The Quiet Voice | Complete

Chapter 7

Chelsea's mind and heart were racing as she ran home. Screaming for her mother. Looking in every room for her.

"Mommy, Mommy, come quick there's something wrong!" she screamed frantically searching throughout the house. Her mother was sitting at the rich dark wood desk in the study, having some quiet prayer time.

Huffing and puffing, trying hard to catch her breath, Chelsea yelled: "she's gone!"

"What is it Princess?" asked her mother, not knowing what all the commotion was about. She jumped up. "Who's gone?!"

"They're gone!" Chelsea blurted out as she ran and jumped onto her mother's lap, "they've all left me Mommy!" She buried her head into her mother's neck and sobbed until she had no more tears left.

"Oh, Chelsea, my Love," her mother tilted her chin up, trying to get her attention and make eye contact, "everything is going to be okay. But there is something that I need to talk to you about."

She wiped Chelsea's nose, with a tissue from the desk, and dried her tears from her cheeks. She wrapped her arms around her, giving her a big momma bear hug in hope of calming her down enough to brace this very difficult talk.

"I know that your heart is hurting, now that Angela isn't here anymore," her mother began, "and I wish that there was something that Daddy and I could do to help you cope now that Angela's gone."

"Oh Mommy, my heart is hurting so much," Chelsea sniffed, trying not to cry again.

"I know Princess, nothing can prepare you for something like this," her mother's heart was breaking for her brave little girl, "but I'm so very proud of you. You are so brave and I know that Angela absolutely loved having you as her big sister... she was one lucky little girl."

"Oh no Mommy," Chelsea shook her head seriously, "I'm the lucky one. She was the best little sister ever. I miss her so much."

"Now, you know how much you miss her?" her mother inquired, subtly broaching the subject of Angela's parents moving away, "can you imagine how much her mommy and daddy must miss her? They are also never going to see her again. They won't get to watch her playing with her brothers or Sir Mittens. They won't get to watch her playing catch in the garden with you. They won't get to say prayers with her like you and I do every night. They have lost their princess forever."

Chelsea sat quietly on her mother's lap, trying to understand what her mother was telling her. "I feel very sad for them Mommy," she said nervously picking at a loose piece of nail on her thumb, "but why did they also have to leave me?"

Her mother had to choose her next few words very carefully.

"Well," she began carefully, "can you image if you lost me as your mommy, but your best friend still had her mommy? How would that make you feel? Wouldn't you be sad?"

Chelsea sat quietly, thinking about what her mother had just said.

"Well," her face all serious, "I'd be very happy for her because she still had her mommy, but I'd mostly be very sad because you were gone." Hugging her mother she said, "I need my mommy." She closed her eyes and breathed in her mother's perfume.

"Now, can you imagine how much sadder you'd be if you knew that her mommy and I were best friends? And every time you saw them together you thought of me and missed me even more?" Her mother was trying so hard to get her point across as gently as possible.

"Yes Mommy," Chelsea frowned, "I'd be very sad every time I saw them together."

"Now," she continued, "like you would be sad every time you saw your best friend and her mommy together, every time Angela's mommy and daddy see you, or see you and I together, they think of Angela and how there are so many things that they'll never get to share with her... and that makes them very sad. So sad, in fact, that they made a very difficult decision... they decided to move away from us because it was just too difficult for them."

"Oh." Was all that Chelsea answered. Even though she understood, it didn't make it any less painful for her to know that her little sister's mother felt heartache every time she looked at her... every time she was near.

Knowing that she made someone feel that way, just by looking at her or being near her, made Chelsea feel so much guilt.

Guilt for being the one who survived. Guilt for being the one who still gets to put her arms around her mommy and daddy and kiss them goodnight. Guilt for having a future. Guilt.

As Chelsea slowly got off her mother's lap and walked out the study, she made herself a promise. A promise to never get so close to someone that simply seeing her would make them feel sad or not want to be around her. A promise to keep people at arm's length, where it's safer for everyone.

Tomorrow the new Chelsea will be introduced to the world.

The Chelsea who smiles at everyone, but has no friends.

The Chelsea who lets everyone think that she's happy and feels love, but she doesn't, because she is lonely and cries herself to sleep each night.

The Chelsea who everyone thinks is confident in who she is, but she isn't because she's afraid to let someone love her, fearing that she'll cause them pain.

The Chelsea who wears a mask each day, hiding her pain deep down in her soul. So deep, that no one will ever see it or even know that it exists in the first place.

The new Chelsea who will be a stranger to herself. Happy Chelsea is gone.