Twentieth of October: Six Months Later

With Leah's signature complete, the pen was set down on the desk, and the prescription box that she held in her other hand was placed next to it.

It was a typical day at the vet practice; a busy turnover from the night team with six inpatients to deal with, appointments during the day, and then an emergency she had to squeeze in before she had the rest of her Friday afternoon free, and a long weekend to look forward to.

"This should help with his pain in his back legs, and the shot should have relieved him for now," Leah explained.

She stepped to the side so Jackie, the receptionist, could photocopy the paper.

"How many can I give him?" the client asked, looking a lot more relieved to hold her dog's lead than she had been half an hour earlier.

"Two to three a day because it's a low dose, and that can be every eight to twelve hours, with or without food. It's all on there," Leah said, pointing to the prescription bag that was being prepared. "Any problems just phone us back, but it will be a colleague of mine if you need to come back in."

"I'm hoping not, hey my boy? Thank you so much."

"No problem. Take care."

A gentle tug on the spaniel's lead to get him moving, Leah was actually impressed that there wasn't a queue of people and pets in the waiting room.

The benefit of having a large, established hospital practice was that she was rarely the only vet during her shifts, but it was quickly overruled by the fact that within five minutes- especially on a Friday like today- there would be a queue of people collecting prescriptions or arriving for their booked appointments.

"Are you finally finishing early?" Jackie asked, paperclipping the rest of the notes.

Leah turned to her, leaning back on the high rise section desk.

"You guys need to stop worrying about me. I like being kept busy."

And before she could be lectured about taking it easy, the phone rang.

"Speaking of..." Leah stood up straight, nodding to the phone. She loved perfect timings. "You should get that."

Jackie emptied her hands, all mothering in her eyes because it was just what she did to all the young vets and nurses, and answered the unforgiving shrill.

Pushing up her light grey sleeves that had fallen to her wrists, Leah disappeared out the back before the professional greeting she heard day in day out, could even be completed. A few unexplained nerves accompanied her walk to the storage room, but when she saw her best friend through the stacked shelves, it encouraged her confidence back.

"I'm going to do it," Leah announced upon arrival, flouncing her shoulders.

Tina paused whatever check she was up to, and peered over her glasses.

"I think...I'm ready."

The glasses were taken off completely, and the unconvinced expression remained.

"You don't sound so sure," Tina said, and clipped her specs onto her uniform.

"But I am," Leah countered, and swiftly jumped over to her side. "It feels different today, and the sooner I go...well, it's about time I get it over with."

"I just don't think you should rush. The funeral was only two months ago."

"I know! I know, but I need this."

Tina folded her arms, and studied her. Blue eyes narrowed for a moment.

"Well, we have enough vets to cover the afternoon consults and surgeries. Technically you shouldn't be working full time anyway."

Leah held her arms out with a shrug.

"Of course I should! Do you know how bored I'd be at home? I've missed this organised chaos."

"Ah, so even the unreasonable clients who have outstanding bills?"

"There's only a few of those, Teens, and they do eventually. It's a legal requirement that they just claim back on insurance."

"Wow, you're so professional."

"Thank you."

A small box was selected off the shelf.

"Suppose I can't stop you when I'm stuck here."

Leah blanked her expression.

"You make it sound like you hate your job."

Tina ignored her by putting on her glasses again and flipping the box to read. She even made a note of something on the clipboard balanced on the shelf.

"I'll order takeaway for tonight?" Leah offered, already knowing it would win her over.

Tina cracked a smile, but she didn't look up from her writing.

"Make it Italian, and I'll see you back at home."

<>

The graveyard was about a twenty minute walk from the practice, pretty much straight across town, but the position was far enough from a busy road to be considered peaceful.

Leah had changed out of her uniform into a pair of emergency blue jeans she kept at work, and thrown on her zipped hoodie with thick white tassels over her long sleeve she already had on.

It wasn't cold out because October so far had been a mild, and a generous tone down from the hot summer, plus walking up the short incline to the top of the hill had stimulated comfortable warmth, but the overcast sky threatened a shower of rain at any moment and Leah did not have any waterproof layers.

The weather forecast on her phone said rain was due in an hour, but she always took the predicted percentages with a pinch of salt because sudden showers were often unaccounted for.

So, when Leah settled in front of three polished headstones, she wondered just how long it would take for the sky to break and mirror her slackened strength.

The bunch of flowers she held tightly in her right hand, rustled in the paper when she placed them on the grass to one side. It wasn't like she needed to replace wilted tulips, or dried petals, because the flowers were always fresh from her parents visiting once a week.

Grandma Gloria did when she could, although her health had taken a turn for the worse, and if there was anyone else on the list of grieving souls, then they were bound to have left a token of their respect.

It was just Leah who hadn't, until now.

She remembered every moment of the burial, another thorn to pick out from her side, and another hundred reasons to drown into her sorrows. She listened to the recitings and watched the earth scatter each coffin as they were lowered into measured depths under the beckoning smile of the sun.

There was only meant to be a service for Jake and Euston, but Douglas never recovered from his coma, and two coffins became three in an organised rush before the dreaded date of a bitter family reunion.

In the four months before that decision was made to switch off the ventilator that worked endlessly for his deteriorating condition, Leah hadn't visited her grandpa in the hospital once, which only added a new capacity of strange loss to her family.

The police investigation had wrapped up by the summer funeral too, with the evidence of blackmailing and money laundering somehow making it into a few more headlines, and the best conclusion of the hidden identities of herself and Jake was protection from the business that unlawfully churned out deadly sins.

Douglas was still responsible for two brother's deaths- his own, and Leah's. Indirectly and never his heartful intention, but it didn't break the nails that hammered two innocently taken lives into the coffins next to his own.

Leah struggled to find forgiveness for someone who had lied to her, endure the same sadness as her mother for losing her father, and she struggled to cry at the funeral when the words were shared alongside two people she did want to shed her tears for.

It was exactly why she had prolonged a visit, even if she wanted to confess her dutiful thoughts that littered her with regrets, and it was the very reason for her frown and collective stare at the centre headstone of the three. It was the one she sat in front of too, slack forearms resting over her knees whilst reading the bold letters of her grandpa's name.

When her eyes stung from staring too hard, Leah shook hair that had been in a ponytail, guiding the black band onto her wrist, and listened to the scene around her.

Trees swaying above her. Hum of cars in the distance. Flapping wings of pesky pigeons that called on the church's steeples.

It was weirdly enchanting being at the top of the hill, sitting in her family's little section. They marked the end of the row of the graves, which then proceeded to zig zag in the other direction and follow the same pattern down the hill.

An old bench rested somewhere behind her where the path picked up and wrapped around the perimeter, a place where she could have sat and saved herself from the hard ground, but she didn't really care about comfort.

"Why couldn't you have told us you were in trouble, grandpa?" Leah asked the headstone. "We could have helped before any of this happened."

She waited for a response, stupidly, but it only encouraged another piece of her heart.

"It's funny, because I don't really have anything else to say to you other than why?" She shook her head at her knees, holding her chin tight. "A lot has changed now, I hope you know, but I think even you would agree that Jake deserved to see it, just as much as I do."

That final comment was followed by the tilt of her head to the right where white lilies decorated his name, and a reminder that he'd already missed his birthday back in April.

A twenty fifth that he never got the chance to enjoy.

It was her own next month- November the seventeenth to be exact. One step closer to thirty. Fame and fortune climbing to its peak in the shrine of youth. She felt like she had doubled her age in the past year alone, and no moisturiser could ever clear the wrinkles of unfair secrets.

Leah frowned. Gentle, subtle, like the mild air that teased strands of her hair to her cheek, but it suddenly felt different around her, and she couldn't quite find an explanation for it.

Her fingers twitched over her knees, her blinks were more controlled, yet her breathing remained subdued and calm.

Out of sync from her personal reflection, she picked up the bouquet of flowers and pushed herself onto her knees to lower them on her grandpa's grave. She kept her hand clasped around the bunched stems for a moment, feeling the air, waiting if any more words would catch her by surprise, but they didn't, and she let go.

Gave her grandpa the physical token of anguish and sent her prayers to her brother and great uncle who didn't need precious petals to dust their innocent consciences.

Leah stood then, her legs appreciating the position change, because she'd completely lost track of time that the overcast sky hadn't delivered an answer to.

And then she felt it again. The shift in her tumultuous peace.

She focused somewhere down the hill, but she already knew. The explanation was simple, because it was a calm she'd felt before, and it was confirmed by the careful steps that started out behind her on the grass.

One...Two...

Three...Four...

She was holding her breath when they stopped. Imagined the lingering shadow that now looked over her shoulder. Shut her eyes tight when the sinking swallow appeared in her throat, just waiting for it all to be an elusive dream.

Oh, but it wasn't.

The soft voice in her dreams was toying to nervously flatter her ears with an accent that originated over an ocean that no longer separated them. Something to send her right back to the beginning and take away her beautiful Hollywood ending that she had grown to cherish in more ways than she could count.

Leah was waiting for the precision of his shy greeting that would almost make his voice cut out, because she already knew it would make the six months without him perfectly meaningless.

It already had, and moving on from him was never going to happen.

"Hey."

She froze, because it was the only possible way to acclimatise her heart.

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