Adrift in Silence

Chapter 2 Drifting Apart

An otherworldly, almost heavenly light shined down upon their church that day, the day of Charles and Sarah's wedding, the day they would truly start their new lives in the eyes of their god. Everyone and everything seemed perfect, except for Lucina, who sat silently on a stone slab bench behind the church, secluded in a thicket of trees. At first glance she appeared to be sad, sulking in her silky yet modest purple dress, loosely draped in her mother's elegant red shawl, but deep inside she felt nothing. She knew she should be happy for her father but all she felt was resentment for everyone in her life. Her loving father, her caring stepmother, her own mother, all she felt was contempt where she knew there should be love and understanding.

"Lucina!" her friends cried out, making their way in a hurry as best they could in their best dresses. Lucina panicked and turned away from them, trying to hide her face and turned up the music bumping in her not too expensive headphones.

"What's up, Luci, where'd you go?" teased Hannah.

"Luci?" Kylee asked concerningly, walking around the bench to see her face.

She gasped, "What did you do to your hair?"

"What?" asked Hannah, then walked over to see her. Much to her shock, a streak of Lucina's bangs were ghostly white. "Woe! That's dope."

Lucina removed her wireless headphones, resting them around her neck like a bulky, uncomfortable neck pillow. "I didn't do anything," she admitted. "I don't remember what happened exactly," Lucina explained, removing her hands from her mother's red shawl, "all I remember is waking up in my closet in a hot sweaty mess."

"You woke up like that? That's crazy!" Kylee exclaimed. "You don't remember anything?"

"No, I do remember praying to forget what I saw, though. My prayers must have been answered because I don't remember anything," she answered, feeling more confused than before.

"I absolutely love your dress," Kylee adored, trying to change the subject.

"And your hair looks really pretty tied up," Hannah added, "I think it looks even cuter with the white streak going through it." Kylee looked over at Hannah with a flabbergasted look on her face that she'd bring it back up almost instantly.

"You think so?" asked Lucina, reaching up towards her hair.

"Ladies, its nearly time," one of the nuns informed them.

"Thank you, sister," said Hannah as they made their way into the church.

"And turn that music off," the nun demanded, "I can hear it from here." Lucina turned it down only to turn it back up the moment she left, snooty grin and all.

The nun's outcry prompted Kylee to ask, "How are you listening to music, I can't even make a phone call out here?"

"I downloaded a bunch of music onto my phone before we moved," Lucina explained, "and get this, we still don't have internet."

"That sucks!" exclaimed Hannah, which garnered more judgmental stares from passing nuns on their way back to the convent near the church. "Oops, sorry, Sisters."

They walked into the church, packed full of people, one side Charles family and friends, the other, Sarah's. Lucina saw so many familiar faces, her grandparents, her aunt and uncle, all her cousins, so on and so forth. But all of them from Charles family. It was then that she realized that she had never met anyone from Elaina's side, she spent so much time trying to ignore her mother, that she didn't bother to ask about her side of the family.

"Lucina, my dear, Lucina," grandma Fayemont called out to her granddaughter, hugging her and kissing her rosy cheeks. All Lucina could do was embrace her grandmother's somewhat overbearing yet warm affection with open arms. "Thank the Lord for this blessed day," she preached. Lucina nodded in agreement. "I'm so happy for your father."