Four Week Fiance 2(33)

“Mom,” I said again, softly, wishing she would look up and see me, and stop crying, but she didn’t hear me or see me. Instead she just kept crying and crying.

“I hate you. I hate you. I hate you,” she cried out into her pillow and I started sucking on my thumb harder.

“Mom,” I whispered, feeling scared, my whole body feeling cold with uncertainty.

“I just want to die,” she cried out and I so badly wanted to go over to her and kiss her. I so badly wanted to go over to tell her I loved her. But I couldn’t move. I couldn’t get the words out of my mouth. I stood there for about ten more minutes and then quietly picked up my toy soldiers, closed the door and made my way to my room and crawled back into my bed, closed my eyes and pretended to sleep until sleep finally took me.

When I woke up the next morning, my father told me that my mother had gone to Heaven earlier that morning. All I did was stare at him as my heart closed in and my stomach tightened. He didn’t reach out to hug me or ask me if I was okay and I didn’t reach out to him. Instead I just walked back to my room, got back into my bed, curled into a ball and sucked my thumb.

Present Day



Every morning, I would wake up and just lie there without opening my eyes. It used to be that I wanted to avoid the beginning of the new day for as long as possible. I’d lie there and imagine that I was somewhere else, anywhere else. Sometimes I’d picture I was on a deserted island somewhere, the sun on my face, the salty air caressing my cheeks as I tried to figure out how to climb the closest coconut tree and pick as many coconuts as I could. Other times, I would picture myself at Mila’s house with her family, playing board games or just sitting around the dinner table talking about our days.

I’d always found it funny that they’d always seemed so interested in hearing about my life, as if I were important or mattered to them. No one else had ever seemed to care. Certainly not my father. He cared about: my grades, my sportsmanship and what girls I dated. There was nothing else in my life that was important to him. I’d learned at an early age not to bother going to him when I was happy, excited or sad. He didn’t listen and he didn’t care. And I learned not to care. Not about anything. It wasn’t important. I wasn’t important. Though for some reason I was important to Mila and Cody, and their parents, and even Nonno looked at me like I mattered. It was a strange feeling, nice, but uncomfortable.

When I woke up in the mornings now, I still kept my eyes closed, but it wasn’t to think about other places I could be, it was to let my mind think about Mila completely unadulterated. I would picture her smile, the bright happy look in her eyes, the way she plays with her hair when she’s nervous. I would think about the way she smells, like roses on a dewy day, fresh, crisp, clean, fragrant. I would imagine her touching my arm or chest, imagine her holding me close, pressing her head against my chest and holding me tightly. I would see myself pulling her into my arms and kissing her forehead and then we would just be there, bound together by some emotion I didn’t want to acknowledge. And then as my anxiety crept in, and the doubts started to come, I would find my eyes opening slowly, ready to face the day, to forget the fantasy that I didn’t think I really wanted. And then I would focus on the task at hand and on why there will never be a moment like that in my daydreams again.

This morning, I awoke, but I didn’t just lie there. I didn’t focus on anything. My eyes flew open and I looked over to the right to look at Mila, to see that she was okay. It was weird having her share my bed now. It was weird that sometimes I woke up and thought of her and kissed her and caressed her in my mind, yet in person—in real life—I just lay there, not able to express the feelings within, in person.

“Morning,” I said softly when I saw her eyelashes fluttering as I faced her. I knew she was awake and was just trying to pretend she was sleeping. She didn’t answer me and I smiled to myself as I felt a surge of happiness trailing through my body for no real reason. It always surprised me how happy I felt just being in her company. Unfortunately, I also felt surges of anger and jealousy when around her. If she looked at another guy and smiled in her sweet, friendly way, it enraged me. Didn’t she realize that other men might read something into her smile? What annoyed me even more was wondering if she was interested in them as well? What really did she see in me? What did she want from me? Would she be happy to be with another man?

I knew these thoughts were irrational, but they always came and I absolutely hated them. I hated feeling like she was taking over my brain; making me think and feel things I didn’t want to feel. She opened up doubts, pains, hurts I didn’t want to think about. The happiness was a high, but the flipside of that, well, the flipside was dark.

“I said, good morning, Mila,” I said again and reached over to tickler her under the arm.

“No, you didn’t.” Her eyes popped open as her body reacted and she pushed my hand away. “You said ‘morning,’ not good morning.” She smiled at me sweetly as she yawned gently. I watched as she pushed her hair away from her face and wondered at how beautiful she was. How could her brown eyes do so much to me when she looked at me?

“So you were awake?” I grinned at her and leaned forward to give her a quick and soft kiss on the lips. Her eyes widened slightly and she just lay there and stared back at me as I moved back.

“I never said that.” She bit her lower lip, her eyes sparkling. “My subconscious must have heard.”