[BreakABone]

So this has been going well, hasn't it? I just don't know I have tons of ideas of where the story is going, but lack the will to write it all down, I shall try my best once again.
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5
Raf and his other barely uttered a sound as they made the never-ending ride back to their house. Not even the summer classics on the radio did much to lift the spirits. Raf’s mother pulled into the dark driveway of their house. Neither one of them wanted to make the first move, once they entered the house it would all but be official.

Finally as if a silent agreement between the two, they both sighed and opened their car door to go out into the world. The air smelled different. The grass appeared darker. The wind harsher than ever before. Everything seemed to have taken on a sinister feeling.

The reached for the handle of the door together and opened it. They were neither shocked nor content with what they saw, but what was it that they expected. The house was just as they left those brief hours ago. The birthday decorations danced in the slight summer breeze as they opened the door to the house. It reminded them of happier times.

It did not take long before they found some memento, some artifact, something that reminded them both of him. In the corner behind the doorway rested his favorite slippers. They remembered fondly how he always enjoyed slipping into them after a long day of work. When he was in the house, those shoes hardly ever came off. He probably removed them just before he left for the… Raf could not bring himself to finish that thought.

His mother signaled him over to the kitchen where she warmed up some of the food she had laid out for the birthday party. Raf sat across from his mother just staring at the food. Although, he had not eaten all day, it proved surprisingly difficult for him to find an appetite now. As he peaked up, he could see that his mother was having just as much luck in eating her food.

Raf pushed his food away and got up from the table. Generally, his mother would scold him for wasting food, but she muttered not a sound as he raced upstairs. He passed by his parents’ room. Once, twice and a third time. On the third time, he finally stopped in the doorway and saw the king size bed. It would be of little use from now on he thought.

He hadn’t done it since he became a big boy all those years ago, but he found himself cuddling up in his parents’ bed. Embracing his father’s pillow, and for the first time, the tears began to flow. “Why dad, why?”
-_-_-_
Raf’s mother watched from a distance as the stress of his father’s loss took its toll. She could sense a gulf forming between the two of them, but whatever efforts she made to reconnect were met with indifference.

She also watched as he kept all his friends, new and old, at arm’s length. It appeared that he would allow no one else to get close with him. She offered him therapy, but he declined, and she really had no basis to send him. He kept his grades and he was still social. He just kept his friends from getting too close.

She remembered the look in his eyes when she told him she was going out to become a police officer. She knew it would be tough for him to accept, but the look he gave almost tore her up inside and had her double thinking her decision. But she had to do it, she wanted to honor her husband’s memory. She wanted to make sure that the people in the world had protection so what happened to her would not happen to anyone else.

Granted, she knew she could not do it on her own, but as long as she gave the effort she expected the best.

While working on the force, something else happened, something she had never anticipated, she started to have feelings for a man who was not her late husband. She felt as if she was betraying his memory by having these feelings… that was until her husband came to her in a dream… or she thought he came to her in her dreams… and gave her his blessings.
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She had been seeing David for almost three months now, and felt it was time to finally tell Raf. She had set up a pre-birthday dinner for the three of them so that he wouldn’t have to deal with the shock on his birthday.

Before the dinner though, an emergency call came into the station. This was the big one. For months, they had been working on a sting to break up a local drug making organization, and it seemed like they had gotten a lead to break up a vital part of the food chain.

Every cop who was not pursuing a case was called in for the situation. Raf’s mother and David were assigned as the front man group to get a feel.

They would make this bust and then go out to dinner.
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Raf stared at the ceiling in his room. His face showing a great deal of pain as he fought back tears. It was the second time, he had been told of a parent’s death on his birthday. What cruel and twisted god did he offend?
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