Chapter 61: Taran
I curl into myself, hiding from Diogo and the rest of the world. My only companion is a stoic bodyguard who watches expressionlessly as I struggle to cope with the death of a man that meant both nothing and everything to me. I spend my days on the roof, sitting listlessly under my birds, watching over them as they grow. Watching as my tomato plant grows. Maybe I'm trying to convince myself that fragile life is still possible. That we creatures bound to the Earth can still flourish in a hostile world.
There are so many different ways to grieve for those that pass. There is the moment of realizing someone isn't there anymore. This happens more often in the beginning, until you've trained yourself to recognize that they're gone. Then there's the ongoing constant tug at your soul as you try to live a life without the other person whose presence made an impact. And finally, there are those sharp stabbing moments when a memory assails you and you feel almost crippled by the pain of remembrance. This will dull out to something more bearable eventually. Where a smile is the dominant emotion over tears. But there will still be tears, there will always be tears. Because the living remember the dead, and we grieve.
I didn't love my ex-husband. Not in the way a wife should love her husband. No, we weren't that to each other. He was my friend. A constant in my life since coming to Sanctuary. He existed within my orbit for twelve years. He took me in when I needed a home. Even if he used me for his own private war, he was still all I knew. A mentor, a brother, a father figure. His death feels like cutting a planet loose from my private solar system. After losing my parents and my brother, then my sister, and finally my grandparents, I can't cope with the idea of losing Xavier, so I just don't.
I drift through time holding myself back from the grief, only feeling it when I'm forced to. When a memory surfaces unbidden to torture me. To remind me that I lost a friend. That yet another person lost a son, a brother, a lover.
We live in an unfair world where our fragile lives mean nothing to the greater forces. We die too easily, we're taken too soon. Too violently, too suddenly. And though he didn't have my heart, Xavier broke it nonetheless. By being one more person to abandon the world I'm left behind to live in.
Log in with Google Account
Chapters
Favorite
Settings
