"What is it? Who's it from?" I asked, slowing down enough to not accidentally trample my impromptu messenger. "It's from Meliss," she said, handing me the letter. "It's been what, about a month since you last heard from her?" she asked. "Y-yeah, something like that. Sometimes the ravenry isn't available, so it can take a little while," I replied, noticing her usual signature was written a little shakier than normal.
That's odd. Her signature is normally so elegant when she writes. Eh, she was probably in a hurry, I thought indifferently.
"Well, what are you waiting for? Go on! Read it," she said encouragingly. Breaking the seal and unfolding the parchment with an excited smile on my face, I turned half-way away from her and leaned forward into the light from the long hallway behind her. As my eyes scanned the page, I felt a cold, icy claw gripping my stomach. My heart began to pound fiercely, as dinner threatened to present itself once more to the outside world.
"Thoma, are you alright? You're as pale as a cloud. What happened?" she asked. I couldn't pay attention to anything else she said after that, as my hands began to tremble, and my knees grew weaker by the second. Everything around me turned into a blur, as tears welled in my eyes halfway through the letter.
"Hey, what's going on?" she asked again, her tone soft and breathy as she placed a hand on my shoulder. I lifted my head, and stared down the hallway. My eyes, now leaking both tears and mana from the second stage, pulsed. "I have to go," I managed to croak, not wanting her to see me in the state I somehow knew I was about to be in.
I pushed an ample amount of mana into my legs, and bolted off as quickly as I could, creating a small crater in the ground where my feet were. "Thoma!" I heard her call out by the time I was at the end of the hallway. I turned down the path to the right, and I was gone like a lightning bolt in a storm, as I knew I would only have a few moments before whatever composure I had left failed.
I made it to my room just in time to puke out my dinner into the mana-controlled sink. The gut wrenching feeling of what was said in the letter came in waves, and those waves forced me to buckle and fold onto the ground into a ball in the corner of the bathroom, using my hands to pull my knees tightly to my chest and sobbing uncontrollably as tears streamed down my cheeks.
I could feel my breathing hiccup and stutter from time to time. There were a few moments, even, where I had to swallow a large amount of stringy, gummy saliva, otherwise I might have choked on it. My stomach cramped without anything left inside it to heave up and out as I buried my head into my forearms and screamed silently; feeling the blood rush to my face and eyes as they became increasingly more bloodshot.
Dealing with death, I found, was much easier than dealing with whatever this was. Death, to me, was a much simpler thing in the fact that once it occurred, it was an immutable fact. The irreversible action of passing on from this mortal plane to the next was something we all had to go through at some point, making it easier to understand.
This, however, wasn't quite that. It was the pain of loss, but not a loss that couldn't have, somehow, been prevented. Whether that prevention could've been through my own doing or some extraneous circumstance, I didn't know.
I searched and searched through my mind, reviewing all of the letters I'd sent and everything she and I had talked about over the course of our time together. Nothing I had seen, heard, or read had ever given me any indication that this absolute kick to the dick was coming. There was no sign of it. Nothing. I clenched the letter tightly in my fist, crumpling the midsection, as I allowed myself another silent scream.
With the few moments of clarity that I did have, I forced myself to get the taste of vomit out of my mouth using the charcoal and mineral paste the Caegweni's used as a cleansing toothpaste. After rinsing my mouth out, I sat down against the wall of the bathroom again, the emotions flooding back to me as soon as I did. Time around me seemed to come to a halt, as my thoughts began to rush once more. A few moments later, I thought I'd heard a soft knock on the door.
I can't answer that. Not in this state, I thought, burrowing my head deeper into my knees.
"Thoma, are you there?" Ysevel's voice came from the other side, muffled ever so slightly by both the door and the copious amount of blood in my head. "Please, son, open the door. You left in such a rush, and with that look on Ysevel's face, I was worried something horrible had happened," my mother's voice chimed in, concern evident in her tone.
I can't, mom. I just… can't, I sent.
The emotional distress I was feeling must have carried through, because as soon as the last word was transmitted, my door was blasted wide open with an Exar spell powerful enough to turn the solid, oaken door to little more than chunky dust. "Alright, who do I have to kill?" she asked, her tone seething with both anger and concern as she stormed into the room like a bear protecting her cubs.
I didn't bother to look up. Gods above, I couldn't look up. I couldn't let her see my face.
"Is this the cause of the state you're in? Let me see that," she said, forcefully grabbing the letter from my hand. I could hear her uncrumpling and reading through it, as I could also hear Ysevel's steps moving in closely behind my mother. At this point, there was nothing more I could do except hold back more tears and sobs, as the snippets of the letter were read aloud.
"Dear Thoma… can't burden you with my past… this was out of convenience… need to laugh wholeheartedly… explore life… without you… move on… I'm sorry," my mother finished reading and handed it off to Ysevel so she could read it, too.
"Oh, what the fuck? That's absolute bullshit and was beyond fucked up of her to do. And for what? The fuck was even the point of that? She could've just said she wanted to slog down someone else's prick and be done with it. Gods above and below, I could've easily mistaken that letter for some kind of anal suppository with how much bullshit was in it! Her genetics ruined a perfectly good asshole when she began to grow teeth in her mouth," my mother raged in complete and utter disregard for my emotional state.
As bad as I felt at that moment, I didn't think anything could've prepared me for that last sentence.
My mother huffed and moved over to squat down in front of me, placing her hands on my forearms. "I'm sorry, son. I really am," she said in a polar opposite tone than what she had just used. "I've also been through my fair share of heartbreaks, having lived as long as I have, and I understand what you're going through," she said, gently rubbing her thumb across my forearm.
She must have noticed my shuddering, because she pulled me in close, burying my face in her shoulder and stroking the back of my hair momentarily as she hushed me. I broke down even further, feeling the full weight of my emotions flooding out of me. After a few minutes of allowing me to sob uncontrollably, she slowly pushed me back, and cupped my face in her calloused hands, using her thumbs to wipe away the tears streaming down my swollen face.
"It's alright. These things happen, okay? Just because something is over, doesn't mean that it's the end," she said comfortingly. "It sure as fuck feels like it, though," I croaked before sniffling again, and using the back of my wrist to wipe my nose.
"Yes, yes it does. But it's not, and that's what is important right now, okay? What is important, however, is that you learn to pick yourself back up, dust yourself off, and take a step forward; no matter how small. Got it?" she said, her golden eyes gazing into my bloodshot ones as she looked for my response.
I could only nod my head curtly, trying my best to heed her words. "Good. I'm glad you understand that," she gave me a thin lipped smile. "Try to get some decent rest tonight, okay?" she said as she stood back up, placing her hand on Ysevel's shoulder as she left. I leaned my head on the wall behind me, feeling the tears rushing from my eyes to the tops of my ears as I felt the sobs returning.
Seemingly out of nowhere, and without having made a sound, I felt something brush up against my shoulder. I looked over to find Ysevel sitting next to me, her eyes staring straight toward the wall opposite us.
"You don't have to be here, you know," I said weakly. "I know, but I'm going to be," she replied, nudging my shoulder with her own. "Was it something I did? Could I have done anything differently? Is… is this my fault?" I asked, feeling the strain on my voice.
I didn't receive a reply; not a grunt, not a nod, not a word. Instead, I felt her hand reach to the furthest side of my head, and gently pull downward, placing my head on the shoulder that had just nudged me. We sat in silence, but for how long, I didn't know. There were no words that needed to be said, no emotions or other physical contact was shared. We simply sat there, in silence, together.