The Forty-Fifth Chapter

“You must be Rozelyn?” A male voice interrupted Rozelyn between her cries.

She paused and wiped her face clean as if to show she wasn’t crying. The voice seems to come from her father but more calm and…belonging to a living.

“It’s okay. You do not need to hide your cries. Feeling sad is normal. Even Mother Nature cries sometimes through the form of rain…”

Rozelyn debated if she was going to turn around or not. Most probably not as the inspiring words were like her father’s words of wisdom.

“May I sit beside you?” The voice asked in a polite manner. The hair on her skin began to stand; she was having goosebumps and was thinking that it came from her late father.

‘Shit! Is my father haunting me this time?!’ She pondered as she still refused to turn around. Her hands were shaking. Her body was quivering. She just experienced loss and it seems she too is losing weight because of the voice’s eerie presence.

Rozelyn heard someone was marching towards her. The footsteps are not heavy, but not light either.

A cold hand touched her nape. Rozelyn had no choice but to release a scream.

She did screamed. For ten seconds long, she screamed. Rozelyn just stopped when the cold hand removed its touch and felt that the man found its way beside her.

“I am Cyrill. Cyrill Emerson Clarke.”

Rozelyn glared at her side and watched the young man—a lad probably around twelve or thirteen—reached out a hand for a handshake.

Cyrill. The name was mentioned by her new stepmom, Romaine. She can’t recall what or who he is. It just seems Romaine knows Cyrill in that manner.

“I-Yes.…Yes, I am Rozelyn Nadeshiko.” She then accepts his handshake. His hands were still cold.

But the moment he brought her hand to her cheeks, it was only this time she discerned that her hands are cold as well.

“Rozelyn Nadeshiko. It fits well in you, as beautiful as you…”

She tears her gaze away and looks at the near snow-covered tree to where their car was parked.

“It’s the first day of winter,” Cyrill uttered while inhaling into the cold breeze of twilight.

She just released an “Oh…” as soon as she heard that. She almost forgot that the beginning of winter was also the first day of her father’s wake—of Eku’s wake.

Well, to be honest, ever since she found out that her father had gone into the afterlife following the footsteps of her mother Visenna, she also lost track of time. It seems that the basis of Rozelyn’s time is the time she spent with the only parent left with her. But with Eku gone, it seems time had also departed in her life, abandoning her into absolute loneliness.

“I know you are sad. But sadness will do no good to you if you continue to linger with it for too long.” He offered her a rose, a red rose. It wasn’t fresh; it was not withered either. But it was almost wilting as she caressed its blood red petals.

“My adoptive mother, Romaine, told me you are named after a rose. Like this rose,” Cyrill placed it into her palm and enclosed it with her fingers so she may have a tight grip in it.

But she didn’t tighten her grip. A rose is still a rose. Despite its crimson beauty, it still has spiky thorns along the stem.

“Think of the rose as you. And winter is the sadness. The longer you are exposed to winter, the faster you wither. Just like you.” He touched Rozelyn’s lips with his still-frigid thumb.

“If you don’t like to wilt away, then you must let sunshine enter your life. So that at least, you will have a bit of happiness and light to thaw the sadness in your heart.”

A tear fell down from the seven-year-old Rozelyn’s face and into the winter ground below her feet.

Another tear followed. But, it was halted by Cyrill’s thumb and wiped it away. Rozelyn just looked at him, stared at him. As if the death of a family member paved a way to a new one.

“I am your brother now. Well, at least your stepmother’s adoptive son.”

“You? My brother?” Finally, she was able to speak again without wailing.

Cyrill nodded; his hand was now atop her, making her feel a little bit of heat from the comfort of Cyrill’s hands.

“Thank you,” Rozelyn muttered. “Thank you for being here with me and my stepmom.”

Delight sparkled in his eyes. And for the first time in young Rozelyn’s seven years of existence, she blushed. The lad was handsome—divine if one put it that way. He was tall for a twelve years old but she liked it anyway.

His eyes were electric blue. If you look into it, it seems that a sort of electricity and spark will flood into one’s system. His hair was chestnut brown, the color of the soil beneath the snowy ground. And his lips…God, his lips were very much kiss-able. She could drown her very own lips into his. If only they were not bound into each other in familial ties.

Rozelyn felt a bit awkward and bizarre for feeling this sort of emotions to their new family member, knowing that she was only seven years old. Kids of her same age are still playing with dolls and watching Sesame Street. But Rozelyn…she was already fancying her stepmother’s adoptive son.

Well, she always felt she was different. That she was unique. That she could peer into someone else’s mind and spark an ember at their fireplace at the age of seven.

She did not care if she was only seeing things or those were the product of her childish imaginations. For her, those are real and not some sort of phantom or stupor.

A sweet smile tugged on her face, making the young man also display a jovial grin on his handsome face.

She was about to open her mouth when the voice of Romaine Eastwood-Zadzisai rang in her ears. It was the signal that they must get inside the funeral home now as she noticed that the snow fell more harsh and wilder.

“Rozelyn! Cyrill! Get inside now. A snowstorm is coming!”

Cyrill glanced at her and, without any sort of hesitation, took her hand and beckoned to go inside.

In a minute, they are now inside the comfort and warmth of the funeral home.

As astonished as she was, she didn’t shed a tear the moment she saw her father’s black coffin again. Instead, she sauntered towards it and placed the red rose that Cyrill gave to her.

Cyrill saw this. Like some sort of a love language, they hugged each other as if destiny had purposely brought them together at the right time and at the right moment.