I'll figure it out. I just need to think. I need to think.
I am bending over the groaning man. His dark skin is covered in streams of red. The glass from the staff building has pierced his skin. Even with the danger that surrounded him, his first instincts were to protect the woman.Her.
A woman that has become a subject of my obsession for some days now.
There is something about her that makes a man want to risk his life for her.
I am not sure what relationship they shared, but I'll do everything in my power to make sure he makes it out alive.
The sound of a siren fills the air. Help has come. The crowd makes way for the fire department. The two buildings that are ablaze become surrounded by men with fire hoses. If this were a movie, I would find the sight spectacular. The clouds are hidden behind a surge of black smoke. Fireballs are raining down from the sky.People are inching away the scene, afraid that another explosion might go off.
"Here, help me get him up!" A man in a uniform yellsto another dressed the same way.
Help is here.
Soon, a policeman is throwing questions my way, but I brush him off. "There is a woman in my car, she needs help," I say to him.
His eyes narrow into slits. He is taking in my appearance.
I am unharmed, fresh, tidy—a man who had left his home to visit the restaurant and escaped the explosion.
It's most likely that I am the bomber, but somewhere in the distance I hear a firefighter reveal to his squad that it isn't a bomb. A bomb hasn't been set off anywhere.
Then it must be an accident? No fucking chance in hell that this one is an accident.
An accident that has destroyed two of my family's legacy at the same time.
"She needs help," I inform him again with an icy tone.
Like a man pulled from a trance, he gestures to his squad. "Lead them to the woman."
I don't need to lead them. I am afraid that if I take one more look at her, I'll be unable to let her go with them. I would prefer to take her home with me and nurse her wounds with my own hands.Then again, I have to be patient. I have to wait for the trauma to wane. Just this once, I'll let her go, but this will be the last time.
The next time I'll have Emily Smithson in my arms, and no one will dare take her away from me.
Emily
I am alive.
I can still hear the ringing in my ears. When I inhale, the air feels toxic. When my fingers feel my skin, I discover goosebumps all over.
I haven't been able to get over the event of last week. One which has taken everything away from me.
Mike.
I hate waking up to reality, thoughts of everything that happened that day come crashing back, and the tears never stop spilling down my cheeks.
There is an emptiness I feel. A hollow place in my heart, and it hurts like hell.
It hurts so much, I often beat my chest, tons of times, trying to knock something loose that will allow me to breathe and release the pain, other times, I find myself reaching for a glass of water just to swallow down the pain.
If this is what grief means, I never want to experience it ever again.
Orphaned at birth, I felt lucky not to have known my parents. I didn't have any memory of looking up to a woman I called mama or feeding from anyone's bosom. My emotions were detached as I stared at the pictures assembled by Mrs. Fox, who claims that the smiling woman in the photo is my birth mother whom I lost to an accident.
I would only hold the picture up in the air and say, "She is really pretty.” That would be all. Never did I feel the heart-wrenching pain I feel now.
Mike.