CHAPTER 1: COLD WITHOUT HER

CHAPTER 1 

RAVEN’S POV

Stepping into the cold, empty apartment with Nan’s ashes in the jar on my arm, it feels surreal being here without her—without her to scold me when I come back from the bathroom with water in my hair: “You’ll catch a cold and when that happens, I won’t take care of you” those were her tough words they were lies —she loved me. Or to call my name the minute I step in from a bad day at school “My sweet Nora, it will be all right.”

This place feels too cold, if she were the heater would have been turned on during the winter, but living in the hospital this past few months, there has been no one to ensure the house was warm enough.

Winters are always so cold; it used to be my favorite holiday but the thought of spending it without Nan is suffocating.

I don’t want to be here.

I really don’t know what I will do, I thought she was going to survive, I really thought she had a long time that I was going to be able to speak to her about these changes I am experiencing.

On the day I found out about Nan diagnosis, I was shattered. It was cancer, I can’t believe she hid that from me, she was going to leave without trying treatment, she was going to leave.

She is all I have.

She was all I had.

After I found the medical report in her bedroom during one of my searches for spare change to spend with friends, I found the report tucked underneath her bed, she hid it from me, the only family she has and knows.

How could she? I was angry, I felt betrayed. 

It was the strong and deepest kind of pain, I hated it.

I confronted her with tears in my eyes.

“What’s this?” I asked my voice quivering, “Nora,” she snapped, “how many times have I told you not to go searching through my stuffs? It’s disrespectful.”

“Were you going to tell me?” I demanded, the tears trolling down uncontrollably.

She blinked twice, something she always does before lying, before replying.

“I was eventually going to tell you my sweetheart, I just didn’t get the right opportunity,” she said.

“Really, Nan?” I snapped, “What happened to ‘no secret’? What happened to telling each other our deepest secrets with our game?” 

“You had so many opportunities Nan, but you still didn’t tell me” i said.

“But I just didn’t get the—-“

“Enough!!!” I screamed, stamping my foot once, causing the whole building to shake and my nails claw out.

I raced out of the apartment, slamming the door behind me, shocked on what I just did and how. I don’t think Nan noticed it that day, or maybe she did and just decided to ignore, I couldn’t tell.

That was when I started experiencing them, this things I can’t put a name on.

The claws, the speed, the strength.

That day, after leaving the apartment, I raced out in the rain but there was immense speed, because I was standing in my school gate less than 20 seconds later, which on a normal day took a maximum of forty-five minutes. 

I hid in the art room in my school, crying and scared until the rain let up.

I got back home to seeing the ambulance taking Nan out of the house on a stretcher.

She had gotten worse, and it was all my fault. If only I hadn’t yelled at her, if only I had spoken to her calmly, maybe, just maybe, she wouldn’t have had to be carried out in a stretcher.

Since then it been in and out of the hospital for me and in for Nan. I had to attend classes because I promised Nan I would go to college.

But that reality seems far off, now with her ashes on my arm.

I didn’t bother turning on the lights to brighten the apartment, I  just sat on Nan’s rocking chair, cold and moving back and forth.

****

I woke up to the sound of  banging on the door and the sun peeking into the apartment.

I was lost as to where I am and why I’m wearing all black, then the event of yesterday starts coming back, Nan’s burial, coming back to this cold and lonely apartment.

Then the banging starts again.

“Coming,” I shouted.

Opening the door, I see Miss May, my high school counselor.

“Hi Nora,” she says, pushing her way in with a casserole in her hand. What does she want this morning, I thought to myself.

“Good morning, Miss may, What can I do for you ?” I replied, shutting the door.

“I heard about your Nan. How are you holding up?”

“I’m okay,” I replied briskly wanting this conversation to come to an end.

“I brought lasagna. I thought you might need a hot meal. And why is this place so cold? Didn’t you turn on the heater? It’s winter, you need to keep warm,” she says moving around the apartment clearly in search of where the heater is. 

She found it in the kitchen and turned it on.

“Take all the time you need off school. I will send in the school work so you don’t miss out and if you ever want to talk, I am here,” She said moving to the door ready to leave.

I nodded, clearly over this whole conversation.

“You have to take care of yourself, Nora. That is what she would want. I would have stayed but I have to run off to work, but I will be back this evening to check on you,” She said leaving the apartment.

“Take care of yourself,” I hear her say before shutting the door.