02:

SOPHIE PROMISES

Sophie Carmella stared at the headstone, her lips quivering and her hands shaking. It had been a week since her father's passing, it had been days since his burial and still she could not find out what exactly she was feeling.

When she had first heard the news in the hallway of Petters High School she was confused and puzzled and then, out of nowhere, a pang had hit her in the chest and the will to support her body had left her as her knees had given way and she had fallen down to the floor, tears stinging her eyes before the sobs flew out of her mouth disgustingly.

She was saddened at first, completely lost and on the verge of being broken. She had lost her father. There was no longer going to be that man whom she had yearned to look up to and offer her guidance. Her sadness had quickly transformed to anger. Her father wasn't a good man. He was a lying, cheating bastard and she shouldn't feel sorry, she shouldn't feel sad that he was now gone, that he was now dead.

But she was. Hating him for all the little things he had done seemed silly and it was silly. Steven Carmella had never been the perfect father. He was never in even close to the title of 'perfect father'. In fact, he was very far from it.

But Sophie still felt those pangs of grief hit her in her chest, hard and fast, because despite all of Steven Carmella's faults and mistakes and wrongdoings he was still her father and she had lost him on an odd sunny day.

Sophie had asked Andrew to drive her to the cemetery so that she could see her father's grave. She was still figuring out if she should have felt angry or sad or pitiful. She didn't know how to react anymore. When she first heard the news of her father's demise she had completely broken down into a sobbing mess but at the funeral whilst everyone was crying their eyes out, Sophie had just stared ahead, not feeling the sadness or the grief.

She just felt empty.

That was how she ended up staring at her father's grave, Andrew beside her, her lips quivering and her hands shaking. She was beginning to feel something other than emptiness. She was beginning to feel the after effects of loss.

Her boyfriend noticed the change in her posture. He noticed the shaking, the hunched shoulders and immediately he wrapped his arm around her, tightly and securely, pressing his soft lips to her temple before whispering, "Don't worry, Soph. God will take care of him."

Sophie choked back on a sob, her voice coming out cracked as she spoke. "Will God really take care of him? Dad wasn't a good guy. You know that."

She heard Andrew sigh before she felt his grip tighten around her. "We all make mistakes, Soph, but we got to learn to accept them and hope that each mistake has taught us something. You're dad made mistakes, plenty of them, and he learnt from them. He finally realised what he was doing was wrong and he turned. He turned to the right path. Your dad didn't die as a bad man, Soph. He died with a good heart."

She stayed silent for a while as she soaked in the warmth that her boyfriend's embrace provided and let the words he had uttered sink into her. "I just don't understand," she said helplessly. "Why did he die?"

"Sophie," Andrew started, his tone gentle and soft, "not everyone dies of a heart attack or of cancer or of a car accident. For some of them it's just their time to go."

"But Dad was just forty-two. He's not even that old. It wasn't his time," she said, conviction laced thickly through her wavering voice.

"In your perspective it wasn't his time," Andrew explained, rubbing his hand up and down her arm in a comforting manner. "You see, Soph, everyone plays a role in this life. Maybe your dad was done playing his role, maybe he was done doing his job and God thought it was time for him to go."

"That's unfair," she said raspily, burying her head into Andrew's shoulder.

"It is a little," Andrew admitted after a beat of silence. "I guess that's the scary part of life. One minute you're breathing and the next minute you're not. You don't know when you'll die. You have no control over it. That's the funny thing about death, isn't it? You can cheat death but at the end it's an inevitable force that cannot be reckoned with."

"If you're trying to scare me then it's working," she said lightly but she was feeling the very opposite inside.

"Oh no, Soph. What I meant was that life is too short to have grudges or regrets. Mourn over your dad. That's the right thing to do now. But don't mourn over him forever. And don't be angry with him. I know you're angry at him. Don't even try to deny it," he added the last bit when she opened her mouth to tell him that she was most definitely not angry. "You should be proud that he changed for you, Soph. What I'm trying to get at is, I know you. I know nothing this tragic has happened before but I know that you push people away in times like these. Don't push me away, Soph. Please..." He paused, before retreating back a little and clutching both her shoulders with his hands, his bright brown eyes full of hope. "Promise me you won't push me away."

Sophie didn't say anything at first. Instead she leaned forward and kissed him softly as a thank you before she grabbed his hand and squeezed it. Then she whispered, her soft voice rolling with the cold air as she spoke, "I promise."