C o t r a v e n i n g S i l e n c e

Chapter 14: time to say goodbye

--:--

D.

Three months passed since that day on the dock, and I still can’t even believe I hadn’t seen it coming. When I first allowed myself to analyze what happened, a few tears slipped out, but now that months have passed—I’ve been coming to terms with myself.

“Derrick?” Claire’s voice called. I lifted myself off of my bed to find her standing in the doorway with a neutral expression plastered on her face.

“Hmph?”

She looked at her hands for a moment. “Let’s take a walk.”

Not that I really had much of a choice, I slipped on some tennis shoes and headed for the door to see my sister awaiting my presence with an patient sad smile on her face.

“What?” I asked out of curiosity.

“You’ll see,” she mumbled as she headed on her heel down the road without another word. I followed her without another protest.

We walked in silence for immeasurable moments and I honestly forgot how much I missed my sister’s presence.

“So, how have you been?” I questioned awkwardly, trying to keep up with her quick pace.

She kept walking, not offering much of a response.

I looked at the bitter sky for a moment, exhaling out of annoyance, and followed her footsteps—not really knowing where I was going, and what was in store for me within the following minutes.

We walked for minutes down that familiar road, silence wrapping its usual blanket around us. I could just smell the upcoming rain that was just waiting to be let out.

“I’ve been okay.” She answered quietly, not offering to turn around. I was still a few paces behind her. “But I’m sure there’s been happier times for me.” She added. “It’ll get better, I know it will.”

I couldn’t don’t think I could even open my mouth to respond.

“I believe it will,” she murmured, stuffing her hands into her coat pockets.

We walked and I had been so dazed and bewildered, I hadn’t even realized whose house I was approaching.

--:--

M.

“Mass, you’ve got visitors.” Kendra noted.

Massie didn’t stir. “Great.”

“They want to talk to you,” Kendra insisted quietly; already defeated.

They were waiting.

Waiting for something that they knew was coming.

And their hope was fading.

--:--

C.

“No Claire—I can’t do it.” He said sternly. She looked at him in pure disappointment.

“Do you honestly expect her to love you back when you can’t even face her?”

He looked away from her; they were standing in front of the Block’s mansion; and Derrick was refusing bitterly to not go in. He couldn’t; he wouldn’t.

Claire sighed, running a hand through her long locks, tired as always. “Listen D,” she began musically. “I know you don’t think you can accept that she doesn’t have much longer—but just make her the happiest she can even be. You really changed her,” Claire bit her lip, looking away as she did. “And you don’t even realize you did. Because she changed you too.”

He shook his head before she could even finish her 3rd sentence. “You have no idea what I’m going through,” he told her coldly. She snapped her head up from where she was previously looking, fire was blazing in her usually warm Tiffany Blue Robin egg-colored eyes.

“Shut up, Derrick. You can be so selfish when you’re unhappy,” Claire snapped angrily. She took a deep breath. “I understand that you’re very unhappy—beyond words—but she’s my friend too, okay? And I feel some degree of pain too, whether you can comprehend that, alright?”

It was his turn to look away. He felt rain begin to pitter down and about.

He stared up at the sky, loving that familiar scent of rain, and the gentle drops of dew landing upon his tear-stricken face. He had never felt such raw emotions before, and it was tearing him apart with every passing second that he knew the truth.

He hated how his Block had lied to him for so long it seemed. How she didn’t even how the strength to stop this before it even occurred. Ah, but she had attempted to stop it.

He knew deep, deep down that she had insisted not to even note that he was there. But that was the huge dilemma—they both felt it. They felt what was considered such a lie from many, what was so deep and true that it hurt when it ended. How it was often a never-ever lasting emotion.

“It’s the like the wind—I can’t see it, but I can feel it.” He bitterly quoted the line from A Walk To Remember –it was her favorite movie he realized.

His life seemed so much like that movie plotline, and it hurt him because he knew the ending himself. In the end, poor Jamie Sullivan, didn’t even stand a chance against the cruelty that life had to offer grievingly, so.

He hated this truth.

He did, he did.

::-::

M.

“Talk to me, Derrick. I need to know what you’re thinking,” she begged, her eyes wide like a doe's. “I need to know," She pleaded desperately. "Before it’s too late.”

--:--

Review.

-another moment gone-