The lightning streaks across the window. I place my cheek against the cold glass so I can feel it against my skin. My new home sits tall enough that I can actually see where the storm begins and ends, but no rain falls in between. I can relate. I’m the girl who can cry reading a silly romance novel, but remains dry eyed when her mother dies. It was weeks after the funeral took place that I was told she was gone. What’s worse was that I wasn’t even worried that I’d never heard from her. Watching the lightning flash across the sky, I close my eyes this time to feel the thunder. It’s a stupid idea, but I’m hoping if I feel the thunder, maybe it can shake the dam loose. I’m being childish, I know, but at least if I cried I would feel something. I should feel something, anything. I don’t know why I feel more alone now, because it’s not like I even knew her. Between nannies and boarding schools, I hardly ever saw her. Then when I was fourteen, she sent me off to school in France, where I stayed.
