Author's Note.
I don't think saying 'Thank you for reading' is enough when it comes to this story but, Thank you for reading. From the people who've started from the very first chapter, to those who joined somewhere in the middle, Thank. You.
So Much.
Writing this story means more to me than I can put in words and that you've joined me in the journey so far means the world.
From the start, this was never meant to be about ships. I wante to write about real people. Strip them down to their bare humanity. Then peice them back together. That was always the plan & I hope that at least to some level, I did that.
To the Guest who reveiwed the last chapter, you made this whole writing thing worth it.
And to bzjz...
And to each and every single one of you-Thanks.
You made this amazing
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20 part III
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It's probably that much more gratifying because she's not expecting it.
They're just done with making breakfast which in the past week has turned into a routine for them. Lauren takes a shower, then makes her way to the kitchen to help with the cooking.
They don't talk other than the bare minimum.
"Morning."
"Sleep well?"
"Pass me the salt."
But even in the semi-quite, Bo is more content than she was a few weeks ago. Lauren seems to be getting back some life into her. It's slow. Snail's pace doesn't even begin to describe it.
But it happens.
Like the other day, Bo was playing her one woman chess game and Lauren suddenly commented on how unfair she's being to the other time.
"You're practically giving me one bad move after another."
"Are you questioning my chess moves?"
"I'm saying I could do better."
They played chess the whole day that day and it didn't even bother Bo that she didn't win a single game.
So it's slow. Blink-and-you-miss- it, slow. But it's happening and Bo is holding onto that victory so hard she's practically choking the life out of it.
Usually after breakfast Lauren leaves the table and doesn't come back out of her room till the next day. Today she just sits there and Bo concentrates on her paper so as to not make a big deal out of it although she's mentally counting every passing minute where Lauren stays.
She stays with Bo and she doesn't go back to her isolation.
"Have I ever told you about my mom?" Lauren asks suddenly. Bo looks up and she doesn't know what to say. Not really.
She knows Lauren's mom died. Lauren's dad told her that a long time ago. But she can't say Mrs. Lewis is a topic she and Lauren have ever broached.
Because they haven't.
"Not that I recall of." She settles on that.
Lauren nods once. One of her feet is on the chair, her knee folded and one of her arms hugging it close. The other foot is swinging idly, her free arm is drawing random shapes on the table. Bo doesn't even think Lauren is fully here.
"Do you remember that summer when your goldfish died?" Her voice sounds far away, nolstagic and Bo tries not to frown at the random subject change.
"Yeah." Of course she remembers her goldfish. It was a lazy little thing. Didn't like swimming much. Lauren used to say it has a condition of sorts. That maybe Bo should feed it more. It was during one of those feeds that Bo found him even lazier than normal. Unmoving. Dead. Aife said there's no way in hell that thing is going in her toilet and Lauren suggested they bury him.
They found a small watch-box and buried him in the abandoned park. Lauren read some eulogy from the internet about how Wayne the goldfish had an exellent personality and Bo cried into her shoulder until the blonde patted her bag in an awkward show of comfort and whispered "he was a good fish." And Bo couldn't stop laughing after that.
"Rememeber how much you cried after he died. You were so sad."
Bo nods. "He was a good fish." Lauren's lips twitch into an almost smile and Bo's pile of victories grows that much bigger.
But then the far away look comes back into Lauren's eyes and her eyes look glassy. Sadness is almost dripping off of her pores and it covers the whole space between them. She stops swinging her foot and just stares at her drawing hand sadly, "I didn't do that for my mom. When she died. I didn't feel sad. I didn't cry. I don't really think I felt anything."
She blinks and tears fall. And as much as Bo wants to go hug her, she knows if she so much as touches Lauren right now all the courage the blonde has gathered to do this will be gone. So she just sits there and listens and hopes to all there is to hope to that she's doing the right thing.
"I think- I think I stuck in denial. You know that five stages of grief thing? I never moved from the denial stage. I've been there all my life and now finally I'm trying to move on but it's so hard." She's chocking out her words by now. Making a conscious effort not to cry. She sounds like she's just talking. Just trying to unload the words and get them off of her.
Bo might as well not be here right now.
"Denial is easy. It keeps things out. It greys out the real and the not real until you don't know which is which. It's numbing. The bottom line of denial is that you don't feel. You don't let anything be real enough to affect you. But now I can't do it anymore. Somehow I don't know how to keep lying to myself and all these feelings are just so-so overwhelming that sometimes I can't even breathe.
"I'm so angry at my mom for just leaving. For making me question why I'm not enough and I don't want to be angry at her. Not when I never even took the time to be sad. Not when I've never even talked about her since she died."
Bo wants to say something. Anything. The right thing. But she's so ill equiped for this it's not even funny. She has never really expirienced death. Not of someone she loves. She can't pretend to relate to what Lauren feels because she has never felt it.
But at the same time, she has.
Because watching Lauren lose herself these past weeks has almost been like watching someone she loves die. Everday a small part of Lauren died and she didn't know what to do.
So she says the first thing that comes to mind. "Do you want to talk about her now?"
For a moment, she thinks it wasn't the right thing to say. Lauren's eyes are blank and sad and she thinks maybe she made a mistake. But then Lauren wets her lips. And the tiniest of sparks lights up in her eyes. She wipes her tears away then in a wet tear filled voice, "Her name was Irene. Irene Lewis. She named me half after herself, half after my dad. And she loved Mondays."
...
This is just the a small part of this chapter of the story. I just thought if I'm going to take it down, the least I could do is to let you see a big part of Lauren's break through.
Like I said before, I could never let myself not finish writing this story. I love it too much. Just because it won't be here doesn't mean it won't get an ending.
Em.