C .03-A heavy heart
1435 Words
Lunch, 12 p.m., Cami’s. [Rebecca]
Juliette read the text as she sat at her desk.
Sure, I’ll meet you there. [Me]
She replied shortly and switched her phone to silent as she begin the day. However, she couldn’t stop thinking about the email she had deleted. It bugged her to no end as to why Kallum had sent her the email.
Though she couldn’t bring herself to read the thing, she couldn’t deny how much it frustrated her. She had thought not reading it would be better, yet she didn’t realize that not reading it, was worse.
She pulled up her email and opened the trash folder. She hovered her finger over the screen, contemplating about reading it.
“Screw it!” She cursed and slammed the phone on the desk, face down, trying to forget about the email and the contents of it. Whether she read it or not, it wouldn’t change the past.
At least that’s what she thought.
Her mind swirled with assumptions of what the email entailed. As much as she didn’t want to think of him, her mind wouldn’t stop remembering all those moments they shared together. His efforts to make her smile on a bad day.
Tormented memories of them played like a damaged record player, showing the same images all at once. Him chasing her around the apartment and tickling her profusely for having to race after her.
She couldn’t deny it, there was a time when she was actually happy with him. But now, the thought of him made her sad.
When she had told him to take the job, a part of her wanted him to say no. To say he would rather stay with her, although she wouldn’t want him to turn down such a job.
Juliette knew if the tables were turned, she too would’ve accepted the opportunity, especially working for such a prestigious company.
Her heart ached with contradictions. Contradictions of what’s in her heart and what her mind was directing her to believe. That him taking the job was the best thing for him.
Kallum may have made the decision to leave, but she also had the option to go with him or stay behind, to which she decided on the latter.
She sighed heavily, swiping her hands across her face.
She picked up the handset and dialed the button for Stacy’s intercom.
“Yes Ms. Stryker?” Stacy answered shortly.
“Stacy, can you cancel my meetings for today and let Mr. Stauber know I’ll be stepping out please.” She requested tapping the pen on the desk.
Her heart ached and she knew there was one place that would ease the tension building in her muscles.
“Of course Ms. Stryker. Will that be all?” She queried.
“Yes please. And thank you Stacy.” She returned the handset to the base and stood from her desk, looking out the floor to ceiling windows, down at the open streets of Exeter.
With one destination in mind, she grabbed her coat from the rack and her cell, just in case she was needed back at the office. From her bag, she took her purse, that way she can meet with Rebecca for lunch.
Killing two birds with one stone.
Juliette left her office and walked to the elevator and pressed for the ground floor. Since it was hot out, she had decided to park in the open parking lot. When she arrived at her car, she got in and sat there for some time, just thinking.
***
Her car came to an abrupt stop. She took a full turn, taking in her surroundings. The cemetery was empty, void of anyone else. Well the living actually.
She shut off the engine of the car and stepped out onto the half wet, half dried dirt. The fallen leaves crunched under her feet with each step she took. There was an eerie silence being in a vacant cemetery, no matter the time of day.
She pulled her coat a little tighter and walked to the headstones she had visited on countless occasions. Her parents’.
On her journey, she had made a stop to purchase some of her mother’s favorite flowers. Lilies. Her mother loved their beauty and fragrance. Once upon a time, she had told Juliette that they too were her mother’s favorite. Juliette’s grandmother, who had died before she had time to meet her granddaughter. And now, they were also Juliette’s favorite.
She inhaled deeply as she smelled the elegant yet earthy scent of the yellow and white lilies. An image of her mother flashed across her mind. It was a memory of the both of them kneeling in the backyard of their home, at the small garden her mother had created and tended to with her own hands.
She vividly remembered her mother’s radiating smile, as she shared the same features as her mother. Beautiful and full of life.
Some used to say Juliette was the spitting image of her mother and even now as an adult, she looks more and more like her.
She held the bouquet to her chest and smiled, looking up at the sky, “I miss you mom.” She whispered as a tear rolled down her cheeks.
“Hey mom, it’s me, Juliette.” Taking a seat on the withered grass, she folded her legs one under the other and clasped her hands on her lap. At the headstone just adjacent from her mother’s, her father laid. “Hey daddy.”
She dropped her eyes to her fiddling thumbs as she thought about where to start telling her mom about her troubles. Before her mother passed, Juliette shared a unique bond with her. A bond that made them seem more like two sisters, best friends even, than mother and daughter.
Julie Stryker, Juliette’s mom, wanted nothing but the best for her daughter. Her sweet little girl. Even on the day she died, she hoped that her little girl grows up to be a proud mother, like she was of her.
Before she took her last breath, she whispered a prayer to have the angels above keep a watchful eye over the young woman. She didn’t want hurt to come her way, or pain. However, the woman knew with the deceitful and conniving minds of people, her daughter would meet bad days.
All she wanted was for her to know that she would watch over her.
“I miss you both so much. Some days are worse than the other, but I know you’re guiding me along the way and it helps to make it better. I wish you both were here to see the woman I’ve grown into. I know you would be proud of me, daddy. Your little bug growing up into a sophisticated young woman as you kept reminding me over the years.”
Another tear rolled down her cheeks, and she didn’t bother wiping it away. She can feel the pull in her heart as the tears flow more freely.
After a moment, she wiped her cheeks and went on to telling her parents about the email she received from Kallum. She had told them what had happened between them all those years ago.
“What should I do mom? Should I read it or just ignore it? Daddy?” She asked in silence, waiting for a sign as to what they may suggest, but nothing came.
She pulled her coat tighter and laid at the headstone of her mother, resting her hand on the base of the cemented angel. The lilies lay beside her. A strong wind blew and it felt like a gentle touch upon her velvet skin.
She knew what she had to do.
“Thank you mom!” she pressed her fingers to her lips and placed it on the head of the stone. She did the same for her father.
“I know what I need to do. I love you both.”
She trotted the short distance back to her car then drove off, feeling more assertive and bursting with confidence of her next move.
With that thought, she drove back to the city and to the restaurant where she had agreed to meet with Rebecca for lunch.
- Writer
