Fourteen
I didn't know what was the customary reaction in this particular situation, so I just didn't react at all. I just held the letter there, not reading it, my hand trembling ever so slightly and my eyes staring a million miles beyond the fire. I wanted to toss the letter into the fire and just do away with it all. If there was no letter it couldn't be true, could it?
I can't relate exactly what I was feeling at that moment. It was a mixture of every bad feeling one is capable of, I think, which produced a bitter cocktail of pain deep in my chest. I hadn't been extremely close to my parents. Hell, for quite a few years I had been sure I didn't even like them. You all understand how it is. Your parents are Gods until puberty turns you into Satan and you want something better. At least that was what Palahniuk said, and I believed Palahniuk. But deep down under my tough exterior I had loved them, somehow, and I certainly hadn't wanted them to die.
I was befuddled and perplexed. I had seen plenty of movies where the heroine learns that her parents have passed and flings herself into a tizzy, screaming and crying and tearing her clothes and gnashing her teeth. I didn't have this in me. I looked up to Snape, who refused to return my gaze and simply took a long swig of his strawberry wine. I could feel my chin starting to tremble a la Claire Daines in Romeo and Juliet. I desperately needed someone older and wiser to hold me tight and protect me and tell me everything would be fine. I wasn't an orphan. I still had people who loved me.
But as the moments went on and neither comfort, nor any recognition came from Snape I accepted my fate. I was alone in this. I stood, tossed the letter into the fire, and located my clothes.
"Acacia -" he called from the couch. Fuck him. He couldn't even be bothered to stand up and console me. I didn't need him. But the truth is I wasn't entirely sure I wanted him to do anything. Looking back on it all I'm actually very sure that what I needed right at that moment was to accept the fact on my own, without any emotions toward Snape getting in the way. And deep down, as he always seems to do with the important things, he sensed this. I know he sensed it. I quickly threw the robe off, dressed, and gathered my wand.
"Acacia -" he called once more as I left and this time he turned to face me as I stopped in the doorway, my hand on the frame to steady myself. I stopped but did not turn to face him. I couldn't face him. Not yet. I was reminded of one of Palahniuk's novels. It was the one where the model shoots off half of her own face with a rifle. While she's laying in her hospital bed her boyfriend, Manus, is sitting beside her looking at the police photos. Big glossy black and whites, just like the head and shoulder shots she kept in her portfolio. Only these were a stark contrast to the ones she would so potential employers. Manus sat there, turning and flipping through the photos and she asked him if she could see them. He told her that he couldn't show her the pictures. His family used to raise Dobermans, he said. Or maybe it was Rottwielers, I couldn't remember. In any case these particular dogs always had their tails and ears clipped as puppies. His family, he said, would take them to a seedy motel where a man with a case would sedate them and clip their parts in the bathtub. You can't take them to your vet to have it done, because the dog will remember and hate you forever for being the man who cut it's tail off.
I felt like that dog just then. I was lying in my own bathtub, blood running down the drain and more than one piece of myself missing. And the only man I had ever truly, really, honest to Merlin loved had been the one to give the snip.
"I'll be here when you're ready," he told me from his perch on the sofa. I nodded curtly and made my way out the door.
I didn't know what was the customary reaction in this particular situation, so I just didn't react at all. I just held the letter there, not reading it, my hand trembling ever so slightly and my eyes staring a million miles beyond the fire. I wanted to toss the letter into the fire and just do away with it all. If there was no letter it couldn't be true, could it?
I can't relate exactly what I was feeling at that moment. It was a mixture of every bad feeling one is capable of, I think, which produced a bitter cocktail of pain deep in my chest. I hadn't been extremely close to my parents. Hell, for quite a few years I had been sure I didn't even like them. You all understand how it is. Your parents are Gods until puberty turns you into Satan and you want something better. At least that was what Palahniuk said, and I believed Palahniuk. But deep down under my tough exterior I had loved them, somehow, and I certainly hadn't wanted them to die.
I was befuddled and perplexed. I had seen plenty of movies where the heroine learns that her parents have passed and flings herself into a tizzy, screaming and crying and tearing her clothes and gnashing her teeth. I didn't have this in me. I looked up to Snape, who refused to return my gaze and simply took a long swig of his strawberry wine. I could feel my chin starting to tremble a la Claire Daines in Romeo and Juliet. I desperately needed someone older and wiser to hold me tight and protect me and tell me everything would be fine. I wasn't an orphan. I still had people who loved me.
But as the moments went on and neither comfort, nor any recognition came from Snape I accepted my fate. I was alone in this. I stood, tossed the letter into the fire, and located my clothes.
"Acacia -" he called from the couch. Fuck him. He couldn't even be bothered to stand up and console me. I didn't need him. But the truth is I wasn't entirely sure I wanted him to do anything. Looking back on it all I'm actually very sure that what I needed right at that moment was to accept the fact on my own, without any emotions toward Snape getting in the way. And deep down, as he always seems to do with the important things, he sensed this. I know he sensed it. I quickly threw the robe off, dressed, and gathered my wand.
"Acacia -" he called once more as I left and this time he turned to face me as I stopped in the doorway, my hand on the frame to steady myself. I stopped but did not turn to face him. I couldn't face him. Not yet. I was reminded of one of Palahniuk's novels. It was the one where the model shoots off half of her own face with a rifle. While she's laying in her hospital bed her boyfriend, Manus, is sitting beside her looking at the police photos. Big glossy black and whites, just like the head and shoulder shots she kept in her portfolio. Only these were a stark contrast to the ones she would so potential employers. Manus sat there, turning and flipping through the photos and she asked him if she could see them. He told her that he couldn't show her the pictures. His family used to raise Dobermans, he said. Or maybe it was Rottwielers, I couldn't remember. In any case these particular dogs always had their tails and ears clipped as puppies. His family, he said, would take them to a seedy motel where a man with a case would sedate them and clip their parts in the bathtub. You can't take them to your vet to have it done, because the dog will remember and hate you forever for being the man who cut it's tail off.
I felt like that dog just then. I was lying in my own bathtub, blood running down the drain and more than one piece of myself missing. And the only man I had ever truly, really, honest to Merlin loved had been the one to give the snip.
"I'll be here when you're ready," he told me from his perch on the sofa. I nodded curtly and made my way out the door.