Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 135652 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135652 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
“Come on,” Tommy sits me up and kneels beside the bed. Sasha holds a tray of food. “You need to eat something.”
“It all tastes the same,” I whimper as she feeds me yoghurt. “It all tastes like ash.”
Tommy rubs the back of my neck, his eyes swollen and his face showing his pain. “I know, but you still need to eat it. Please.”
I nod, he’s right. “And then can I sleep?”
“Sure,” he whispers and squeezes my hand.
They leave the room when I’m done, I feel like throwing it back up. It stays down somehow and my stomach settles long enough for me to close my eyes.
It’s such an empty feeling, knowing he’s not coming back. You see it happen to other people and you cry but you never truly feel what they feel. I know this because I’ve never felt this. Never.
“You need a shower sweetie,” Sasha whispers and slides the cover from over my head. “It’s been three days nearly. It’s time to start moving.” Her words are soft but her demands still hit me deep. I don’t want to move. “Come on.”
“I’m tired,” I say and reach for the blanket. It’s tugged away completely, much to my annoyance.
“No, you need to get up and shower,” Sasha says more forcefully this time. I sigh and climb out of bed, she leads me out of the room and into the bathroom. “And you’re not sleeping in that bed another night.”
Where the hell am I supposed to sleep then?
“Tommy is bringing over some new bed sheets after class.” She answers my inner monologue. She’s psychic as well as a nuisance. Brilliant. “Don’t look at me like that, I’m only trying to help.”
“I don’t need help,” I whisper.
She sighs and hugs me from behind, “His funeral is in two days. You need to pull yourself together.”
“I don’t want to,” I admit. I just want to sleep and waste away.
“I know,” she unbuttons my shirt, knowing I barely have the energy to do it myself. “But you need to. Because of this,” her hand rests on my protruding stomach. “And for Caleb. But mostly, you need to do it for you. Before you sink into a darkness so final you probably won’t be able to find your way back.”
My lower lip trembles, I don’t think it’s stopped trembling since that night. “I’m sorry Sasha.”
“Hey,” she turns the shower on after releasing me and gives me a smile. “It’s okay. It’s not your fault. Come on, get undressed and get in.”
I nod and peel off the rest of the clothes after she leaves the room.
My reflection in the mirror stares back at me, she looks tired, heartbroken, and hideously unkempt. She looks broken. A mirror doesn’t show you the opposite of everything, sure it looks like everything is on the opposite side to what it actually is, but everything is still exactly the same. In mirror land I’m still a mess and Caleb is still dead.
How does a twenty three year old die from heart failure? It makes no sense! He was healthy.
I knew I should’ve taken him to the doctors. If I’d rung that ambulance when he had the fever he’d still be here now!
This is all my fault.
The water does its job but I don’t feel it. The hot spray cleans away the dirt but it’ll never clean my soul. I want it to. I want it to wash away the pain and leave the girl I once was in its wake, but it won’t. It’ll only cleanse my skin and leave me feeling more awake than I was before I got in.
Which is bad because I just want to sleep. I don’t want to feel this.
My tears blend with the water as it falls down my body. I know they’re there, I can feel them leaking from my eyes. So many tears, do we ever run out? Has anybody ever truly run out of tears? Does their body dehydrate and whither or do they merely fall asleep?
If Caleb were here, we’d Google it.
I don’t feel any better after my shower, especially not when I see the bed. It’s been completely stripped. My body can’t muster the right emotion for it though, so I just stare blankly at the naked bed and try not to picture his lifeless body lying on the mattress. Naked bed or not, the image is still there.
My tears have run out.
“I don’t feel anything,” I say to no one and make my way to my closet. It doesn’t take me long to find something black. Seeing as that something is one of Caleb’s hoodies that I insisted he stopped wearing. It’s too big on me, it buries me. It’s perfect, it even smells of him. I wear my own jeans and a pair of socks before slowly descending the stairs.