Like blood from a frozen heart

Kika stared out the kitchen window, her gaze lingered on the flowers she and Bloom had planted together. The soft fluttering scent that grows welcoming each day wafted in with the cool afternoon breeze, white roses, bluebells, carnations, a community of colours, and a feast for butterflies and bees.

She squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again. She sighed loudly and cleaned her wet hands with a disposable towel. It was only on bad days that she was able to acknowledge the beauty of nature, on days where she decided to just stay alone in her thoughts.

She wondered what she would say to Bloom once she returned from the Academy of magic in the next three months. She tried thinking up reasons to convince the little girl why she wouldn't be able to see her daddy anymore.

She trudged up the stairs to her room and removed the last of the clothes from the hangers, folding, sorting and arranging them into her three suitcases, she saw a faint light underneath a camisole. It was her phone, she had left it on DND mode again and had completely forgotten about it. She raised the front side camera to scan the metallic hue in her dim eyes, it beeped to confirm the successful verification then she opened her messaging app. It was a message from her Grandma.

She read it.

"Kika, are you coming home tomorrow?"

Her lower lip quivered while she typed in her reply, she'd dragged this relationship for way too long and now the sting of the unrequited love she had for Luke had eaten so deep into her heart, that the hole could fit a mechanical pencil.

She texted a reply.

"Yes, Grandma. I'm packing up my stuff right now."

She was about to drop the phone back on the table when her ringtone permeated through the steely silence of her emptied room.

"Grandma?"

"I'm so happy you decided to come back, dear. I've missed you so much."

Kika glanced at her face in the body-length mirror to her left, her eyes were still red-rimmed and swollen from her bout of tears earlier that day. She couldn't believe she was actually saying goodbye to him and everything he stirred up within her. He hadn't been good to her but she still loved him.

"I've missed you too, Grandma."

It's been five years since she last saw her only relative left in the world, she had paid a visit with Bloom after she turned five. Grandma Emil was immortal and she had foreseen the family business going back four generations ago. Her six hundredth birthday was around the corner and Kika had already picked out the perfect gift to bring joy to the old lady who looked no older than fifty-five.

"Hurry home, Kikan."

Kika pulled the phone from her ears. Grandma Emil had ended the call. She bent over to arrange her unused clothes into her red duffel bag, Stella might need them. Stella was the housekeeper that lived with her Grandma back in Janelle City.

She zipped it and rolled her other two expandable suitcases to the flush door that was slightly ajar. She swiveled around while drumming on the pink plastic that stored her luggage. Was she forgetting anything? Probably not, unless she's adding intangible things like her hurt pride, strained emotions, battered heart and bleeding ability to fall for another person.

She picked up her car keys and shut the door firmly behind her, while dragging her four bags towards the stairs she stopped briefly to stare at the door to Luke's room.

Did he even care that she was leaving? Kika shook her head and pressed her eyes shut, she didn't want to hear the answer to that. The answer would probably plunge her into another pool of salty tears again. She stepped lightly to reduce the echoes of her footsteps as she reduced the distance between her and the door. If only this was the door to Luke's heart, she would open it and try to make some room for herself on the other side of it.

Would it matter? He doesn't even take her as a person.

Back then she would holler at Asher and Melody and anyone else who cared about her enough to ask if it was worth it to cling to Luke like a pathetic fool. She would yell at them and declare how it didn't matter if he liked her back or not, she would follow him till the ends of the earth and search out his heart forever.

Kika chortled quietly.

What a fool she was. Forever, she said. Mind you, it was just eight years and she couldn't take the pain anymore. Living with the person you love but he despises you to extent that he could compare you with dirt.

"I'm not going to use the word forever so lightly anymore."

She placed her palm on the smooth surface of the polished wood.

"I thought forever meant a long time..."

She trailed down to the handle. She couldn't bring herself to twist it and push the door open. She remembered how many times she had barged in here over the years, it always ended with her leaving with either lacerations or both lacerations and severe pains from when he unexpectedly choose to possess her.

"...but I realized that it's different for everyone."

She withdrew her arm before her aching heart would push her to do something stupid and her determination to leave would begin to quiver. She needed to put distance between her and that door. It was still ten in the morning, Luke's alarm clock usually goes off at eleven thirty so she's swift enough, she'll be out of sight before his senses start to power on.

She tightened her resolve and after much struggling managed to get all the suitcases down the stairs in one piece.

Today, she leaves all her unreturned feelings, all the lies she's been telling herself, all the pain, love, torture, depression, and even the very few smiles she was able to catch a glimpse of on his face. She sighed. Those smiles were never for her either.

She pushed the bangs out of her eyes and reached for the doorknob.

Goodbye, her freedom starts right behind these panelled doors. Amidst the sense of sovereignty and inner peace that seemed to be calling her from the outside, a clearer voice shot through her defenses and jounced her all the way to her toes.

"Kika! Wait!"