Entry 5

Silence commanded the room. Seated beside her bed, I thought about what she had said. How was I supposed to handle that? Within a day of being back in my birthplace, of setting foot in the fort they built over top of it, I found my mother alive; but not for long. I had already lost her once, and I wasn't sure if I would be able to suffer that pain for a second time. I didn't know, and I didn't want to.

She turned her head gingerly, with great difficulty, and fixed her eyes on me. The same eyes that I see, to this day, in the unwanted reflections which find their way to me. The shades of blue in my own gaze aren't as vibrant, but a close match nonetheless to the stark lightning flashing behind hers. Yet, I never looked her in the eye. She kept staring at me, no doubt wishing that I would catch her gaze for a moment; a single moment was all it would have taken, and then I could return to my own thoughts. But I couldn't do it. I was ashamed, so incredibly ashamed of how I had acted before. I was ashamed of the way that I left, ashamed that I hadn't been there for her, and even more ashamed that I couldn't just meet the look and ease her mind.

I remember getting up and walking up the stairs leading out of that dark cellar, my heart breaking all over again as she begged me to come back.