CHAPTER ONE

6 Months Ago

The day had begun with a dull waking up, then a trip to the shopping centre to buy specifically black school shoes, as required by the new school, and groceries for the emptying refrigerator. 

He had been complaining of headaches for quite some time, and that day, once more, pain had struck him. So, Rebecca went on to have her first taste of buying groceries alone, while her father sat outside on a bench, resting. She had felt lost and uneasy, unsure of what were the right items to select. After all, it was always the adult that made the final decisions.

With the shopping done, they left for the car park, loaded the groceries into the car and proceeded for the drive home. He had seemed all right then. Nobody would have known or even expected that a few hours later he would be too weak to sit up while coughing up streaks of blood, gradually losing consciousness. 

The emergency line had been called twice. The first time they asked if he was coughing up blood, Rebecca’s mother had said no, to which they responded to wait and see if there any more changes. The second time was dialled in further desperation; the streaks of blood had appeared and her father was barely conscious. They said they would send an ambulance as soon as possible. But as soon as possible is never soon enough.

As Rebecca sat alone in a vacant ambulance, her father was being transferred into a better equipped ambulance. At the same time, her brother was with their mother while she received minor treatment in another. It was during this moment that a single voice lingered in her head.

“Everything will be okay,” had been her father’s last words, but that had been the beginning of the worst week of her life.

I had been ready for my second chance. To start again, once more, without anyone judging me before they even knew me. To be able to continue striving to achieve my aspirations and dreams as if I never had a break in between. To keep living my life the way I had planned it, even if I continued to be misunderstood, living as a closed book.

But that’s just not the way life goes. When we find new hope, we often forget that there will always be more bumps in the road.

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For my mother and my late father…

Missing You

His clothes lay in a heap on the floor. Laying there just as he had left them that very day, as if he would return to pick them up and place them back in the laundry basket. Any time now, it seemed to say. Any time now, he would come back and deal with it. But she knew, he would not.

Her body lay in a heap on the floor, collapsed under the weight of her pain and her tears. Leaning against the door frame, she cried out his name, over and over again, as if he would return to answer her and soothe her pains. Any time now, the hope in her heart whispered. Any time now, he would come back and embrace her in his arms, telling her everything would be okay. But she knew - oh, how she regretted that she knew.

He would never be coming back again.

“I miss you…” 

No, but I’m listening to this now. 

Infinite - Only Tears
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0a26KbAKbCs