Open Heart {Under Revision}

Prologue- Death Silence

Atlanta, Twenty-years later...

The day my grandmother's funeral was held was the day I reunited with the tattered remnants of my broken family.

We buried her in Atlanta, nowhere near her dream resting ground. She was far away from Manchester where she'd hidden most of her life. She was far away from San Diego where we all once used to breathe and burn. She was far away from the sea that always had us drowned in its sweet depths. She was far away from us. Finally at peace.

I saw her one last time during viewing, and kissed her forehead to feel the icy-cold lifeless body on my lips. She was queen of wax. Her face was regal and preserved in a calm expression, and I wondered why it took so long for her to melt that bitterfrost attitude towards me. Us. Too many tides it took. Too long we waited. And then her heart yearned.

When I was small, she never cherished either of her grandchildren. She only envisioned for our family's legacy, faring as autumn's early fall after her husband's hushed death.

It was raining that day, slow and steady—dancing with even slower winds of late winter. A member of my mother's security team held an umbrella but despite the roof over my head, rainwater seeped through clothes to my skin until it dripped down from my fingers. I curled them and instead of staring at the horde of unknown, monotonous faces—I examined the guardians perched over decaying monoliths. They wreathed these withering tombstones, protecting the dead buried to earth.

I stood between my mother and aunt, their fiery green eyes dissecting the crowd with calculative scrutiny. They weren't here to support me in grief. We needed no grief for that day. They flanked to protect me. And the security team flanked to protect us.

From him. From them.

The eyes of stone guardians watched me. The eyes of my mother stayed to me. And among the gathered, there was yet another person who never took his eyes away from me. His stare was like an oily sheen coating my skin which the supple rain couldn't wash away. The stare latched onto me just like leeches did, sucking your blood—sucking your life.

Unable to bear any longer, I hazarded a look and found a pair of beautiful, earth-like intense eyes bound to me by everything. My heart shuddered when I held them. After all, I got mine from him.

My father.

He stood there, not a tall man but wore such an imposing persona that people felt threatened to even stand near him. They remained at safe distance, being polite towards a grieving son who was about to bury his mother. If they knew who he really was, they would've never attended this funeral.

Instead of looking at his dead mother, he sneered at his daughter.

And beside him was a man bound to wheelchair. Bound into a situation that I'd faced once. His head was lolled to a side, resting on one shoulder—eyes vacant and staring to distance space of air over his dead mother. His wife who was shackled to him kept a protective hand on another shoulder. My Uncle Shawn and Aunt Daniella.

Daniella was the only one amongst us crying. She let the world see her tears. She was never defiant but that day, she must've forgotten to be a Turner. Her autumn red-hair was coiled in a clean bun, coaxing her sylphlike features to jut out. I looked at her and wondered if she missed Him like I did. Cried at nights like I used to. Thought about me. Hated me.

When time attained, I grabbed fistful of earth and knew it was the last moment to speak. But I did not even attune a single whisper. Just breathed into empty air as my grandmother's casket was dropped to six feet underground.

Then they entombed her from the world.

I sought seclusion for a few moments to calm my racing heart but that was grave mistake. While I tried to bury everything like my grandmother, the eyes which had never left my face anchored for me.