Page 22 of The Way the Heart Breaks: Jade’s Story

Aunt Maggie starts making extra food without even asking if I’m staying anymore. It feels like everyone already understands I can’t stand being at home for too long.

The silence there is too loud; it fills every room. But I swear I can still hear them sometimes. Jason yelling down the hallway. Jasper running through the kitchen. Then I remember, and it’s gone, all over again.

I try to get Mom to go outside sometimes.

“Just for a walk,” I tell her. “Or sit on the porch.”

She won’t. She barely even opens the curtains anymore.

The nights are the worst.

There are nights I hear her crying through the walls. Nights, I hear her begging Dad. “Please just let me go.”

Her voice doesn’t even sound like hers anymore.

It’s thinner now, like grief is stealing it because it has already stolen everything else.

Dad always answers softly, too quiet for me to hear every word. But I hear enough. “I can’t.” … “I need you here.” … “Jade needs you here.”

Then silence and then crying.

I lie awake staring at my ceiling while the house settles around me. I miss them so much it feels physical sometimes. Like something sharp stuck behind my ribs.

I want Jason to steal food off everyone’s plates and laugh when Aunt Maggie laughs while trying to scold him. I want Jasper to say he doesn’t sing when he actually does, every night in the shower. I want Mom downstairs making coffee too early in the morning. I want Dad smiling for real again instead of forcing it because he thinks I need him to. I want one more normal day so bad it hurts. But wanting doesn’t change anything.

Song: I Don't Wanna Live Without Your Love- Chicago

December

A couple of weeks before Christmas, I wake up because I hear Mom crying again.

At first, I try to ignore it. I pull the blanket over my head and squeeze my eyes shut like maybe if I don’t listen, it won’t be happening… again.

Then Dad says something sharp enough to cut through the wall. “You can’t keep taking them like this.”

I sit up immediately, slide out of bed, and tiptoe to my bedroom door. The house is dark except for the light spilling under their bedroom door.

I creep halfway down the hall before I stop.

“The doctor said your injuries are healed,” Dad says carefully. “Your ribs are healed. Your arm healed weeks ago.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Mom snaps.

“Then you know the pain pills aren’t for physical pain anymore.”

Silence.

And then Mom says, “You think I’m crazy.”

“No,” Dad says immediately. “God, no.”

I sink to the floor and pull my knees to my chest.

Mom starts crying harder. Not loud. The exhausted kind. The kind that sounds like giving up.

“You don’t understand,” she whispers. “It still hurts.”

“I know.”