Page 76 of Unspoken Words
Mum was bluffing; she wasn’t a break-the-door-down kind of person. She’d be better off saying she’d cut the water supply to my bathroom instead.
Closing my eyes once again, I let darkness swallow my reality. Nothing was real when the world faded to black and dreams paved a path of pretend. It’s where I wanted to be, indefinitely.
A loud thud against my door jolted me awake, and I startled, twisting in my sheets as I scrambled to sit. A second thud followed, just as loud, and I soon realised it was Mum, no fluff in her bluff.
“What are you doing?” I called out.
“Breaking your door down.”
Another thud and, this time, the door’s hinges, the few photo frames I had left, and the windowpane all rattled.
“Ouch!”
“What are you breaking it down with, your head?”
“If I have to.”
“Mum, stop being stupid.” I brought my knees to my chest and hugged them.
“Well, it takes one to know one,” she said, her voice strained right before another thud.Oh my God, she’s gone nuts.
“You’re so annoying.”
“And you’re so gonna get up, get showered, get dressed, and get fed … as soon as I get … this … door… open.”
Grumbling, I climbed out of bed, my legs stiff and sore, the air surrounding me stale and unpleasant. It all hit me at once, and I braced myself against the door, opening it to find Mum rearing back in preparation for another attack. “There, it’s open,” I said, turning around and climbing back onto my bed.
“Oh no you don’t.” She secured me under the arms and lifted me to my feet. “Into that shower, now.”
“Mum, pleeease,” I said, choking back tears. “Just let me drown in the biggest sorrow my heart will ever know.”
“Oh, sweetheart.” She smoothed her hands over my hair. “You can’t possibly know that this will be the biggest sorrow your heart will ever know.”
“Yes, I can.”
“No, you can’t.”
“What would you know? You don’t even know what my sorrow is!”
“I do know, and so does Chris, Dad, Raelene, and Curtis. We’re all feeling it with you.”
I shook her hands loose and scoffed. “You couldn’t possibly feel what I’m feeling right now.”
She put her hands back on my hair and smoothed them down the sides of my face, her eyes travelling over me like only a mother’s eyes could. “Maybe not. But I can tell you that what you’re feeling will beoneof the biggest sorrows your heart will ever know, and so you have to draw strength from it for what’s to come.”
A sob broke through my chest. “But how? How do I find strength in something that breaks every single piece of me?”
“You find it in those pieces as you put them back together again, one by one, that’s how. Starting with showering, eating, and seeing the light of day.”
The shower did sound promising, the eating not so much. As for the light of day, I would take each step as it came. There wasn’t much more I could do than that.
“Okay. I’ll have a stupid shower then.”
She smiled. “Good. And after that, you can meet me in the kitchen for some stupid pizza.”
I nodded. I never could say no to pizza.
*
