Princess {Currently Being Updated}

Chapter 8

There was a heavy dark air here. There was a stench and pain that gave pain to my every breath. My chest was so heavy I felt like I was choking. The whole room was cold to me. If there was light, it wasn't warm.

Breathe in.

She was gone.

Breathe out.

She's dead.

Breathe in.

I killed her. I had taken her away from the warm ground. I had taken her away from her home, the place where she had grown up. I took her here because I thought it would help. All the while she was waiting for him to come back. Everyday she was looking out that window, thinking he might find her here.

I thought back to the cold things I had said about my father.

'He's not coming back.'

'You need to move on.'

'Mom, can we just live our lives happy without him?'

I remember him. I don't want to, but I do. He left. I wanted to leave to. I wanted to take my mother too. She had never healed. She thought he would come back and he never did and now she's dead.

I buried my face deeper into her blanket, sobbing violently while doing so. Her smell was gone and was replaced by a sour smell that I guess came from my smeared makeup and constant tears.

Something warm touched my shoulders and stretched across the room and rested at the feet of her urn. After catching my breath, I could see the room more clearly. I guess it was high noon now. The sun was up, now peeking through the blinds above me and sneaking a look at my mother's urn, resting as quietly as she had when she was alive. She was the only still and peaceful thing in my world.

After all was said and done, I had retreated into her room, the only room in this apartment. Her bed was neatly made since that day with the slight ripple from where she had probably sat.

I constantly looked at that single space. Was it there that she decided to leave me?

The rest of the house was chaos. What little dishes we had were broken on the ground. I didn't mean to throw them, but after a while my strength started to leave me; a little on the first day, more on the second, and then all at once. I was alone.

In the corner of the room was my phone. It was probably out of batter by now. There were a few days when it never stopped buzzing. I never looked at who it was. Quite honestly I was afraid. If it was Katherine, I would have to put on a brave face. I would have to be strong.

I was tired of being strong.

It couldn't have been Mr. Shepherd. He would knock at the door and leave food his wife had made me. I would sometimes take it, but honestly I was never hungry.

It could have been school. That made the weight on my chest all the more heavier. All I wanted to do was to be something or someone who made a lot of money so I could take care of my mom. I wanted to be able to take care of her so that she could heal and we could be a family again. Maybe she could find someone else. Maybe she could move on.

Maybe he would come back.

Across the room were my old sneakers. The ones that had been gifts. They were old and worn but still fit me decently.

If he comes back, how am I going to tell him that I let her die?

He's not coming back!

"I don't want him to come back." I inhaled sharply. "Not anymore."

She deserved so much better than this, we both did. She was my anchor, she was gone. I tried not to care, but deep down I wanted dad to come home, if only to make mom happy again. If he did come back, which I knew he never would, all he would have left of her would be me.