"She was wrong! Sheila was wrong! How could I be getting better?" Hyacinth thought to herself as she stepped out of the therapist's office.
It's been exactly 14 months since she lost her parents; her only family in a tragic car accident.
*a memory flashes right in her mind
"You are strong, I get that, but you have to lean on me too!", Hyacinth's mum said.
"Ohhh! Rely on you? do you even hear yourself? You aren't always here and all of a sudden you want to be mother of the year!" Hyacinth replied as she slammed the door in her mother's face and this Memory ended with a line of tears from Hyacinth's left eye. She wipes it off, stops walking for a moment and looks in the sky and with a heavy voice and an heavier heart, her voice breaks. "I miss you, mum"
Hyacinth opened the door of her house and dropped her keys on the table as she walked upstairs where she saw her family picture hung on the wall. She'd always seen it, but today was different. She realised the mess her life had become without them and in this split second of thoughts, she touched the picture; caressing her parents face, hoping to feel a measure of warmth within the surrounding loneliness that defined her.
After more than a minute of this, she walked to her room and lay on the bed gazing at the roof which had the picture of the constellations and a full moon which was so beautiful her brain was beginning to make sense of it. While staring at it, she laughed and tears began to do the same with her as they flooded the edges of her cheeks. She fell asleep.
"Kid, it's never enough to surmount the cold, it's better to reserve the warmth for an even colder night" a man who looked too surreal to be human said to Hyacinth.
"Dad? Does it ever get better? The guilt, the emptiness..." Hyacinth replied sadly as her dad walked up to her midway through her words and hugged her tightly. She sniffled as he hugged her and this was all she'd hoped to feel- warmth and solace in the knowledge that she was loved still.
Hyacinth woke up, much warmer this time with what looked like a smile appearing on her face. She understood better than anyone that it was her subconscious mind that created that simulation which was flawless in giving her a dose of an emotion or maybe more than one. She couldn't wrap her head around it and to be honest, she was a little scared to. She just wanted to bask in the moment where all she felt wasn't the grief that had become a neighbour in her headspace.
She went for her phone by the table beside her bed and the time was 04:37 AM. Her 3 weeks college holiday was already over and her return flight was scheduled for today. She knew she'd be returning with hope.