Chapter 1
Tragedies
The whispers followed me like the wind as I felt hollow inside. It was as though a darkness had engulfed me tightly, wrapping me in something horridly evil, something that wouldn’t let go without a tiresome fight over this secret. My secret – one which I would be unable to keep even in the most desperate of situations – weighed heavily on my sagging shoulders. Of course no one knew it yet, I had only found out hours ago. Still, it felt as if – somehow – everyone did.
When I’d found out, I hadn't known how to react; it had all come as a shock to me. I still didn't know how I felt, if I had to guess, I’d think I was shutting down, but that wasn’t something that I needed to feel at this moment. I knew what I should feel and what I should be doing - curling up in a corner, crying endless amounts of tears - but I wasn't. Instead I was walking down the halls of Percuther High School, like I did almost every day.
An abrupt wave of nausea burst over me and my hand instinctively rushed up to my mouth. For a moment, I stood in front of my locker unable to move, for fear of what little food I had in my stomach coming out the wrong way. It wouldn't have come as a shock to me if I did, but I still stood there, motionless until the nausea passed.
As I stood there, things felt weird – different. It was understandable that I suddenly felt that way, tragedies always made things different – and not in a good way. But why hadn’t I cried yet?
Continuing on with activity, I felt the heavy weight of my binders in my arms. For some reason, they felt heavier to me than usual; maybe due to the bitter hollowness I felt inside of my – what felt to be – concaving chest. Struggling to carry them was only the most miniscule of things on my chaos-filled mind.
Taking a seat near the back of my math class, my best friend – Anya – came and sat down in her seat beside me. Her wavy blonde hair flowed down a couple of inches passed her narrowly built shoulders as her green eyes sparkled in the classroom’s fluorescent light.
She hugged me and I stiffened tensely – it was the only thing I felt I could do other than unreasonably move away. After not even a moment of this, she caught on that something clearly wasn’t right.
"What is it, Kris? What’s wrong?" Anya asked me worriedly, as her eyebrows furrowed with it. If there was anyone I might tell anything to, Anya would – at all times – be the first in line. I sighed, pulling back my long, thick brown hair. My eyes felt dry as I spoke an answer.
"This morning, I- I got a call,” I began, as emotion drastically overpowered my entire being. Still I didn’t cry, tears didn’t even fill the back of my throat; it was as if I had shut down, choosing denial over reality. That had been something I’d always been good at, not that it was worth much of anything at any time of the day. “It was from the hospital. They said- They said my dad had- They said that he’d- that he’d duh- duh- died.” I whispered the last part, not wanting to hear the truth in my own ears. A sad look of sympathy crossed Anya’s shock-stricken face.
“Oh God, Kristina, I’m so sorry!” she said, covering her mouth with disbelief as tears glistened in her eyes. A hysterical laugh caught in my throat at that – she was the one close to shedding tears and I was the one far from it, far from shedding even one tear over my father.
As she sat there, while even more tears threatened to creep over the edge of her eyelids, I sat next to her with only a solemn look crossing my face. Anya hugged me for the second time that morning, but this hug was different, this was a real hug – not a good-to-see-you hug likes before. The thing that shocks me is that for some reason I didn’t stiffen up this time; instead I melted into her hug and gave in to hugging her back. It felt so good to be comforted, even when I knew it wouldn’t last forever.
After a second or two, she reluctantly pulled away from me and spoke, “What happened?” She gazed at me, with all the comfort in the known universe held up in her pale green eyes, as she brushed the hair out of my face in a caring manner.
Taking in a deep breath to calm my nerves, I began in on my nightmare, “Friday afternoon when I got home, my mother called to say he had suffered a minor heart attack and had been rushed to the hospital. I immediately drove to the hospital and saw how weak he looked, the way his face was twisted in pain-” My eyes glazed over and my skin crawled as I spoke of the not-so-distant memory. “He didn’t look so good, so I stayed with him in the hospital practically the entire weekend until my mother made me go home last night because of school.
“Then this morning, the hospital called...”
Aches and pains raked my entire body when a startling ring filled my ears, waking me from anything but a peaceful sleep. I sat up trying to shake my mind into its right place before standing up and stumbling into the kitchen, grasping at the phone.
A sudden twist in my chest kept me reluctant for a moment from answering the echoing rings. But after a second, I ignored the sensation and pressed the talk button, muttering tiredly into the receiver, “Hello?”
“Hello is this Mrs. Ruvec?” a gruff male voice asked over the line. A quick glance at the time caused me to wonder why this man was asking for my mother at five in the morning.
“No. This is her daughter,” I answered, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes.
“Could I please speak to Mrs. Ruvec, this is Dr. Rowbelly,” the man’s voice asked, glumly. A rough and tired sigh tore out of the phone.
Furrowing my eyebrows in odd curiosity, I muttered into the phone, “Sure.” Slowly, I made my way back to my parents’ room, and tip-toed over to my mother’s sleeping form.
Shaking her awake, I gave her the phone, telling her who it was. Then a thought crossed my mind as I sat on the chair next to her side of the bed. Why was my father’s doctor calling at such an absurd hour?
Fear suddenly coursed through my entire entity as I watched my mother’s expression, I tried to shove it away immediately, but the onset of it, and the truth was so horrid at this moment. My hearing perked up instantaneously, as I rushed to my feet, watching my mother’s shaking hands shut the phone off. She looked at me with all the pain in the world as words escaped her trembling lips, “It’s your father, honey. He’s passed away.”
Peering up into Anya’s eyes once I’d finished my explanation, I saw the ever pulsating sympathetic look of a best friend. Once again she hugged me in a tight embrace, and I wrapped my arms around her, letting her pat the back of my head and stroke my hair. A single, ominous tear fell silently down my cheek. “It’ll be okay, Kris, it’ll all be okay,” Anya whispered to me.
That morning passed by slowly. Others had asked what was wrong and each time it was just as hard, just as heart wrenching to speak the same words, even if it were only in pieces. I pulled through the morning with my sanity still intact just barely, but not without the loss of whatever managed to lie within my unsettled stomach during lunch break. I was seated in English class after lunch, when I was called to the office.
Upon my arrival there, the secretary handed me a demit slip.
"What's this for?" I tiredly asked her, as she sat behind her large black desk with her glasses delicately perched atop her small nose, her right hand holding the pen that was scribbling things down. She looked up at me with sympathetic sorrow filled in her small, aging blue eyes.
"Your mother called the school earlier and – in light of the great loss you have just recently had brought upon you – asked that you get counselling for such an occurrence," she said quietly, as if it would make things better. Her hands lay unmoving on her desk as she looked up at me, as if her sympathies gave me any peace of mind, any at all.
Still, tears swelled in my hazel eyes – what else could be done in such a particular incident where even a few words reminded one’s self of the great devastation that has fallen upon one’s life. And at that moment, speaking became quite difficult, although I was able to manage one word, not that it did any good. "Okay," I whispered.
The secretary of the school I’d been attending for the past three and a half years looked at me for one final moment before she turned away, unable to look at the grief of a seventeen year old. She herself managed a few final words to my departure, “I’m quite sorry for your loss, dear.” And if I wasn’t so torn up, I might of thought about how I absolutely despised when near strangers gave me pet names.
But instead, I took the demit slip in my hand, nodded a thanks, and walked out briskly, making my way back to class. In those moments, the earth felt as if it trembled, and I felt like shattering. I felt like I was a fragile piece of glass that would slip from one’s own hand and break into a million crystals.
When I managed to get back to English, I sat in my seat next to my friend Ellie’s. Like always, she was flirting with the boys in the class that she knew noticed her, by playing with her long curly brown hair and batting the lashes around her stunning grey eyes. And standing two inches shorter than myself, leaving her at a height of 5' 7, she wasn’t lacking much of anything
Struggling to keep my mind off the death of my father that was almost becoming impossible to dodge, I asked her about the boy sitting two seats ahead of me that I’d never seen before. From behind, he had the most beautiful, soft brown hair that I'd ever seen on a guy.
"He's Xander Jones, he just moved here from Edmonton," Ellie informed me. Out of the entire population that went to this school, if there was ever anything to about any single person, Ellie was sure to be one of the first to know. "I heard he lived in Greece before that and was born in Seattle. Tasha told me his father’s in the military, which is why they move around so much, and so often.
"Also, his mom is some hot-shot reporter back in the states and Xander hasn't seen her in like nine years. After his eighth birthday, his mom decides she's had enough of all the moving around and ends up going back to her home town. Since then, Xander's dad hasn't let him see her because she walked out on them. Or it might be that she has a new family and doesn't want to see either of them..."
Finally I just drowned Ellie out, she could ramble on forever. Bless her way of knowing even the most private of secrets a person could hold and only telling a select few who asked, but knowledge of other people’s lives only went so far.
After hearing about this new boy’s hardships I felt bad for him, his mom leaving him like that. There was one thing I might be able to take comfort in, in this most hopeless of situations, I may have lost my father, but his mother obviously didn’t want to see him.
Just as my thoughts were about to ramble on, the bell rang, and I packed my stuff up. Before I knew what was going on, I was in science class, and once again thinking about my father.
I sat at the back of the class and couldn't get all my thoughts of him out of my head. My heart ached from the loss, as tears threatened to flood my face. But before they could, I swallowed them wholly, not wanting to cry in front of anyone; never was I one for doing such a thing.
Although it felt like eternity, it soon struck the time of 2:30 and the instance in which it was time for me to see the school counsellor, something I’d never done before.
I knocked lightly on a big, brown door and a male voice from inside told me to come in. Quietly, I opened the oak door to the sight of the back of a chair facing my line of sight. The office chair was a coconut brown, and the desk that sat before it was as black as coal. A name plate was perched on top of the desk, it read; Mr. L. Contoyan.
"Please take a seat, Ms. Ruvec," the deeply masculine voice from before, said. I sat down in a black chair that was an identical colour to the desk, and – I assumed – Mr. Contoyan turned around. He had rich dark brown hair that brushed across his forehead, almost but not quite reaching his bright green eyes, with the slightest trace of a beard budding on his face.
"I understand that you may not feel comfortable being here, Ms. Ruvec. But it is your mother's wish that you undergo counselling for the next few weeks," he explained, leaning back in his swivelling chair. Mr. Contoyan accompanied his words with a small smile that I neither felt the need to return, nor wanted to.
"Your father has just passed away and that is why you are here, Ms. Ruvec, but that is not all we will talk about. We will talk about many different things about you and your life, and I can understand that at first you may feel uncomfortable, but these proceedings will soon become a habit – if you wish – and it will help you properly go through the grieving process as you see fit.
"Now, since it's your first day, let's start with something small!"
My first meeting with the school counsellor went by slowly, but I almost felt glad for it. Although I would rather be able to speak to my friends about how I felt, they wouldn't listen to me like Mr. Contoyan most likely would, being that it was his job. Besides, I only saw the school counsellor for thirty minutes of each day, which was enough for me to sift through some of my problems. It could help to talk to someone other than a friend or family member – someone who would listen to me better, and not just give me some sympathetic statements.
By the time I got back to class, there was only ten minutes left of it. As I had before, I sat next to Anya, who shared both my math and science classes with me. This day – this gut wrenching, headache causing day – had gone by slowly, and I was overcome with a sudden relief that it was finally going to be over.
When I arrived back at home a little while later after the short walk from school, I tried to take my mind off things but it was harder than anything I'd tried to do all day.
Sitting on the couch in my living room, the dark green of it made me feel as if I were lying in the middle of a forest atop the greenest grass I’d ever seen. Mindlessly I stared at the television set, feeling that I’d like to throw something at it. This pain in my heart felt endless.
Closing my eyes didn't help; it was as if every time I did so, I saw him. It brought tears to my eyes, knowing that he was gone forever. Never again would I see his great smile that brightened up the world just a little bit. His dark brown eyes would never look at me again, proudly. But neither of those compared to his voice because it would never again explain to me what the world meant, not even in a picture.
Before the tears could fall from my eyes, the phone rang. Hesitantly, I picked it up, fumbling to press the talk button. "Hello," I answered, attempting to wipe the tears from my eyes.
"Hi, could I speak to Kristina Ruvec?" A male voice asked over the line.
Swallowing the remaining tears left over, I answered, "Speaking."
"This is Xander Jones, from English class,” he replied, and my eyebrows knitted together in confusion. Why was the new guy calling me? Who was I to him? “I was wondering whether I could ask you something."
Wait a minute, did I care? If it got my mind off things for even just a little while, did I honestly care? The answer was no, I didn’t. "Sure."
"Well I'm new, and I'd really like to have some friends at this school. So I was wondering whether you could show me around tomorrow, so I could get to know the place better." Why was he asking me, weren't there guys that would do this for him?
Sighing, I reminded myself of my predicaments, and how this might ease my thoughts. "Yea, I guess that would be fine. What time?"
"Lunch, I guess," Xander answered.
"Okay, I'll see you then."
"Yea, bye."
"Bye," I said, shutting off the phone and placing it back on the mahogany coloured coffee table. I pulled my knees up to my chest and lay my head on them, closing my eyes.
Running, I was running, running in an enclosed forest of darkness. But running from what? And how had I gotten here? I hadn't remembered entering any forests; I hadn't even remembered leaving my house.
As I stared straight ahead, my foot caught on a root and I tumbled forward, as if to fall. But I didn't hit the ground. No, I fell into a black pit of endless, empty darkness, that engulfed me whole. Had I been swallowed into a nightmare? Was I asleep without recalling my loss of consciousness? Maybe, how else had I ended up in this state?
My eyes flickered open, as I awoke from my nightmare. A trickle of sweat fell down my chest from my neckline that was drenched with it. I felt uncomfortable lying on the couch, in my jeans, as sweaty as a jogger in twenty degree weather after jogging for an endless amount of hours.
Dripping sweat, I got up off the couch and grabbed a towel from the closet next to the bathroom, walked in, hung the towel up, and jumped into the shower. Twisting the knob to freezing temperatures, I washed the remnants of the nightmare from my body, letting it run down the drain.
Once I’d finished washing all of the sweat away, I turned the shower off and scrubbed myself dry. When I’d become relatively so, I wrapped myself in the soft, blue towel and pulled the shower curtains back to reveal the brightly lit bathroom painted a deep red.
As I left, I heard the front door to the house open and close. My mother, Ann Ruvec, must have been home.
"Kristina," she called for me, wondering over my whereabouts.
I walked into my mother's line of sight and she looked up at me. "Oh, good, you're home," my mother said softly. She opened her mouth to speak again, and her hesitation made it look hard for her to say. "We need to talk about your father's funeral arrangements." She looked at me with sad eyes that tried for comfort, but fell short.
My heart dropped and I nodded. "Can I get dressed first?" I asked.
"Of course, dear."
Still wrapped in nothing but a towel, I walked to the end of the hall and entered my room. I quickly grabbed a bra, a white t-shirt, a brown sweater, white panties and my black pyjama bottoms. I always felt more comfortable wearing my pyjama bottoms, it was a weird habit. Dressing quickly, I grabbed a hair tie and wrapped my damp hair into a messy bun using the tie to hold it in place.
Fumbling in my determination to wipe away the stray tears from my eyes, I opened my door. Not even the best preparation in the world would have gotten me ready for this!
Tragedies
The whispers followed me like the wind as I felt hollow inside. It was as though a darkness had engulfed me tightly, wrapping me in something horridly evil, something that wouldn’t let go without a tiresome fight over this secret. My secret – one which I would be unable to keep even in the most desperate of situations – weighed heavily on my sagging shoulders. Of course no one knew it yet, I had only found out hours ago. Still, it felt as if – somehow – everyone did.
When I’d found out, I hadn't known how to react; it had all come as a shock to me. I still didn't know how I felt, if I had to guess, I’d think I was shutting down, but that wasn’t something that I needed to feel at this moment. I knew what I should feel and what I should be doing - curling up in a corner, crying endless amounts of tears - but I wasn't. Instead I was walking down the halls of Percuther High School, like I did almost every day.
An abrupt wave of nausea burst over me and my hand instinctively rushed up to my mouth. For a moment, I stood in front of my locker unable to move, for fear of what little food I had in my stomach coming out the wrong way. It wouldn't have come as a shock to me if I did, but I still stood there, motionless until the nausea passed.
As I stood there, things felt weird – different. It was understandable that I suddenly felt that way, tragedies always made things different – and not in a good way. But why hadn’t I cried yet?
Continuing on with activity, I felt the heavy weight of my binders in my arms. For some reason, they felt heavier to me than usual; maybe due to the bitter hollowness I felt inside of my – what felt to be – concaving chest. Struggling to carry them was only the most miniscule of things on my chaos-filled mind.
Taking a seat near the back of my math class, my best friend – Anya – came and sat down in her seat beside me. Her wavy blonde hair flowed down a couple of inches passed her narrowly built shoulders as her green eyes sparkled in the classroom’s fluorescent light.
She hugged me and I stiffened tensely – it was the only thing I felt I could do other than unreasonably move away. After not even a moment of this, she caught on that something clearly wasn’t right.
"What is it, Kris? What’s wrong?" Anya asked me worriedly, as her eyebrows furrowed with it. If there was anyone I might tell anything to, Anya would – at all times – be the first in line. I sighed, pulling back my long, thick brown hair. My eyes felt dry as I spoke an answer.
"This morning, I- I got a call,” I began, as emotion drastically overpowered my entire being. Still I didn’t cry, tears didn’t even fill the back of my throat; it was as if I had shut down, choosing denial over reality. That had been something I’d always been good at, not that it was worth much of anything at any time of the day. “It was from the hospital. They said- They said my dad had- They said that he’d- that he’d duh- duh- died.” I whispered the last part, not wanting to hear the truth in my own ears. A sad look of sympathy crossed Anya’s shock-stricken face.
“Oh God, Kristina, I’m so sorry!” she said, covering her mouth with disbelief as tears glistened in her eyes. A hysterical laugh caught in my throat at that – she was the one close to shedding tears and I was the one far from it, far from shedding even one tear over my father.
As she sat there, while even more tears threatened to creep over the edge of her eyelids, I sat next to her with only a solemn look crossing my face. Anya hugged me for the second time that morning, but this hug was different, this was a real hug – not a good-to-see-you hug likes before. The thing that shocks me is that for some reason I didn’t stiffen up this time; instead I melted into her hug and gave in to hugging her back. It felt so good to be comforted, even when I knew it wouldn’t last forever.
After a second or two, she reluctantly pulled away from me and spoke, “What happened?” She gazed at me, with all the comfort in the known universe held up in her pale green eyes, as she brushed the hair out of my face in a caring manner.
Taking in a deep breath to calm my nerves, I began in on my nightmare, “Friday afternoon when I got home, my mother called to say he had suffered a minor heart attack and had been rushed to the hospital. I immediately drove to the hospital and saw how weak he looked, the way his face was twisted in pain-” My eyes glazed over and my skin crawled as I spoke of the not-so-distant memory. “He didn’t look so good, so I stayed with him in the hospital practically the entire weekend until my mother made me go home last night because of school.
“Then this morning, the hospital called...”
Aches and pains raked my entire body when a startling ring filled my ears, waking me from anything but a peaceful sleep. I sat up trying to shake my mind into its right place before standing up and stumbling into the kitchen, grasping at the phone.
A sudden twist in my chest kept me reluctant for a moment from answering the echoing rings. But after a second, I ignored the sensation and pressed the talk button, muttering tiredly into the receiver, “Hello?”
“Hello is this Mrs. Ruvec?” a gruff male voice asked over the line. A quick glance at the time caused me to wonder why this man was asking for my mother at five in the morning.
“No. This is her daughter,” I answered, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes.
“Could I please speak to Mrs. Ruvec, this is Dr. Rowbelly,” the man’s voice asked, glumly. A rough and tired sigh tore out of the phone.
Furrowing my eyebrows in odd curiosity, I muttered into the phone, “Sure.” Slowly, I made my way back to my parents’ room, and tip-toed over to my mother’s sleeping form.
Shaking her awake, I gave her the phone, telling her who it was. Then a thought crossed my mind as I sat on the chair next to her side of the bed. Why was my father’s doctor calling at such an absurd hour?
Fear suddenly coursed through my entire entity as I watched my mother’s expression, I tried to shove it away immediately, but the onset of it, and the truth was so horrid at this moment. My hearing perked up instantaneously, as I rushed to my feet, watching my mother’s shaking hands shut the phone off. She looked at me with all the pain in the world as words escaped her trembling lips, “It’s your father, honey. He’s passed away.”
Peering up into Anya’s eyes once I’d finished my explanation, I saw the ever pulsating sympathetic look of a best friend. Once again she hugged me in a tight embrace, and I wrapped my arms around her, letting her pat the back of my head and stroke my hair. A single, ominous tear fell silently down my cheek. “It’ll be okay, Kris, it’ll all be okay,” Anya whispered to me.
That morning passed by slowly. Others had asked what was wrong and each time it was just as hard, just as heart wrenching to speak the same words, even if it were only in pieces. I pulled through the morning with my sanity still intact just barely, but not without the loss of whatever managed to lie within my unsettled stomach during lunch break. I was seated in English class after lunch, when I was called to the office.
Upon my arrival there, the secretary handed me a demit slip.
"What's this for?" I tiredly asked her, as she sat behind her large black desk with her glasses delicately perched atop her small nose, her right hand holding the pen that was scribbling things down. She looked up at me with sympathetic sorrow filled in her small, aging blue eyes.
"Your mother called the school earlier and – in light of the great loss you have just recently had brought upon you – asked that you get counselling for such an occurrence," she said quietly, as if it would make things better. Her hands lay unmoving on her desk as she looked up at me, as if her sympathies gave me any peace of mind, any at all.
Still, tears swelled in my hazel eyes – what else could be done in such a particular incident where even a few words reminded one’s self of the great devastation that has fallen upon one’s life. And at that moment, speaking became quite difficult, although I was able to manage one word, not that it did any good. "Okay," I whispered.
The secretary of the school I’d been attending for the past three and a half years looked at me for one final moment before she turned away, unable to look at the grief of a seventeen year old. She herself managed a few final words to my departure, “I’m quite sorry for your loss, dear.” And if I wasn’t so torn up, I might of thought about how I absolutely despised when near strangers gave me pet names.
But instead, I took the demit slip in my hand, nodded a thanks, and walked out briskly, making my way back to class. In those moments, the earth felt as if it trembled, and I felt like shattering. I felt like I was a fragile piece of glass that would slip from one’s own hand and break into a million crystals.
When I managed to get back to English, I sat in my seat next to my friend Ellie’s. Like always, she was flirting with the boys in the class that she knew noticed her, by playing with her long curly brown hair and batting the lashes around her stunning grey eyes. And standing two inches shorter than myself, leaving her at a height of 5' 7, she wasn’t lacking much of anything
Struggling to keep my mind off the death of my father that was almost becoming impossible to dodge, I asked her about the boy sitting two seats ahead of me that I’d never seen before. From behind, he had the most beautiful, soft brown hair that I'd ever seen on a guy.
"He's Xander Jones, he just moved here from Edmonton," Ellie informed me. Out of the entire population that went to this school, if there was ever anything to about any single person, Ellie was sure to be one of the first to know. "I heard he lived in Greece before that and was born in Seattle. Tasha told me his father’s in the military, which is why they move around so much, and so often.
"Also, his mom is some hot-shot reporter back in the states and Xander hasn't seen her in like nine years. After his eighth birthday, his mom decides she's had enough of all the moving around and ends up going back to her home town. Since then, Xander's dad hasn't let him see her because she walked out on them. Or it might be that she has a new family and doesn't want to see either of them..."
Finally I just drowned Ellie out, she could ramble on forever. Bless her way of knowing even the most private of secrets a person could hold and only telling a select few who asked, but knowledge of other people’s lives only went so far.
After hearing about this new boy’s hardships I felt bad for him, his mom leaving him like that. There was one thing I might be able to take comfort in, in this most hopeless of situations, I may have lost my father, but his mother obviously didn’t want to see him.
Just as my thoughts were about to ramble on, the bell rang, and I packed my stuff up. Before I knew what was going on, I was in science class, and once again thinking about my father.
I sat at the back of the class and couldn't get all my thoughts of him out of my head. My heart ached from the loss, as tears threatened to flood my face. But before they could, I swallowed them wholly, not wanting to cry in front of anyone; never was I one for doing such a thing.
Although it felt like eternity, it soon struck the time of 2:30 and the instance in which it was time for me to see the school counsellor, something I’d never done before.
I knocked lightly on a big, brown door and a male voice from inside told me to come in. Quietly, I opened the oak door to the sight of the back of a chair facing my line of sight. The office chair was a coconut brown, and the desk that sat before it was as black as coal. A name plate was perched on top of the desk, it read; Mr. L. Contoyan.
"Please take a seat, Ms. Ruvec," the deeply masculine voice from before, said. I sat down in a black chair that was an identical colour to the desk, and – I assumed – Mr. Contoyan turned around. He had rich dark brown hair that brushed across his forehead, almost but not quite reaching his bright green eyes, with the slightest trace of a beard budding on his face.
"I understand that you may not feel comfortable being here, Ms. Ruvec. But it is your mother's wish that you undergo counselling for the next few weeks," he explained, leaning back in his swivelling chair. Mr. Contoyan accompanied his words with a small smile that I neither felt the need to return, nor wanted to.
"Your father has just passed away and that is why you are here, Ms. Ruvec, but that is not all we will talk about. We will talk about many different things about you and your life, and I can understand that at first you may feel uncomfortable, but these proceedings will soon become a habit – if you wish – and it will help you properly go through the grieving process as you see fit.
"Now, since it's your first day, let's start with something small!"
My first meeting with the school counsellor went by slowly, but I almost felt glad for it. Although I would rather be able to speak to my friends about how I felt, they wouldn't listen to me like Mr. Contoyan most likely would, being that it was his job. Besides, I only saw the school counsellor for thirty minutes of each day, which was enough for me to sift through some of my problems. It could help to talk to someone other than a friend or family member – someone who would listen to me better, and not just give me some sympathetic statements.
By the time I got back to class, there was only ten minutes left of it. As I had before, I sat next to Anya, who shared both my math and science classes with me. This day – this gut wrenching, headache causing day – had gone by slowly, and I was overcome with a sudden relief that it was finally going to be over.
When I arrived back at home a little while later after the short walk from school, I tried to take my mind off things but it was harder than anything I'd tried to do all day.
Sitting on the couch in my living room, the dark green of it made me feel as if I were lying in the middle of a forest atop the greenest grass I’d ever seen. Mindlessly I stared at the television set, feeling that I’d like to throw something at it. This pain in my heart felt endless.
Closing my eyes didn't help; it was as if every time I did so, I saw him. It brought tears to my eyes, knowing that he was gone forever. Never again would I see his great smile that brightened up the world just a little bit. His dark brown eyes would never look at me again, proudly. But neither of those compared to his voice because it would never again explain to me what the world meant, not even in a picture.
Before the tears could fall from my eyes, the phone rang. Hesitantly, I picked it up, fumbling to press the talk button. "Hello," I answered, attempting to wipe the tears from my eyes.
"Hi, could I speak to Kristina Ruvec?" A male voice asked over the line.
Swallowing the remaining tears left over, I answered, "Speaking."
"This is Xander Jones, from English class,” he replied, and my eyebrows knitted together in confusion. Why was the new guy calling me? Who was I to him? “I was wondering whether I could ask you something."
Wait a minute, did I care? If it got my mind off things for even just a little while, did I honestly care? The answer was no, I didn’t. "Sure."
"Well I'm new, and I'd really like to have some friends at this school. So I was wondering whether you could show me around tomorrow, so I could get to know the place better." Why was he asking me, weren't there guys that would do this for him?
Sighing, I reminded myself of my predicaments, and how this might ease my thoughts. "Yea, I guess that would be fine. What time?"
"Lunch, I guess," Xander answered.
"Okay, I'll see you then."
"Yea, bye."
"Bye," I said, shutting off the phone and placing it back on the mahogany coloured coffee table. I pulled my knees up to my chest and lay my head on them, closing my eyes.
Running, I was running, running in an enclosed forest of darkness. But running from what? And how had I gotten here? I hadn't remembered entering any forests; I hadn't even remembered leaving my house.
As I stared straight ahead, my foot caught on a root and I tumbled forward, as if to fall. But I didn't hit the ground. No, I fell into a black pit of endless, empty darkness, that engulfed me whole. Had I been swallowed into a nightmare? Was I asleep without recalling my loss of consciousness? Maybe, how else had I ended up in this state?
My eyes flickered open, as I awoke from my nightmare. A trickle of sweat fell down my chest from my neckline that was drenched with it. I felt uncomfortable lying on the couch, in my jeans, as sweaty as a jogger in twenty degree weather after jogging for an endless amount of hours.
Dripping sweat, I got up off the couch and grabbed a towel from the closet next to the bathroom, walked in, hung the towel up, and jumped into the shower. Twisting the knob to freezing temperatures, I washed the remnants of the nightmare from my body, letting it run down the drain.
Once I’d finished washing all of the sweat away, I turned the shower off and scrubbed myself dry. When I’d become relatively so, I wrapped myself in the soft, blue towel and pulled the shower curtains back to reveal the brightly lit bathroom painted a deep red.
As I left, I heard the front door to the house open and close. My mother, Ann Ruvec, must have been home.
"Kristina," she called for me, wondering over my whereabouts.
I walked into my mother's line of sight and she looked up at me. "Oh, good, you're home," my mother said softly. She opened her mouth to speak again, and her hesitation made it look hard for her to say. "We need to talk about your father's funeral arrangements." She looked at me with sad eyes that tried for comfort, but fell short.
My heart dropped and I nodded. "Can I get dressed first?" I asked.
"Of course, dear."
Still wrapped in nothing but a towel, I walked to the end of the hall and entered my room. I quickly grabbed a bra, a white t-shirt, a brown sweater, white panties and my black pyjama bottoms. I always felt more comfortable wearing my pyjama bottoms, it was a weird habit. Dressing quickly, I grabbed a hair tie and wrapped my damp hair into a messy bun using the tie to hold it in place.
Fumbling in my determination to wipe away the stray tears from my eyes, I opened my door. Not even the best preparation in the world would have gotten me ready for this!
