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Daemon · 12-27-2014, 02:33 AM

Disclaimer: This world and all canon materials are the property of JK Rowling.

This is a one shot of my old character, Rachel Rider. Might be expanded to include two more pieces.

Well past midnight, July 1st, 2082

It’s been six months.

It feels like six seconds.

My therapist keeps telling me it will get better, but I think it’s getting worse. Benzi has finally started eating like a proper boy again and Serena’s gaining colour in her cheeks. At least they’re both climbing their way out of this blackness we’ve been in since the accident.

Every night after they go to bed I put a silencing charm on my door and cry until the sun comes back up again. It’s not normal crying. It doesn’t even feel like the crying I did all those years ago. It’s like… it’s like I don’t even feel like I’m crying. Like it’s coming from somewhere deep inside my chest. It lies dormant during the day, waiting for the quiet and the solitude the night brings and then it claws out, scratching and bruising the empty space where my heart used to be. Where I kept Jake.

I’m perpetually exhausted these days. My shoulders always sag downwards and the bags under my eyes have gotten so bad even little Serena’s started to notice. I know Benzi’s worried but he’s such a clever little boy, he doesn’t bring it up anymore. I don’t think he’s going to agree to go back to Hogwarts next year, and it breaks my heart. I can’t push him. I’m in no place to push him.

I’ve become a terrible mother. I take care of them, I make sure they both do their homework – whether it’s Serena’s basic maths and introduction to magic, or Benzi’s Hogwarts coursework that I fight him daily to complete – but we’ve stopped living a long time ago. Six months ago, exactly. I keep expecting him to come back and open the door, shake me, tell me that it was all a horrible nightmare and that I’m just being stupid. Tell me to get up, drink coffee and pull myself together.

Him, Nina, Lucas and Alice. Writing that letter to Hogwarts had been almost more difficult than organizing the funeral. I had always wanted to write to Professor Truebridge once I’d finished my dissertation but never… never like this. Never for this reason. I wrote it three times, each copy ruined by the teardrops until I resorted to placing charms on the parchment to keep it waterproof. I sent it away with a post owl and couldn’t function for the rest of the day.

I have only just started eating myself. I lost so much weight, I can’t bear to look at myself in the mirror anymore. I cook more these days than I ever have in my entire life, and almost force feed it to my children. To both of them. Because while they’re both not biologically mine, I am their mother and they need me. They need me to pull out of this. They need me to be strict about their bedtime and baths, about going outside of the house and about encouraging hobbies. They need me to be their rock, their wall to lean on. They need me to not be this fragile, crumbling mess of a woman who can barely hold it together for a day.

I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. It keeps getting worse. I see everyone’s lives continue and move one while I’m stuck here in my bedroom, scratching my chest until it bleeds, screaming until my lungs can’t take it anymore, until my throat is useless. But then I’ll hear a knock on the door and it’ll be little Serena who’s woken up from a nightmare, asking for her Mummy and Daddy. Saying that she loves her Auntie Rachel but she wants to go home. She misses Lucas and Alice. She doesn’t understand why they’re not coming back.

I tried to explain it to her as best as I could after the accident. With the help of my therapist, I really did try to hold it together as I said the worlds that shattered her world, knowing I would forever be there to stitch it back together. There was a bit of an issue with Jake’s will and they almost took her away until his lawyer finally arrived to set things straight. I almost had a heart attack that day. They told me you left half of it to me, and the other half to Nina’s parents. They didn’t want it. I think they donated it to a charity, because I didn’t want it either.

We didn’t celebrate Benzi’s birthday properly – he wouldn’t let me. I did manage to get him to blow candles out on a cake I literally shoved at him after dinner. That was a good day – both Serena and Benzi had smiled a little. He had ended up liking his gift, and I see him writing in it whenever I pass by his room. My therapist says that it’s good he’s writing. She keeps hinting that I should bring Benzi in again, but he’d hated it so much the first time I don’t have the heart to send him back there. Perhaps we’ll talk about it again.

Jake – my uncle, my father, my best friend – today is the first of July. It’s your birthday in four days and you would have been forty six years old. I should have been teasing you about how old you’re getting, but Jake, you’re so young. You’re so young and you should still be here to celebrate a hundred more birthdays. You, and Nina, who’s birthday went by without Serena noticing because she’s not old enough to remember the dates. She didn’t remember Lucas’ either.

I cannot accept that you’re all gone. I cannot. All four of you should be coming over for dinner. Nina should be mocking my horrible cooking habits, and that too many charms ruin the magic of a meal. Lucas should be telling Benzi horror stories about the Professors he now knows, and Alice should be telling us all about those pranks she used to pull and how good her marks were getting. Serena should… she should have her family back. Her large, whole, wonderful family who loved her and cared for her so deeply.

The Riders had been the family I’d always wanted for myself. Jake’s Riders, of course. Not my mother. Nor my grandparents. The grandparents who were still too proud to attend the funeral of their own son. My mother, who did attend, and spent the entire time crying her eyes out. I was shocked at first – I think even my father, my biological one, was taken by surprise – because my mother does not show emotion in public. She tries to not show any emotion at all, in fact, so when she openly bawls it’s almost alarming.

But after I got over the initial shock, I grew angry. What business did she have crying over Jake? What did she even know about him? That he’d been her baby brother all those years ago? That she’d left him to take care of himself while he was just a child? That he’d taken in her daughter while she went straight ahead and had a new child? My mother and Jake, despite technically being siblings, never managed to sort out their differences, and I never faulted Jake for that. What she allowed her parents – regretfully, my grandparents – to do had been so despicable it makes my blood boil to this day, and then to almost do the same thing to me… Well, Jake didn’t want to mend the relationship with her that hadn’t even existed for decades.

Jake, if you can hear me, if you’re reading over my shoulder, she sends me letters on a weekly basis. She keeps asking how I am and if I need help, but she never visits. She never actually offers any help. She hasn’t changed even a bit and I don’t have the energy to deal with her. Or Relton, for that matter, who played with his phone at your funeral and didn’t seem at all bothered by the fact that his uncle and his family had died. I swear if he wasn’t my brother I’d have throttled him there and then. Benzi very nearly did.

Jake.

I miss him so much I can’t stand it. I miss the way he used to drive me up the wall, I miss the way he used to make fun of my tragic love life, I miss the way he’d insist that I still needed to bring men over for dinner so that he could intimidate them, despite the fact that I’m well into my twenties now and he’s never really been all that intimidating in the first place.

I miss how he used to take care of me. Pull me close and tell me it’s going to be okay. I miss Nina, who baked the most delicious cakes and who never found the time to write down her recipes. Lucas and Alice, both so full of life with such incredibly bright futures. They were too young. They were all too young. I miss them all so much I can’t breathe. I am constantly suffocating, drowning. Sinking deeper and deeper as I do my best to push Benzi and Serena towards the surface.

It’s almost morning again. July 1st.

It’s been six months.

It’s getting worse.

Please come back.

I love you.

12-27-2014, 02:33 AM	#1 (permalink)
Daemon Antipodean Opaleye Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: making playlists Posts: 9,746 Hogwarts RPG Name: Maggie Woods Gryffindor Seventh Year Hogwarts RPG Name: Levi Jourdan Slytherin Sixth Year x4 x2	A Lesson on Loss - Sa13+ PHILOMATH ❅ not one atom, but two ♪ ♪ made of starstuff ❅ def main(): Disclaimer: This world and all canon materials are the property of JK Rowling. This is a one shot of my old character, Rachel Rider. Might be expanded to include two more pieces. Well past midnight, July 1st, 2082 It’s been six months. It feels like six seconds. My therapist keeps telling me it will get better, but I think it’s getting worse. Benzi has finally started eating like a proper boy again and Serena’s gaining colour in her cheeks. At least they’re both climbing their way out of this blackness we’ve been in since the accident. Every night after they go to bed I put a silencing charm on my door and cry until the sun comes back up again. It’s not normal crying. It doesn’t even feel like the crying I did all those years ago. It’s like… it’s like I don’t even feel like I’m crying. Like it’s coming from somewhere deep inside my chest. It lies dormant during the day, waiting for the quiet and the solitude the night brings and then it claws out, scratching and bruising the empty space where my heart used to be. Where I kept Jake. I’m perpetually exhausted these days. My shoulders always sag downwards and the bags under my eyes have gotten so bad even little Serena’s started to notice. I know Benzi’s worried but he’s such a clever little boy, he doesn’t bring it up anymore. I don’t think he’s going to agree to go back to Hogwarts next year, and it breaks my heart. I can’t push him. I’m in no place to push him. I’ve become a terrible mother. I take care of them, I make sure they both do their homework – whether it’s Serena’s basic maths and introduction to magic, or Benzi’s Hogwarts coursework that I fight him daily to complete – but we’ve stopped living a long time ago. Six months ago, exactly. I keep expecting him to come back and open the door, shake me, tell me that it was all a horrible nightmare and that I’m just being stupid. Tell me to get up, drink coffee and pull myself together. Him, Nina, Lucas and Alice. Writing that letter to Hogwarts had been almost more difficult than organizing the funeral. I had always wanted to write to Professor Truebridge once I’d finished my dissertation but never… never like this. Never for this reason. I wrote it three times, each copy ruined by the teardrops until I resorted to placing charms on the parchment to keep it waterproof. I sent it away with a post owl and couldn’t function for the rest of the day. I have only just started eating myself. I lost so much weight, I can’t bear to look at myself in the mirror anymore. I cook more these days than I ever have in my entire life, and almost force feed it to my children. To both of them. Because while they’re both not biologically mine, I am their mother and they need me. They need me to pull out of this. They need me to be strict about their bedtime and baths, about going outside of the house and about encouraging hobbies. They need me to be their rock, their wall to lean on. They need me to not be this fragile, crumbling mess of a woman who can barely hold it together for a day. I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. It keeps getting worse. I see everyone’s lives continue and move one while I’m stuck here in my bedroom, scratching my chest until it bleeds, screaming until my lungs can’t take it anymore, until my throat is useless. But then I’ll hear a knock on the door and it’ll be little Serena who’s woken up from a nightmare, asking for her Mummy and Daddy. Saying that she loves her Auntie Rachel but she wants to go home. She misses Lucas and Alice. She doesn’t understand why they’re not coming back. I tried to explain it to her as best as I could after the accident. With the help of my therapist, I really did try to hold it together as I said the worlds that shattered her world, knowing I would forever be there to stitch it back together. There was a bit of an issue with Jake’s will and they almost took her away until his lawyer finally arrived to set things straight. I almost had a heart attack that day. They told me you left half of it to me, and the other half to Nina’s parents. They didn’t want it. I think they donated it to a charity, because I didn’t want it either. We didn’t celebrate Benzi’s birthday properly – he wouldn’t let me. I did manage to get him to blow candles out on a cake I literally shoved at him after dinner. That was a good day – both Serena and Benzi had smiled a little. He had ended up liking his gift, and I see him writing in it whenever I pass by his room. My therapist says that it’s good he’s writing. She keeps hinting that I should bring Benzi in again, but he’d hated it so much the first time I don’t have the heart to send him back there. Perhaps we’ll talk about it again. Jake – my uncle, my father, my best friend – today is the first of July. It’s your birthday in four days and you would have been forty six years old. I should have been teasing you about how old you’re getting, but Jake, you’re so young. You’re so young and you should still be here to celebrate a hundred more birthdays. You, and Nina, who’s birthday went by without Serena noticing because she’s not old enough to remember the dates. She didn’t remember Lucas’ either. I cannot accept that you’re all gone. I cannot. All four of you should be coming over for dinner. Nina should be mocking my horrible cooking habits, and that too many charms ruin the magic of a meal. Lucas should be telling Benzi horror stories about the Professors he now knows, and Alice should be telling us all about those pranks she used to pull and how good her marks were getting. Serena should… she should have her family back. Her large, whole, wonderful family who loved her and cared for her so deeply. The Riders had been the family I’d always wanted for myself. Jake’s Riders, of course. Not my mother. Nor my grandparents. The grandparents who were still too proud to attend the funeral of their own son. My mother, who did attend, and spent the entire time crying her eyes out. I was shocked at first – I think even my father, my biological one, was taken by surprise – because my mother does not show emotion in public. She tries to not show any emotion at all, in fact, so when she openly bawls it’s almost alarming. But after I got over the initial shock, I grew angry. What business did she have crying over Jake? What did she even know about him? That he’d been her baby brother all those years ago? That she’d left him to take care of himself while he was just a child? That he’d taken in her daughter while she went straight ahead and had a new child? My mother and Jake, despite technically being siblings, never managed to sort out their differences, and I never faulted Jake for that. What she allowed her parents – regretfully, my grandparents – to do had been so despicable it makes my blood boil to this day, and then to almost do the same thing to me… Well, Jake didn’t want to mend the relationship with her that hadn’t even existed for decades. Jake, if you can hear me, if you’re reading over my shoulder, she sends me letters on a weekly basis. She keeps asking how I am and if I need help, but she never visits. She never actually offers any help. She hasn’t changed even a bit and I don’t have the energy to deal with her. Or Relton, for that matter, who played with his phone at your funeral and didn’t seem at all bothered by the fact that his uncle and his family had died. I swear if he wasn’t my brother I’d have throttled him there and then. Benzi very nearly did. Jake. I miss him so much I can’t stand it. I miss the way he used to drive me up the wall, I miss the way he used to make fun of my tragic love life, I miss the way he’d insist that I still needed to bring men over for dinner so that he could intimidate them, despite the fact that I’m well into my twenties now and he’s never really been all that intimidating in the first place. I miss how he used to take care of me. Pull me close and tell me it’s going to be okay. I miss Nina, who baked the most delicious cakes and who never found the time to write down her recipes. Lucas and Alice, both so full of life with such incredibly bright futures. They were too young. They were all too young. I miss them all so much I can’t breathe. I am constantly suffocating, drowning. Sinking deeper and deeper as I do my best to push Benzi and Serena towards the surface. It’s almost morning again. July 1st. It’s been six months. It’s getting worse. Please come back. I love you. __________________ yeah I like tеlling stories________________________ but I don't have to write them in ink_____ _____________I could still change the end Last edited by Daemon; 01-13-2017 at 05:43 PM.