Samantha Sharp Chronicles 1 by C C Roth

Author:C C Roth [Roth, C C]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9798638666705
Published: 2020-04-17T22:00:00+00:00

5- No More Tears

It was days before I spoke to Mike. There just weren’t any words that felt like they would help and so we moved around each other in silence. We buried Mom and Dad on the east side of the cabin where the ground was level. There was a good view of the lake below and Mike said they would’ve liked that. I couldn’t stop replaying everything in my head. I lay awake at night and I would see Mom’s face falling away from me as the bullet hit her. I would hear the screams and gunfire. I tried to play out a scenario where I didn’t fire her rifle and none of this happened. Maybe we could’ve all made it out safely if I had just done nothing.

“It’s my fault they’re dead.” I finally said to him.

We were sitting at the kitchen table four days after it had happened, staring at our food. It just came out of me. “It’s all my fault. I’m sorry, Mike. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

I wanted to beg for his forgiveness, but I had little emotion left to give. I had cried all my tears and my body was exhausted from grieving and lack of sleep. All I could manage was an uncontrollable shudder of sadness that boiled up from my truest self.

He gave me his sweet smile and did the best thing a big brother could’ve done. He lied.

“I know you didn’t. It wasn’t your fault. Those men weren’t going to let us leave. He attacked Mom. You didn’t have a choice.”

I could barely stand to look at him as he said it because I knew if I did, his face would give him away. He must blame me too, there was no way around it. I would never forgive myself and to say I deserved otherwise almost made me ill. But that was the difference between us. I would never stop punishing myself and he had already let it go.

“Sam, it’s not your fault.”

I nodded because that’s what he wanted me to do but I just wasn’t ready to hear those words yet. I was a monster and I didn’t deserve his forgiveness.

We moved through the next month slowly and methodically. We gathered wood, fished, planted, weeded, ate, slept, repeat. Gradually our minds turned to other things and so our conversations started to come back. Soon he didn’t have to remind me to eat or to take care of the day’s responsibilities. I was almost functioning like a real person again. Mike was kind and didn’t bring up Mom and Dad for fear it would shut me down again. He only mentioned them once when he found me standing at their graves one day.

“We keep going, Sam. That’s what they both would want. They had a plan and they wanted us to live. That’s what all this is about.” He gestured to the cabin and surrounding woods. “So, we keep going.”

“What if I can’t? I don’t feel… I don’t know what I feel.

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