Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
There was a tiny cafe just down the street from the garrison that Benjamin used to take me to every year for my birthday. He told me it was the place our parents met. The story went that when my mother was fifteen she started working here as a waitress for an old family friend. Dad caught wind of the rumours that there was a pretty new thing running around small heath and went to see if those rumours were true. Apparently when their eyes met the world stopped. No one else caught their attention from there on in. I liked that story very much as a child. Now it seemed like a lie. The world shouldn't stop when you meet the love of your life. It should keep spinning, but in such a way that brings your life balance not knocks you on your feet.
"I wasn't sure if you would actually come," Clara comments standing up from her seat and opening her arms for a hug. I ignore the gesture and sit down watching her carefully. It's almost like watching myself in a mirror as I watch her eyebrows furrow and her suck In her bottom lip to mask disappointment. "You look well."
"I thought about not coming. About leaving you hear alone so you could have a taste of what it felt like for Ben and I, but it turns out I got my father's compassion not yours," each word is sharper than the next as they leave my lips. "Why are you here?"
"I found out Benjamin died I needed to check on my daughter. Make sure she was okay." Her voice shook and yet I felt no sympathy.
"You don't have a daughter. If you wanted one you would have stayed."I snapped. "Why did you do it? Hmm why did you leave us. I needed you!"
"I was heartbroken."
"That's not an excuse to leave your children." I sighed. "I want you out of small heath before I get married at the end of the month do you understand."
"Noel." Clara begged my name sounding odd on her tongue.
"We were heartbroken to, and instead of losing one parent that day we lost both. So do what you do best Clara and leave. I'm doing just fine pretending you don't exist."
"You need me. Don't pretend like you don't young lady." I stopped at the door turning back to her and smiling as I shook my head.
"I needed you then. Not now. You're the one who needs me and unfortunately I've run out of my compassion for the day."
— Most choices you make in this life will be second guessed. Maybe not right away, but eventually. It's a sick game of what if. What if she stayed. Why if I gave her the second chance she was begging for. What if my brother didn't lose himself in the war. These questions will never be answered. No matter how many times you ask them they will stay unknown. We must accept that and move on.
"Did you get the answers you were looking for?" John asked when I slid into the booth beside him.
"No, but I got the closure I needed." I kissed his cheek raising his glass of whisky in the air. "To new beginnings. May our old lives not interfere with the new."
"To new beginnings." John grinned. "Let's go home love it's been a long day."
