If Mom was still with us, she would've walked into my room through the very closed door I was staring at, and kiss me on my forehead with a birthday wish.

I waited. . . waited for a miracle.

Seconds ticked by.

Seconds turned to minute.

Not long after, I realized it had been quite some years already since I'd stopped believing in miracles. No miracle happened when Mom lay pale and thin on the hospital bed. . . And no miracles since.

I rolled onto my side towards the window - ripping my gaze away from the door that was never going to open to reveal the miracle I craved for - and soaked my pillow wet with tears that bitterly trickled from my eyes.

It killed me to imagine and wait as though nothing had changed. But of course, everything had changed. . . ever since she left us six years ago; ripped apart from us, from me, by cancer. Merciless. I was ten then.

Just around 6:00am, I peeled off the warm covering and went straight towards the bathroom. I took a quick shower, got dressed and walked out of my room. I stepped down the stairs with extra care so as not to disturb Dad and my extremely alert eight-year-old brother's sleep.

By that time around, the roar of the rain had ceased and when I opened the front door, all that was left was a drizzle; which was good because I didn't have a car to drive me around the town. I was still underage. Dad had promised to get me one once I get my driver's license.

I was lucky I hadn't got blown away a couple days ago during the thunderstorm. The wind was crazy, which shouldn't exactly be surprising for a South Dakotan town near Sioux. The weather keeps shifting every other day like going through TV channels.

I walked leisurely along the pavements of a damp, empty highway with an umbrella in hand, scanning all the stores and houses and coffee shops that I passed as I headed towards Rose's Roses, the florist shop where I worked part-time every weekend for the fun of it. By the time I reached the shop, the morning light had encompassed the sky in its full glory and Mrs. Clayton had already begun arranging the flowers when I walked in.

I loved this little shop because inside it, the feelings I felt always changed to something entirely surreal. Inside the little shop was a different world; a world of romance and fairytale. Mrs. Clayton, an aged lady with silver hair that ended just above her shoulders, was tilting her body from side to side as she sang her favorite song, 'Dream a little dream of me'.

"Sweet dreams till sunbeams find you
Sweet dreams that leave all worries behind you
But in your dreams, whatever they be
Dream a little dream of me"