i am not a replacement

chap3-2 (drown)

"Make sure to swim in your sorrow and not drown in it, as one day you will find the land and your feet will touch the ground again"

That's what I've been told when Ivy left me. But It felt like I needed those words now.

Death is an inevitable thing, but this was something I could have avoided.
I could have held onto her and told her the truth, that we are two stupid males and we were both rebelling in our own way.. That we made our pain an excuse to inflict pain onto her...

I know... I'm not waiting for someone to rub it in my face. What we did was a stupid move, a child could get away with but I shouldn't have even-

"Dad!"

I turned to look at Louis when he called me, to find him looking at me with wide eyes "What?" I asked before looking back at the road.

Wait! where are we?

"You passed the house" he answered my question

"Huh?" I looked again and recognized these streets.. Yeah, I did pass the house, instead I was heading to Amanda's workplace. I remember driving her there a couple of times when her car crashed.

I made a U-turn not believing what was happening to me. I'm in a situation where I should be getting myself together, I have a son to care for and raise, but... I don't even know what's happening... It feels like my head didn't quite grasp the situation, even though thirty-six days have passed already. It actually feels like it's all downing on me now.

"Do you miss her?" he asked me with his tiny voice the moment that we stepped into the house

"Mommy? Of course, I do" I crouched down to his level to untangle his shoes for him to step out of it

"Amanda"

From the tangled laces to his seemingly tangled face my eyes averted, it looked like he regretted the question the moment it came out of his lips "Why? Do you miss her?".. I asked him cautiously, averting the question till I found some way to change the subject.  I mean, I wasn't telling my son that I missed another woman apart from his mom, especially when he was the one sole reason for Amanda's departure from here.

"I do"

WHAT ?!

"I'm sorry dad, I know I shouldn't"

"You shouldn't?"

"Mommy would be sad and she will hate us"

You are... MY son... I find it stupid that you think Ivy would hate you for anything but so did I... I've had these thoughts for like, forever, and just when Amanda succeeded to completely tackle and destroy them, she left.

"She will never hate you, she can never do that to you, she loves you too much to... Now go upstairs and freshen up, I will fix dinner then we can talk all about it, okay?"

"Okay"

 I stood up there and looked around the house, after he sprinted upstairs like wolves were chasing after him, the first thing that grabbed my full attention was our wedding portrait, at that time she was staring right at the camera but now it was like she was staring right at my soul, she looked so happy back then, something she wouldn't feel if she was truly able to look into my soul.

"Ivy will never hate you, Louis. She will only hate me, for ruining her friend's life"

Amanda should've met someone, fell in love, and got married but she just had to go and sacrifice for the sake of the two of us, so in the end she could be humiliated and tormented the way she was...

"and she will hate me more when she comes to know that I was drowning in her thoughts"