Please, Don't Go!

"Please, Don't Go!" Chapter 8

~Chapter 8~

As I walk through the hallways in school, ALL eyes are staring at me. I have people come up to me and say, "I'm sorry for your loss" or "How are you feeling?" How am I feeling?! Oh just fine, yeah, my best friend who is also my brother could be dead and I am JUST FINE! Ugh, even the principal called me into his office to "talk".

"Isabelle, sit," he says. I sit down on the brown cushion chair in front of his desk. He takes a seat behind his desk and says, "I am so sorry for your loss"

"Thanks," I say.

"You're very brave coming to school today," he told me.

"Why?" I asked. When my father died, I came to school.

"Well...you just are...I know how you must feel," he starts. Oh great.

"My cousin fights in the war," he started, "his arm was blown off in war, his left arm, to be exact" he said.

"What happened?" I asked, very interested.

"Well, he was fighting in Iraq and bombs started to go off," he started his story, "his friend was on the ground, shaking. Debris hit him in the back and he was paralyzed. My cousin tried to save him, so he reached out his left hand to grab him when another bomb blew up his friend and his left arm," he finished.

"Wow," was all I could say.

"Yeah, I felt so sad, afraid, helpless," Mr. Westburn told me. Tears started to run down my face from the corner of my eyes. Mr. Westburn handed me a tissue.

"At least your cousin didn't die," I told my principal.

"Yes, but, I felt the same way you are feeling now," he replied. I took more tissues. "If you want to, you can leave school early, I won't blame you," he said.

"Really?" I asked.

"Really. Go home and rest. You've been through a lot," he said. After that, he called up my mom and she said I could go home.

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I took the bus home since my mom was at work. The bus dropped me off a block or two from my house, and I walked home. I walked up my long, curving driveway and took out my house keys, out of my backpack, and walked inside my house. I walked upstairs and as I was going towards my room, I heard someone in my mother's room. I crept closer and closer to the bedroom door, and then opened it to see my mom curled up into a ball underneath the covers of her bed. She's crying. 

   "Mom?" I ask.

   "Oh honey", my mom sniffs and turns over to look at me. Her face is all red, her eyes are bloodshot and her nose is congested, "You're home?"

   "I left school early because I was feeling upset about Jeremy, why are you home? Shouldn't you be at work?" I ask as I walk to the side of her bed. I put my backpack down on the floor and lean in towards my mom.

   "I decided not to go to work today. I mean, give me a break, you know? First my husband is taken away from me and now my son?" she says and a tear falls from the corner of her left eye.

   "Mom, Jeremy could still be alive. They said he was missing - not dead", I said reassuringly. 

   "That's just the Army's way of telling us that he is dead. He is dead, Isabelle! Jeremy is NOT coming home!" my mom yelled.

   "Jeremy is coming home, not yet, but he will. I just know it!" I said as I grabbed my backpack and stormed out of my mom's room.