The day you went
"I'm home, Grams!"
I close the door gently and enter the cool house, with only a few rays of sunshine seeping through the curtain in the dark hallway.
I watch the dust floating in the air where the golden rays are reflecting the tiny flecks to make it look like sparkles, as I wait for a response.
But no one replies.
My breath becomes shorter as I frantically shuffle my feet a bit before dumping my backpack on to the ground with a loud thud on the wooden floorboards.
"Grams!" My voice is now hoarse and I kick the door open to her bedroom, to find it completely deserted but still full of her cinnamon scent.
I head into the living room, with my heart beating wildly in my chest as I begin to think the worst.
But there she is, still resting on the couch with a long blanket draped over her. Her eyes are shut, and a few strands of silver hair glint under the golden streak of sunlight, becoming a bronze colour.
I release a long breath I didn't know I was holding, and she stirs awake, opening her eyes slowly.
"You’re home," She breathes out, her voice slightly croaky.
“Yeah,” I smile, whilst approaching her. She looks up at me with eyebrows raised, and I grab the hem of the blue blanket and tuck it under her chin.
She grins, with the wrinkles in the corner of her eyes crinkling like paper. Her grey eyes scan me up and down, and she purses her thin cracked lips with disapproval.
"You've slimmed down."
She presses her arms on the sides of the chair and tries to haul herself up, but I usher her down again with my hands on her shoulders.
“That’s good right?”
"I should be cooking for you, you need to eat well to study well."
I smile meekly and rub her shoulders gently. “I’m fine,” I try to reassure her.
“No. Your father is being negligent. He has been coming back so late nowadays and only bringing garbage takeaway food!” She bellows dismissively, turning away from me.
I let out a sigh before nodding slightly. "Let's watch something." I suggest, trying to divert the topic. We skim through all the channels until some funny cartoons come on and end up watching it as she strokes my hair softly.
I smile from her touch that completes me a bit. With her, I’m not abandoned. Her love for me can cover the skies and that empty space in my heart where my mother should be.
We stay like that until the sun goes down, and the sky is now painted with pinks and oranges, glowing brightly from the golden rim of the setting sun above the oceans.
I know I’m supposed to go study for some boring quiz right now but I let myself just be in this moment.
We finally hear the front door open, my Dad's voice rings out from the front. "I got pizza!"
I sit up as the aroma of burnt bacon and cheese wafts into the room.
"See? What did I tell you." Grams starts, her tone scolding and patronising.
My dad appears with a pizza box in his hand, his light blue uniform still on.
"What is wrong with you, Robert!" My grandma scolds. "Stop feeding Arden junk and take care of her health. I did not raise you, so you could grow up and have you and your first born live off mozzarella cheese every night."
My father can only sigh.
My eyes dart between my Grandmother’s beetroot face and my Dad’s panicked expression as his eyes are downcast.
I attempt to alleviate the atmosphere. "Hey, I'm fine with living off cheese," I say but regret doing so when I feel a stinging slap on my shoulder.
I only shrug but then nod in agreement as I wouldn’t mind a nice home cooked meal once in a while.
"Mom, it's only going to be for a few weeks." My Dad sets the pizza box down on the coffee table and sits down on the arm chair. "I was just assigned into a task force, finally after my promotion to a detective.”
"Is your job more important than your daughter?" He scratches the back of his head and unbuttons his collar.
"You know we need this, Mom. I'm also thinking about Arden's future, and….” My father hesitates, “we need the money." I look down and nod, fully aware of our current financial situation.
Even with my scholarship, it still isn’t enough to cover the cost of books, and resources for me to be in the school.
"Let's eat, darl."
Suddenly, the phone rings and I groan, not wanting to move a muscle. I trudge to the phone line as my Dad and Grandma begin to eat whilst watching the news.
I pick up the vibrating phone with a piece of pizza sticking out of my mouth and place it next to my ear.
"Hello?" There's only silence but I can hear light breathing about three long seconds later which encourages me to stay on the line.
"Arden?" A familiar voice sounds off from the other end, and my face suddenly feels frozen, and I can feel my stomach twisting and squeezing itself like a towel.
My slice of pizza drops to the floor with a splat, my mouth now agape.
“Shit,” I curse.
"Arden, is that you?" Her voice is full of hope and clear with no regrets or hesitance.
I don’t know what to say so I don’t say anything at all.
“Arden, I know it’s you! Why are you being like this?” My mother's voice grows more heated and aggravated the longer I remain silent and this is no surprise.
“I don’t know,” I reply slowly, still in a daze.
"This isn't funny, let me talk to your father-"
I hang up.
It’s funny how no matter how hard I try to forget, how long it’s been, it never eases the hurt that always seems to seep through. Time seems to be of no significance because even now, after 7 years, tears still form in my eyes, I still miss my brother and I still despise the woman that gave me life but took away my will to live.
Love - something that powerful can't be so easy to forget. But somehow, there's something else in the world, that holds nearly as much value to love somehow; and even in some cases, overthrows love.
Money.
It's hilarious how something entirely man-made can be compared to an element of life and as sincere as emotion.
Maybe it's because money can now buy love.
"Who was that?" Dad's voice rings faintly from inside the living room. I’m snapped out of my depressing thoughts, and wipe a stray tear that I didn’t even know was falling down cheek.
I clear my throat to compose myself, and put up the usual front that I always do; That I had to do 7 years ago when my mother walked out the door and I was the only thing that couldn’t break.
Because not only did my father lose his son, but also his significant other who's supposed to be his best friend, confidant and loving wife. So I couldn’t lose myself either and let him also lose me.
"Just some people trying to sell their shit!" I lie.
I run back to grab another slice of pizza and plop down on the couch next to Grams again, pretending that everything was fine.
"Now look!" Dad points to the segment that's on the news now. "I'm assigned to investigate this case." I bring my attention to the reporter on the television, talking on a small mic.
She appears to be in a dark alleyway with a brick wall painted with graffiti behind her.
"As you can see, I am at the scene where this destructive gang has vandalised our city. Their identity is still unknown, the case dragging out for six months now. Law enforcement are still undertaking ongoing investigations and have clarified with the public that this infamous gang contains 4 or more young teenagers."
The scene cuts to a picture of a very tall and luxurious looking building but right on the rooftop, a banner hangs marked in red saying:
'SLUSH FUNDS FROM YGP PHARMACEUTICALS ARE POSTED ONLINE! SEE THE CORRUPT DEALINGS NOW @ HEALER'
The scene then transitions into two CCTV footage of four guys all garbed in black with caps and face masks covering their faces at a gas station.
"This was after their committed offence, but as you can see-" The narration is stopped so that we can see the footage being blacked out as soon one of them was going to take their cap off. "-the part of the footage has been erased, indicating that there may be an inconvenient glitch or maybe even a hacker amongst the gang."
Dad looks down a bit with a frown. "We aren't able to track them because the CCTV footage keeps being erased. They’ve able to escape every time. We always seem to be one step behind."
"How? They’re just like a bunch of teenagers trying to get a rise out of the public. They should have been caught by now.”
Dad shrugs. “We didn’t take it seriously until recently.”
Grandma jumps in. "Why are the young people now so stupid? What's wrong with having a protest or a petition for these things to be uncovered. They're doing all this for nothing."
I nod in agreement. "I don’t think anyone will acknowledge them either way. They just want the attention.”
I stand up, and collect all the rubbish and dump it into the now empty pizza box.
"Well whatever the motive is, we have to know before we can catch them," My Dad says sternly.
“You do that!” I am about to leave to go to my room when my eyes catch something on the TV.
It was the words on the brick wall in the alleyway in bolded red that demanded my attention.
HEALERS. WE HEAL THE BROKEN.
___
Who do you think Healer is?
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