Novel & Cerita My Smile Was Taken Long Ago

It was taken 20 years ago and is now a bit pixelated. He smiled bittersweetly, "Pity?"

A sad smile ghosted over her face as she stared into his soft brown eyes, a cheerful smile etched on his thin lips with his eyes crinkling from the happiness that he was exuding. Some parts of the picture had faded, telling more of how it had aged. Amelia could remember the exact moment her mom had given her that picture, about nine years ago, on her sick bed. A lone tear slid down her cheek as her thoughts traveled to the day she realized she was all alone in life. *****

I let it. It is a smile. A real one. The kind that comes from somewhere deeper than politeness or performance, the kind that arrives unbidden and stays without asking permission. I cannot remember the last time I smiled like this. Possibly never. Certainly not in any context I would recognize as my own life. The smile stays. I let it stay. ---

" I smiled, small and sharp, nothing in it. "A trap " I said.

Such a simple sentence shouldn’t carry so much pain. Yet somehow… It did. “It wasn’t just any smile.” He looked up at me. “You know when someone smiles differently depending on who’s standing in front of them?” I nodded. “I hadn’t seen her smile like that at me…” He searched for the words. “…in almost a year.” The room felt unbearably quiet. “They hugged.” He paused. “Not politely.” “Comfortably.” “Like two people who had forgotten the rest of the world existed.” I instinctively folded my hands together beneath the desk.

Yara. " I will repay you all with my blood." I whispered, a small smile playing at my lips , a smile that didn't quite reach my eyes. Disbelief and panic were plastered all over the Smith's faces except on Jade's face. Jade wore a challenging smile, with a smirk pulling at the corners of her lips. She was the happiest, after all.

“You’re messing with me, aren’t you? I can never tell when you do that? Why don’t you smile or something?” Why don’t you smile. You wouldn’t believe the amount of times I’d heart this question. I gave him the answer I always did. “I don’t smile.” Simple and short. “But you do.” I looked at him. “Excuse me?” “You do smile. When you’re stepping on the skulls of your enemies. It’s a scary sort of smile.” I shrugged. “Guess that’s the only thing that brings me joy.”

His thumb lingered near the corner of my eye, and that smile God, that dangerous smile spread across his face. “For every guy you smile at,” he said softly, “you’ll shed a tear.” The words hit like a curse. My heart sank, heavy and cold. So this was my punishment for smiling. Fear tightened around my chest until I could barely breathe. Was I supposed to never smile again? Never look at anyone?

A small smile tugged at my lips as my subordinate gave me the details of the assignment I tasked him with. “Finally!” I exclaimed inwardly while putting on a flat expression. In the years following my exile from the Whitlocks, the first thing I learned to school was my expressions. I used to be a very lively and bubbly young man. Not many things could wipe the smile off my face, but in no time, reality hit me so hard that I didn’t even put in any effort to wipe it off. It was automatically gone. Many around me couldn’t even pinpoint the last time they saw me smiling.