Carepackage

One morning Concordia received a parcel, the sender was Lydia. It was wrapped in gift wrap covered in little hearts. Her heart jumped. There was still something between them. She opened the parcel with utmost care, ripping as little as possible. In it were little candies, round hard balls in a dark red colour, neatly placed in a cloth bag. On top of it was a letter.

I am sorry I did not reply earlier. I have the best memories with you, but I didn’t know how to keep this up with you gone. I made these candies; I hope you enjoy them. xxx

So, there was still hope. She read the message over and over again, trying to imagine Lydia’s feelings as she wrote it. It did not explain much. But it was an open door. She took one of the candies into her hand rolling it around in her palm. The red colour had an almost undetectable tint of yellow. She put it on her tongue but spat it out straight away. The parts where the candy touched her delicate mucus were burning up. Concordia felt uneasy.

She brought the candies to a friend she met at training. She was working at a lab testing blood, maybe she could also test the candy or knew someone who could. After years of boundless trust, Concordia was going mad with doubt about Lydia’s intentions. Maybe it was all in her head. But maybe it was true.

Her friend was not able to test the candy, but she sure had colleagues that knew how to. She could not tell her who he candies were from, that seemed to cross a line. If it was all in her head, she did not want to cast a shadow on what people thought about Lydia.

When she got the results she could hear her heart crack in her chest. The sound was so loud, it echoes from the mountains around the town back out into sea where it got lost.

She now saw everything clearly. Her tutor. Lydia’s ex-teacher and his girlfriend. It could still all be in her head, but it would be too much coincident to not be true. She had betrayed her from the start. The person she loved the most did not love her the same way.