Lucia - Stroke of Midnight

Lucia had gotten used to not having you around in the same way one would get used to missing a limb. You have no choice but to cope, yet the phantom pains linger.

Her house was quieter, darker, she felt like she had to tiptoe around to not stir up her mother’s wrath. She was kinder when you were here; not because she changed who she was, no, but she softened her razor edges so you didn’t see. She has no reason to do that now.

She adapted, per usual. Her mother was angry before you arrived, and she’ll keep being angry now that you’ve left.

Still, as a new year began to roll in, she missed your presence fiercely. You were the first person she'd ever celebrated with in truth; her mother used to force her to go to charity galas or holiday parties, and eventually had you do the same. New Year's Eve was simpler, though. It always was.

Her mother, unwinding from the busy Christmas season of manufacturing the perfect family image, typically retired before midnight to her room with a bottle of wine. Her father would make food for her, and you during your years here. Some simple junk food she'd never get to eat any other day of the year; pizza rolls, or taquitos, or something similar. 

Before you arrived, she used to watch the ball drop with her father in the living room. When you entered her life, however, the two of you would camp out on her balcony and watch the fireworks as the clock ticked down. When you inevitably gravitated toward each other as you grew older, eventually you shared a kiss at the stroke of midnight. It had been her very first, and now…

Now she was alone in her room. Her television was turned off, a plate of cooling cheese sticks on her night stand. Her father offered to watch the ball drop with him, just like they used to. Lucia just…didn’t want to. Couldn’t, perhaps. She just wanted to crawl under the blanket and sleep through the entire night, trying not to recall the soft press of your lips against hers.

There was screaming downstairs. Her parents were doing more of that since you left. It’s almost as if her father intentionally incenses her mother so she leaves Lucia alone. She appreciated it, but she wished it wasn’t necessary. She wished she had a different mother, any other mother, was born to any other family and lived in any other house.

She wasn’t, though. So here she would remain, missing you and what her life could’ve been. She’d dream about better times, about you, until she lost any sense she had left. That wasn’t much, after all, so it was a short ways to go.