OOC: I'm still nursing a cold and most of my writing just isn't coming out as I would like but this one is an exception
. Hope people think it works.
~Liz~
As Max turns and pulls me into his body, I don’t try to resist. It’s unlikely that I would anyway given that it is Max, but even if I would, I just don’t have the energy to… I spend every day trying to fight back these tears, every day trying to appear strong and pretend that it doesn’t hurt.
Nancy is a good woman, but she’ll never replace my mother in my eyes. The way that people speak about her as though she were my mother does get to me sometimes, I have to admit. I understand why they do it… A murder so brutal wasn’t anything that people felt children should be exposed to, but the fact is I was…
I was there when that demon attacked… I’ve never really spoken about it, but I saw my mother fall for the last time and knew then, however young I was, that she wasn’t going to get up again.
Serena was out with dad and Grandma Claudia…it was unusual but I hadn’t been very well so I stayed behind with our mother. We were baking in the kitchen when there was a noise. To me it almost sounded like an explosion and to this day I don’t know exactly what caused it, but I think my mother did… Her immediate reaction was to tell me to hide, and stay out of sight. At her behest I did exactly that but when I heard a further noise, I peeked out and that was when I saw it… I’d already heard about magic before then…nothing proper, just the statement that it was real I guess. Serena and I were due to begin learning about it soon after, but I had never seen a demon until that day… I have to say, that since that day I have never seen anything of the like either.
All the demons and warlocks I have killed, I have never yet come across one of the type that killed my mother.
Part of me wonders what I might do if I did you know… Of all the fighting I do…we do…I have never been as scared as I was that day. I watched my mother fall and just felt so helpless. When the demon shifted out, I ran over to where she lay but it was already too late. I pulled at her hand, cried and pleaded with her to get up and answer me, but it was no good.
In truth I don’t even know if my father knows I saw it all… He found me there a little later, just sitting with her quietly. I was holding her hand and I looked up at him before asking him to wake her up… One look around the room told him something of what had happened I guess, plus the state of her body… He pulled me tight to his chest, blocking my mother from my view and picked me up. He buried his face in my hair and kissed me before telling me everything would be alright and taking me away from the scene. It couldn’t be though, and it never would be…my mother was dead, nothing would change that.
From that day to this, any crying I have done has been in private. In public I have been strong, supported my sister and refused to let my feelings show. That’s not to say that I haven’t cried though…I have wept myself to sleep silently more times than I would like to remember… There have been times when I’ve been helping out in the kitchen, and been cutting onions, when the tears I have been shedding have been far more than those caused by the fumes… There have been times when I have crept away at school to find an abandoned classroom, somewhere where I can let out my tears without the fear of being seen by someone else. Until today, I have never broken down in front of another person though, or not so that they know I have done anyway…
Still, with Max, I don’t feel so weak for letting it out… The feeling of his arms around me, his hands on my back, they speak of so much care and attention, and I can honestly say I have never felt so loved… After another few minutes though, I begin to fight to bring my emotions under control again, to use the mask I am so used to wearing, and to lock all this away again. As I do this, I pull back gently and look up at Max.
Just looking into his eyes I can see the conflict. I know that he’s probably wondering whether to ask anything more, unsure whether I can handle it, but I can also see that there is more he wants to know, and for this reason I look up, meeting his gaze.
“I’m so sorry, Liz. I didn’t want to upset you, I should have realized this would be a hard thing to talk about…”
His tone is so gentle and I know that he means every word. In truth though, he has nothing to be sorry about. I shake my head softly. “It’s ok…it was something that was always going to come up at some time…I’m not saying you’re not right, and that it’s not hard to talk about, but I know that you needed to know and I guess I needed to tell you…” I chew my lower lip and lapse into silence as I wait to see if he will ask anything more.
