How Rare and Beautiful // Rilaya

I Tried to Write it Down

No word...

I sat in the Matthew's house alone, my phone in my hand, and the news station on the television. I waited anxiously for something...anything! A text message, and picture, a video clip. Proof that my love was still alive! 

But nothing. 

My text would not send, her phone must have been destroyed.  The only photos were of the mass destruction. The only videos was security footage of the city shaking and falling to its knees. Every time they replayed the video I cried. I couldn't help but feel I was watching a murder. Her murder! The fifth time they showed it I looked away. I couldn't do it anymore. 

"We regret to inform you that several after shocks have followed this massive earthquake. Rescuers have started back out into the rubble. We have just been told that more Americans have been found."

My head whipped around to the television and I trained my hearing hoping to hear her name among the living. 

"A mother and her son, both dead. According to their passports their names are Topanga Matthews and August Matthews..." 

My heart sunk. It was Riley, but the news was just as devastating. Topanga? Dead? She was like a mother to me! She was my inspiration in life! How could she be gone!? And Auggie!? That sweet little boy I considered to be my brother. He didn't deserve to die! I threw the remote at the TV in protest. I let out a cry of anguish. 

"God why?!" I sobbed into the couch pillow. I closed my eyes and mourned. 

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"Riley, you've been quiet are you okay?" My dad asked. 

"Yeah..." I sighed still crying. "I was just thinking."

"Me too." He said in a voice that was almost inaudible. I heard another rumble and by instinct I braced for another after shock. I grabbed my father and he held me close. But soon I realized this was not a shaking of the earth. I listened harder and I heard voices. 

Rescuers! We were being rescued! 

"Hey. Hey!" I began to yell as much as my damaged body would let me. "Down here! Help!" I stopped and listened again. 

I couldn't understand the the voice I was hearing. Partly because of the language difference, but mostly because of the concrete separating us. 

"Dad, they're coming for us! We're getting out!" I celebrated. 

"That's great baby..." He said softly. 

My joy turned to concern. "Daddy stay awake we're almost out." I pleaded with him. 

"I'll try." He sighed. 

I squeezed his hand and started yelling for the rescuers to hurry. 

It was hours before I saw a fleck of light. 

"Daddy, their right there. Stay up please!" 

He didn't answer. 

"Dad?" I asked into the darkness. 

"Dad?" I shook his body.

"Dad?!" No answer. I began to cry. He couldn't be dead. No. I couldn't be alone. 

The rescuers removed a slab of concrete that had covered us. I looked to my right. My dad laid beside me with a peaceful look on his dirty, pale face. I looked down his body and that's when I saw it. We were lying in a pool of blood. A steel poll protruded violently from my father's thigh. It must have happened during one of the after shocks. He bled out. I wondered how strong he had to be not to tell me. I kissed his forehead through my tears and thanked him for saving me. 

The French rescue team pulled me from the rubble and rushed me to a cleared area. I squinted from the light and because of a pain in my head. Only out in the open did I feel the full weight of what had just happened and how bad I felt. I was given a blanket and a water bottle and told to wait for an ambulance. I sat in the dirt and wrapped the blanket around my bloody body and waited. 

And through everything, I was thankful God had allowed me to survive. I would see Maya again. And when I did I would need a feel better kiss. But not just one. I would kiss her again and again and again. And that's what kept me going.