She Who Loves Death ✓COMPLETE

16. Sorry

It's been a tough week. Battling against reality is a very difficult thing to win and to be honest, I'm still struggling in accepting my brother's death. Each day, I deal with the pain and there is an invisible wall between me and mom that just makes everything even harder for me. We never speak to each other since the day they went home.

"I wish I was there with you, Louie." Marcus tells me over the phone, somehow making me wish of the same thing. "Everything is going to be okay. That is for sure, icey."

I wish. Marcus, how I wish. My heart is already so numb—I am not sure if it's still capable of feeling anything except pain.

"Are you still there, Louie?"

"Ye—yes." I stutter, forcing myself to say something.

"I'm sending you a telepathic hug right now because that's all I can do." His voice is apologetic and gentle and my heart becomes even more vulnerable. Tears break free from my eyes and the next drops seem to be in race but I manage to keep my sobs silent. "My brother told me you haven't seen each other for almost a week now."

Since I moved in back to our house, I just locked myself in and not entertain any visitors who is actually just him—Malachi. The mention of his name causes a slight twinge in my chest that makes breathing hard for a moment. I watched Kai from my room—he would wait for minutes, hour even, for me to come down and see him. But I can't bring myself to let him see me, shattered and broken so helplessly.

He will understand. I just don't want to burden him with my own luggage and most of all, I don't want to be weak because it is only when I am with him that I am able to express what I truly feel without holding back. And when it happens, he would change me. He would try to take the pain away. He would...

Just say it, Louie. You don't want him to lead you back to your faith that's slowly failing again.

My eyes travel to the ribboned paper on the nightstand, it's Zeke's letter to me. I haven't read it yet. I don't think I will ever be ready to read it.

"Are you still there Louie?" Marcus' voice echoes, taking me back to the present. "Brian is worried about you. That's just all."

"Just tell him not to worry. I am okay, Marcus."

But I know just much as he does that I am not really okay. As long as I cannot move on from this pain, as long as I feel this anger for Him, I will never be okay.

Life takes me back to what it's like for the past two years. I stop living again. There is nothing but anger and hatred in my heart as I live each second of day in my life. It's very toxic but I can't help it. Feeling that anger or having that hatred keeps me away from bleeding in pain. Or at least I can pretend.

"College will start in a week, Grace." Dad tells me one morning. "Do you already have plans which school to go?"

I look at my father to search his eyes. How? How can he not hate me? That question makes my eyes misty. I, swear, deserve all the hate of this world.

"Sweetheart..."

"Dad, I want to leave this place."

"Oh." He seems to be taken aback. I watch his adam's apple going up and down as he swallows. "Uh, o—of course... Of course, we'll be going back to Australia anyway."

"I'm sorry dad—"

"Grace?" He whispers anxiously, his eyes apologetic. "It's not your fault."

I don't want to argue with him so I shut my mouth even though I know that I should take the blame for losing my brother. I try to say something else but I cannot come up with anything.