ONCE UPON A TIME ✨

19. Throw it into River

Tasha's pov (1 week before):

"What are you doing here, Tash?" my mom asked as soon as she opened the door. From her face, i could tell that she was pretty shocked to see me in weekdays. Normally, i came home only on weekends.

"Seriously ma? Im freezing out here" i said while hugging my shivering body. It was raining cats and dogs out there and i was wet from the rain like 50%. My mom opened the door wider and let me in. She was still looking at me with an unbelievable look.

"What maa?" i groaned while rolling my eyes.

"Why are you here?"

"Seriously? Not even a hug?"

"No. And as your mother, i can smell a problem here. What is it, Tash?" my mom raised her eyebrows at me.

"Ma.. i was.. just missing you. So, i wanted to see you" i lied.

"Hm" she said plainly and walked towards the kitchen. I took out my sweater and settled on the sofa. I sighed, thinking about my mother who was too good in detecting my problems. Do i look so obvious that im in a problem? My mother came back from the kitchen with a plate of fried rice.

"Good thing i made extra rice today" she said while sitting beside me. I took the plate from her and quickly scrunched down the fried rice. I was already starving from the journey in bus and the rain outside made me even more hungry. My mother didn't question me after that but she was looking at me carefully. She looked at me like she could read my mind and knew my problem. Suddenly, my phone ringed. I was busy eating, so my mom took my phone from the beg. It was Elijah. My mom almost pressed the green button, but i quickly grabbed the phone from her. I pressed the red button and continued on my eating.

"Who was that?" she asked.

"No one" i said without looking at her.

"So, do you want to talk about it?"

"Talk about what?"

"The true reason why you are here. Tasha, you only came home when you are in desperate to be away from your campus. Usually, that will be on weekends. But, this time you are even more desperate to come home on Tuesday and ditch the rest of the classes for this week. What is going on, Tash? You can always talk to me" my mom said while putting her hand on my hand and gave it a little squeeze. My heart was giving up at this moment and screaming to tell my mom what had happened, but my brain was still firm on its decision. It doesn't allow me to tell this. Besides, im not entirely ready to tell my mother about this.

"Nothing, ma" i simply said. "Thank you for the food". And then, i walked away from her and to my room. I locked my room door and lied on the bed. It was 11pm and the night was pretty noisy with the sound of rain.

Elijah called me again and like usual, i let it rang for awhile before it stopped. I sighed. What am i doing? I feel so stupid to behave like a kid. But, i had no choice. I am not brave enough to face him. Everytime i saw his name on the call list, the one thing i could remembered was he lying on his own pool of blood, fighting for his life. It happened because of me.

But, i missed him. Alot. I took my phone and opened the gallery. I was scrolling down, looking at our pictures together. We were so happy, back then. We promised each other to always make time to see one another even if we had busy schedule. Night walking was our thing. We would always walked together in the night, appreciating how beautiful the stars and moon are. My mind drifted back to one of our memories one night.

"That one look like a unicorn" i said while showing at a bunch of stars. Me and Elijah was lying down on Elijah's car bonnet. Our heads were touching together and we were holding hands.