One Million Steps

I lay down on my bed, face up and legs dangling off the side. I gazed at the glow-in-the-dark stars, planets, moons and rockets stuck on my ceiling. They'd stayed up there for almost eight years now. Dad had put them up there years ago and they never came down due to his 'bad back'. But I didn't mind, I loved them there. Of course, they had stopped glowing ages ago, but I liked them up there. My ceiling was they're home, I couldn't take that away from them. The sight of them up there in the exact same spot as they had each sat for those eight years reminded me things didn't have to change, not if I didn't want them to.

Why couldn't life just be like that? Stuck in the exact same spot with sticky adhesive until you're ripped away. Life would be so much simpler.

I couldn't bring myself to sit up straight. Or to clean up the now-cold sweet-smelling hot chocolate on the wooden floorboards I had spilt earlier that morning. Or to walk down the stairs and to the kitchen to consume the sizzling bacon and fresh chocolate chip pancakes I could smell. Or to change into the 'My Chemical Romance' t-shirt and faded knee-length jeans I had set out on the back of my chair the night before. Or reply to the calls of my father to get some breakfast from the kitchen. Or to reply the ringing cellphone just six inches from my left hand on the bed next to me with the word 'Ellen' flashing on the screen. Or to pull my hand from where it was now to my face to brush away the several strands of hair tickling my nose and cheek. Or to look at the framed photograph of my mother and myself from when I was a one-year-old on the paint-chipped white bedside table.

My mind flickered back to the conversation with Officer Reed earlier that morning, in my head. The officer was back on the right side of the couch where he originally sat after approximately three minutes of attempting to calm down my frantic father. My sister clutched her tattered six-year-old chocolate brown teddy bear to her chest as she resumed her sleep on the left side of the couch, careful not to be too close to the surprise visitor to the house. My father, with golf club on the floor beside him and palms wrapped around a steaming mug of freshly brewed coffee, waiting patiently for the remainder of the information the officer had to offer. I sat cross-legged on the carpeted living room floor arms hands spread out in front of me, eyes fixed on the notebook in the officer's hands, hoping to catch a glimpse at the information scrawled in bright red. I didn't.

"There is no information about your mother," looking at me, "Or your wife," looking at my grief-stricken father. "I'm sorry."

He started fidgeting. I assumed to get up from his seat on the couch. So, I did what every motherless teenager who just realised she had a mother after all would do. I stopped him.

Jumping up from my place on the hazelnut-coloured carpet, I exclaimed,"W-w-wait! You said you had information concerning my mother. And that's it?!?!?! All you said was that you've traced her. What kind of shit information is that? I woke up at," I paused to check the clock on the wall behind me, "eight-seventeen in the morning just to find out that you have no information for me?"

The officer's face turned guilty yet alert and then it turned...amused? Sorry? I couldn't tell. I waited for his answer but he never did answer. Instead, he shot a quick glance at my father, who had put down the coffee mug with hands balled into fists in his lap, evaluated his expression, and reached behind him. I couldn't stand his lack of answer to my question and the callous look on his face so,like my father, my hands balled into fists at my side.

"This," he pulled out a white envelope from behind him and held it just inches from his face looking at me the whole time, "was left at the police station several hours ago at approximately 5a.m in the morning. We couldn't identify the woman who left it but we were told to send it to this house. I, personally, came here this morning to give it to you."

It was obvious he was waiting for a response but I couldn't give him one. I could feel his gaze on me as my eyes eyed the letter. I muttered, "Sorry," running towards the stairs and up to my bedroom. No one stopped me and that didn't bother me because I wouldn't have stopped if they did. I burst into my room and lay face up and legs dangling off the side.

I didn't want to move. I never wanted to move. I didn't want to learn what was in that letter. I didn't feel happy or sad or confused. Nothing. I just lay there, still face up and legs dangling off the side, watching the stars, planets, moons and rockets in their home on my ceiling.