Prologue
I was numb. I couldn't feel the tips of my fingers, or the ends of my toes. I was sweating, but I didn't feel hot, I was freezing. It was unusually warm for a mid-April day. April. My father named me April. It was the month of my birthday. My parents had thought I was going to be a boy, so they hadn't even thought of any girl's names. So, when I was born, a girl, they were at a complete loss at what to name me. My father suggested April, seeing as I was born the first day of the month, and the name stuck.
I wiped the sweat off my forehead, as I cursed the heat, the cloudless sky. It was almost as if the weather was mocking me, mocking my family, mocking my father.
I was his favorite. He often pretended as though he didn't have favorites, but we all knew. My older sister and brothers were often rather bitter about it. I got the most attention; he always came home from work with presents for me, and none for my siblings. I was his baby, after all. Don't get me wrong, he loved my siblings dearly, but I was his favorite.
Maybe that was why I was numb. Yes, my sister and brothers were grieving, but they were doing just that, they were grieving. I, on the other hand, refused to handle with my pain, with my sorrow, with my guilt, by doing the only thing I knew how; not dealing with it at all. Although I could not feel my fingers or toes, I could avidly feel the gaping, excruciating hole in my heart. It took every ounce of courage, dignity, every bit of discipline I had, not to scream out in agony, not to pound all the weeping people, with my fists. To make them understand, to make them feel half as bad as I did. My pain was beyond tears. I was numb.