Memories

       The first thing I remembered was meeting my two companions and none of us having any memories at all. We were all a bit shaken and I felt like I was missing some key information. My mind was blank, and I was nauseous. I felt like I just got off a really fast roller coaster. It didn’t make sense that all of us were memory-less and in a very strange place.

    The landscape was rocky and tinted orange, but below the cliff on which we stood, sprawled a wide jungle. The sun shined in the sky above me with a strange red hue. It was about halfway down it’s decent in the afternoon. The area felt very alien to me. I was sure I’d never been here before in my life, but here I was now.

    “So,” I asked the two people who were with me, “What should we do now?”

    “Well, since none of us remember anything, we are at a great risk. This area seems uncharted, and who knows what creatures could lie in that jungle. We should find shelter, food and water,” replied one of my companions.

    He was a man, probably in his late thirties, but it was hard to tell and even harder to find out since even he didn’t know. He had dark brown hair and was stocky. He seemed very intelligent.

    The other person was a woman who looked around thirty. She was short and had blonde hair. She had a confused look on her face, but seemed to understand what the man meant and agreed with him.

    She said, “Yes, we should get to somewhere safe before nightfall.”

    Soon we were climbing down a rough and narrow path leading to the bottom of the cliff. We hoped we could find a cave or crevice along the rock face that would serve as a shelter until we could find or build a better one.

    I stared at the jungle looming below us. It was too green and the trees were far too large. Their leaves were wide and rounded, and seemed very thick. It struck me that I was comparing the forest below me to what I thought a forest was supposed to be like. How could I know what a forest really looked like? Were some of my memories still in my head, hidden somewhere just out of my reach?

    I looked into the sky and at the sun. I was sure the sun shouldn’t be red in the middle of the afternoon, but it was. Again, I felt that this was a memory just out of my spectrum of thought.

    The man in our group (I didn’t know his name, or even my own) yelled that he had found a cave to serve as shelter for the night. I followed him to the entrance and stepped inside. It was dark and damp, but would work for tonight.

    We were all tired from the hike down the cliff, so we sat down to rest. I noticed that the woman seemed very worried. I figured that anyone would be worried having no memories and being stranded in a strange place, but she seemed focused on something else.

    “What’s wrong?” I asked her.

    “Nothing,” She replied, “I just feel like the sun should have set already. It took us several hours to get down the cliff to this cave, and it was already late in the afternoon when we woke up.”

    I hadn’t thought about this when I was looking at the sun. I left the cave and looked into the sky. Sure enough, the sun was in the same position it had been in hours ago.

    “Well that’s not right,” I said, confused, “It should be night right now, but the sun hasn’t moved an inch. Come to think of it, the sun looks very weird right now, doesn’t it? It’s red instead of yellow.”

    So the sun no longer set. That was weird. I wondered what kind of event would have caused such a strange phenomena. Then again, what do I know about how the world works? I don’t even know my own name!

    The world wasn’t working the way it was supposed to. Also, as far as we knew, there were no other humans inhabiting it. Then I realized something. Perhaps this isn’t the same world I seem to know. Maybe it has been altered beyond recognition. Or maybe this isn’t even the planet we think it is! As I wondered these things it bothered me that I would never know the answers unless I could somehow get my memories back.

    Even though the sun wasn’t setting, we decided we should still get some sleep. We traveled back a into the cave for a few minutes and found a soft patch of ground that would be more comfortable to sleep on than the cold stone of the cave.

    “Should we have someone stay up and keep guard while we sleep?” The man questioned.

    “Normally, I would say we should,” responded the woman, “But we have seen nothing hostile yet. In fact, we haven’t seen any animals but ourselves.”

    “I don’t know,” I said uneasily. “Just because we haven’t seen anything, it doesn’t mean it’s not there. Who knows what lies in that jungle.”

    “I think we’ll be alright,” said the man.

    We decided not to have a guard, which still seemed like a bad idea to me. I worried about lurked in the shadows that we weren’t seeing. Soon I fell asleep.

    I awoke to a horrible shriek that jolted me out of my sleep. There was something right outside of the cave! My companions were also awake and had already taken cover behind some rocks in the cave. I jump up and ran behind a rock. As I looked over my rock, I saw very large creature with huge talons and massive fangs. It was over 6 feet long and had purple scales and skin that looked like it was made of stone.

    I guessed that we couldn’t kill it by hitting it with anything, or throwing rocks at it. Pushing it of the cliff would probably be the only way.

    “We have to push it off the cliff!” I yelled as the beast slowly entered the cave, “We are going to have to lure it to the edge!”

    “I’ll go around to the left of it,” said the man, “One of you has to go around its right side while the other stays back and distracts it.”

    “I’ll go around the right,” I said.

    The man and I slowly crept toward the monster. Suddenly, the beast jumped and knocked me over. I slammed into the wall of the cave.

    “Over here!!!” Yelled the man.

    The monster turned and bounded after him out of the cave. I winced as I stood up. My back was in extreme pain. I scanned the area in front of the cave. The man was sprinting toward it, and the creature was right behind him. I knew he wouldn’t make it outside to push the beast over the edge of the cliff. The woman was still coming from back in the cave, and I knew that I had to go help the man. I limped to the edge of the cliff where the beast stood. With my last ounce of strength, I shoved the beast off of the ledge. I could hear it shrieking as it fell and crashed to the ground.

    My companions pulled me back into the cave and took to our resting area. They said that one of them would keep watch at all times. I was exhausted and fell right asleep.

    When I awoke I was in a different place. I realized I was dreaming, but it seemed more real than just a dream. My hands and feet were strapped to a metal chair. I was in a dark room mostly made of gray metal. It was cold, very cold.

    I waited in the room for a long time. My eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness, and I noticed there were no windows and everything seemed airtight. I wondered what kind of facility would have a room like this, and why I appeared to be held hostage in it.

    At last a door slid open, and a man walked in. He walked right up to my chair and stood before me.

    “I assume you have many questions,” he asked me.

    In the dream I answered him, except it felt like I was listening to myself talking.

    “Yeah, just a few I guess,” I sarcastically replied.

    “You think this is funny, hmm? You were captured by my organization, very far from home, and you think this funny!?”

    “First of all, I have no idea who you are, which either means you are a random, crazy person who just decided to capture me one day, or you are someone who is very good at staying hidden and secret. I think the second one is a lot less probable. Second, I happen to be a very powerful person with powerful friends who will probably come to rescue me if you don’t release me.”

    “You really think we didn’t take care of your ‘powerful friends’? There is no one who will come to save you.”

    “So you have captured my allies,” I noted, “Now you have my attention. Explain.”

    “I thought you’d never ask. First of all, my name is William P. Blant. I am the leader of the AHO, the Anti-Humanity-Organization. Here at the AHO we believe that humanity causes more problems than it solves. Humans have eradicated countless species and have used up nearly all of the world’s resources. If we continue at the rate we are currently using resources, humanity will collapse, and we won’t just destroy ourselves, we will destroy the Earth. When we run out of resources, every country on Earth will fight for what little is left. Nuclear weapons will annihilate the planet and destroy all life.”

    “Your point is valid, however I don’t think destroying humanity is the solution to our problems. If we develop better recycling technologies and alternative energies, we could save the Earth. When our population reaches its maximum capacity on Earth, we can colonize other planets. In case you didn’t know, I am a scientist focused in many of the fields I just mentioned. My team and I have already developed alternative energies, and even ways to efficiently travel to solar systems hundreds of light years away in just a few months.”

    “You thought I didn’t know you were a scientist? I know of the powerful technologies you are developing, but I don’t think they will help humanity at all.  The only useful one so far has been your warp drive. That is the reason I captured you, to make sure you didn’t release your inventions to the world, Edgar Jordan.”

    Edgar Jordan! That was my name… I suddenly remembered everything! This wasn’t a dream, it was memory, a memory of something that really happened to me!

    In the memory, I continued to speak, “Don’t you realize that all of the things I’ve invented solve the problems you think destroying humanity will solve? If you really want to fix our problems, then why don’t you help me?”

“I’ll admit, I thought about it, but I truly believe that you will not save humanity. You will just help it to go down with more of a fight. Speaking of it, we have been here for a while now, and I have other matters to attend to. We will be releasing a bio-weapon designed to target all humans in about a week. As for you, well we will be dropping you and your team off at the lovely planet Gliese 581c. Don’t worry, It has habitable conditions, and you and your team will most certainly have a chance of survival. Although it is nothing like Earth and has a constant season and no rotation. Who knows, you might be the last humans in the universe.

“Wait, you can’t do this! What about your organization, your family? Are you going to kill them too?! This is crazy, you’re crazy!!!

“Everyone who works for me has agreed to their fate, and much of the world understands my motives. As for those who don’t, well, they won’t be around much longer to oppose me. You and your friends certainly won’t. I am also aware that you will likely go mad if I leave you on an unknown planet, so I will give you some mercy. I will have your memories erased and you will remember none of this. It will be peaceful, in a twisted way.”

That was the end of the dream. I woke up slowly. I still don’t remember having my memories erased, or much of what my life was like before. I do remember who I was, though. I remember what I did, and I know what I have to do now.

I thought for a long time. The man, who I now remembered as Jake, was on guard duty at the entrance to the cave. I remembered him as a revolutionary scientist in the fields of engineering and robotics. He built more efficient and stronger buildings, and robots that could build these buildings, as well as perform many other useful tasks.

I tried to think of a way to explain to him what had happened. I couldn’t think of how to put it. I decided to come up with a plan before I told Jake and the woman, whose name is Mary.

William Blant had told me that we were far from home on a planet called Gliese 581c. I remember studying this planet. It orbits the red dwarf star Gliese 581, and was thought maybe to be habitable for extremophile forms of Earth life, although other planets in its system were more suitable for life. Apparently it can actually support humans and probably most plants, seeing as how tall the trees in the jungle are.

Another thing I remembered about the planet was that it doesn’t rotate. That would mean that one side is always day, and has extremely high temperatures, while the other side is pitch black and freezing cold all the time. We must be in the middle between these two extremes. Since the planet doesn’t rotate, that also explains why the sun never set.

I began to wonder how we had gotten here. We were so far from Earth. I remembered when Blant was talking about my inventions, he mentioned a warp drive. He said that it had been useful. I guess he must have stolen it and used it to take us here. It was weird that he went through all that trouble just to maroon us on a deserted planet 20 light years from earth. I wondered if he had other things to do along the way.

I started to realize that Blant would be destroying humanity in just a few weeks! Once he returned to Earth, he would launch his bio-weapon. He might even have someone else at the AHO launch it before he makes it all the way back! As far as I know, I’m the only one who knows this. I am the only one who can save humanity. Actually, if Jake and Mary get their memories back too, then they will also be able to save us. Maybe if I told them everything, it would trigger something. First, I wanted a plan.

If Blant was using warp-class starship, then it would have definitely had a shuttle or escape pod to drop us off here. He wouldn’t bring his ship into a planet’s atmosphere. If it was a shuttle that dropped us off, then they would have gone back up to the ship, and we would have no chance of exiting the planet. If it was an escape pod, then there was a very small possibility that we could reprogram it to relay a signal to Earth. Unless of course Gliese 581c had an atmosphere that rendered radio signals useless. It was in a system very different than Earth’s. If the craft couldn’t relay a signal from the surface, then it would have to be launched into the upper atmosphere or even space. The chances of it having enough fuel for that were low.

We also didn’t know where the pod was. It wasn’t at the site where we had landed, which made me wonder if it had been relaunched, or if it was buried. It could even be invisible! If it were invisible, we certainly wouldn’t have seen it when we exited it. Or maybe we were dropped off in a shuttle like I had also proposed.

I decided that we needed to search for this supposed escape pod. It could be the key to saving mankind. I would tell Mary and Jake everything about  who we were, and what Blant had done. I would tell them about my plan and we would head out for the pod soon after.

The fate of humanity rested on our shoulders. If we couldn’t relay a signal, then William Blant and the AHO would succeed. If my plan didn’t work, then humanity was doomed.

I got up and walked over to my two companions at the entrance to the cave. I began to explain to them everything we had forgotten.

"Hey there! Who are you?" I looked at the boy sitting on his front porch, crying. When he heard me, he looked up and stared, shocked that someone was talking to him. 

"I-I fell and scraped my knee." He cried, tears coming down at a rapid rate. He wiped the tears off while I tried not to create new ones.  

"Please, don't cry-" I sobbed, I always cry whenever anyone else was crying. 

 I sat down next to the boy, crying into my knees. He was surprised, but kept crying with me.

"We should go find your mommy. She will make this better." 

"Yea, shes awesome." He sniffed. We sat there, crying our eyes out, until my sister, Mia, came running.

"Juilàn! There you are! It's time for dinner." She looked at us, confused. We looked at her, eyes red and puffy, noses running and hiccups constantly erupting from our mouths. 

"What is going on?" She sighed. 

"He was cheering me up." The boy smiled/sniffed. 

"Ooookay. Juilán, Come on, mom and dad are waiting."  I looked at the boy, he looked better. He wiped all the snot off his face, smiled and gave a little nod.

"Thank you." 

I smiled and started walking away, but the boy grabbed my arm. 

"My name is Ester. What's your's?" I looked at him and smiled again.

"Juilán."

"Juilán!" Someone called my name, snapping me back to reality. 

"Do you have what you wanted?" I looked at Mia, than down at the open book in my hand. I suddenly remembered where we were and why we were there. We were at our favorite bookstore, so that I could get inspiration for another story I had in my mind. I noticed, when I would read some of my favorite books, stories popped into my head, whenever this happened I wrote them down. The notes function on my phone is filled with stories, stories lists of anime and books I need to look into and more stories. I basically write fanfiction, not the creepy kind. The “and so the story continues” kind. A lot of people seem to like them and give me positive feedback. So, I write my “the story continues” fanfiction while keeping it a secret, since it seems to be frowned upon, only a few people know. The first person who knew was Ester.

"Earth to Juilán! Do. You. Want. That. Book?! Sawyer is probably wondering if we got eaten by zombies by now" 

"Huh? Oh Yea, sure."

"Super." She grabbed the book and we walked over to Ester. He often read my stories and would give me advice about the possibilities of where the plot could go.

"Juilán got what he wanted, are you ready to go?"

"Sort of......" 

"Whats up buddy?" I looked at the book he was reading, the seventh Harry Potter book, by J.K. Rowling, oh the classics. He discovered the Harry Potter series only recently, and read all of the other books within a matter of days. Only one book left and that was in his hands. However I saw the price for the book, $29? 

"Ester, do you have enough money to buy this book?" 

"Of course." He smiled. We both raised eyebrows at the same time. Ester had a talent for biting off more than he could chew. This, unfortunately, has happened more than once. Like the time he agreed to help that one jock with his homework, but ended up just doing the homework for him. And that time when he was left to put up every piece of decoration for the 8th grade graduation. The list goes on.

"Okay, give me that." Mia snatched the book out of his hand and ran to the cashier. 

"Mia! Get back here! I can pay for it, I just need $10 more!" Ester ran after her but running was not his speciality. While they ran around the store like maniacs, I walked behind them and laughed, the only thing these two have in common was their childish spirits. 

We paid (against Ester’s protests) for each of the books and walked outside. We then proceeded to stand there and soak in the sunlight.

“Winter’s over! School’s over! Everything is amazing at this current moment!” Mia beamed. We all breathed in the afternoon air and sighed happily. After we breathed in and out simultaneously for several minutes, we started the journey to our next stop, Sawyer’s house! A new family moved into the neighborhood we three live in and they have a kid named Sawyer, who we learned later, shared our same interests in anime, books, movies, you name it! Me, Mia and Ester have been an inseparable trio but when we met Sawyer, we knew our posy was getting a new member. We walking along merrily until Mia brought up a strange subject, girls.

“Sooo, anybody in your class ask you out yet Ester? You're quite popular with the ladies you know.” she winked. “The girls in my class practically drool over you. You are quite the ladies man!” Ester averted his eyes to the ground and blushed.

“No, no one has asked me and I’m not a ‘ladies man’.”

“Ahh, so noble, so modest.” I chimed in, a grin spreading across my face. 

“And he’s cute and he’s quiet and nice and…. and….”

“A book lover!” Mia helped out. He continued to fixate his stare to the ground.

“Please stop.” His shaggy strawberry blonde hair fell, slightly covering his eyes. 

“Oh I forgot, he already has his eyes on someone!” I realized. Ester’s head shot up and turned to me, giving me a glare that read “Not helping!”

“Oh really now?” She threw an arm around Ester. “I had absolutely no idea! So, who's the lucky-” She didn’t finish her sentence because Ester took off running, but tripped on a crack in the side walk. We ran to his care, giggling along the way.

“Ester sorry! Are you okay?” I asked as he got up.

“Yea, no, I’m fine.” He got up and brushed the dust off of himself. 

“Okay, never poke fun at Ester again. But seriously who's the girl?” Mia said, however Ester took off running again.

“Oh come on Ester! Twas a joke!” He kept going, taking a sharp right turn, onto a busy street.

“Ester! Stop!” Mia shouted, but I saw what he was doing. Two kids were waddling across the street, not minding or caring where they exactly were. The light was green, cars were starting to close in. Ester got there to push the kids out of the way in time. They made it out okay. Ester however…. 

I stood there not believing my eyes, my best friend, who had no allergies and has never broken a bone, was lying in the road, not getting up or brushing this off like he normally does.

No….

Mia was the first to react, rushing to his care. She turned to see me not moving and came back to drag me along the way. I couldn’t move, I felt numb and sick. We got to him as fast as we could and tried feeling a pulse, breathing, any signs of life. I saw the two kids standing there looking devastated, that they’re hero was now unconscious, and confused about what they should do. I tried but couldn’t smile, I motioned for them to go home, that everything was alright. they reluctantly  left.

“I have a pulse.” I turned my attention back to the situation at hand.

“Is he okay?” A man rushed up to us. I looked and saw the car that ran Ester over was now parked on the side of the road and this was the driver running up to us. The driver that sealed Ester’s fate.

“Call an ambulance!” Mia snapped, her voice so fierce, it made the man flinch. She must have figured it out earlier than I did. 

“Now!” The man hesitated then fished out his cell phone and call 911, explaining the situation. I always imagined in this scenario, I would be the first person to call for help. I guess this whole situation proved me wrong though. The ambulance soon pulled in and hospital attendants burst out of the vehicle and rushed to Ester’s care. He was placed carefully in a stretcher and rushed into the ambulance. We were about to climb in when an attendant stopped us.

“Sorry, we only have room for one more person.” Mia shoved me into the vehicle.

“You go! I’ll tell everyone and meet you at the hospital.” The attendant helped me into the vehicle before I could really process what was happening at the moment. The doors closed and we zoomed off. I watched Mia’s figure get smaller, than race in the direction of our neighborhood. I spent the trip to the hospital gripping my jeans and staring down into my lap, trying my best not to cry.

What if he never wakes up?!

No, stop it mind! He’s Ester! He’ll be fine.

He just got hit by a car going at least 45 miles per hour. You can’t sit there thinking everything will be fine! Life doesn’t have a happy ending Julian!

Mind…. I’m warning you shut up!

You know you can’t shut off your own mind!

Shut up! Leave me to my thoughts!

These ARE your thoughts idiot! It’s all your fault! If you were more observant, you could have saved those kids instead of Ester! You know about his current grade in gym!

Tears welled in my eyes and one by one, rolled down my cheeks. I started flashing back to when I was younger, how  I couldn’t conceal the fact that I was sad. As I got older, I could hide it better, except in really bad situations. This, was a bad one, a terrible scenario if I’ve ever seen one. Tears were falling continuously, leaving stains on my jeans as well as my face. I plucked off my glasses and wiped off the extra tears with my sleeve. Not that it did any good. We finally got to the hospital and I ran along side the attendants, rushing Ester to a room. They entered a room and instructed me to stay here. I stared at the closed door in disbelief. Than, without much to do,  I sat down, wallowing in my guilt once again. Mia came not too long after I got there, she brought along with her Sawyer, mom, dad, and Jason and Lila, Ester’s parents. I looked up at them, only to have Mia force me into a hug. If she had done this at any other time, I would have shrugged her off. She would have only hugged me if she wanted something. But this time, I let her hug me. When she let go, I saw her own face, eyes red and her cheeks stained with tears. Sawyer and Ester’s parents  looked as if they were about to break. I could practically see an almost physical/metaphorical cloud of sadness hanging over them. I think I’m starting to lose it. We waited…. And waited…. And waited….. As we waited. A doctor came out and said the words.

“He will be okay.” The tension that awkwardly hung around the room was immediately lifted. Until the doctor said “I think.”

“What do you mean you ‘think’?!” Lila demanded.

“He will live, but he has some bad injuries and I’m not quite sure yet how they will affect him. He will have to stay here for a while.” He talked to Jason and Lila to get all of Ester’s health information. I held my elbiws and sighed sadly, feeling a hand on my shoulder.

“He’s going to be fine. He’s Ester.” I turned to see Sawyer, smiling and blowing that one piece of blonde hair out of the way of sight. 

“I can’t help but feel like I’m too blame.”

“Well, I wasn’t there but, from what Mia was telling us, I can tell you with confidence.” Sawyer grabbed my shoulders and looked into my eyes.

“It’s not your fault. And anyone who tells you differently is wrong.” 

“Funny, my own mind is telling me different.” I kinda chuckled. Sawyer looked a little worried but went to comfort Mia, who was most likely muttering swear words under her breath. I looked into the room Ester was currently in. He was sitting upright and looking around. My eyes widened as I walked to the room.

“Julián?!” I entered as everyone saw what I was seeing. A very much alive and well looking Ester! Everyone filed into the room and me, Mia and Sawyer hugged him. 

“Dude, never do that ever again. You almost scared me half to death.” Mia giggled. 

 “For me, theres no ‘half to death’ you scared me to death period. Never do that again….” We could suddenly feel that he wasn’t hugging us back. In fact he was squirming. As if he was trying to get out of the hug. We released and stared in shock at our friend who stared back at us in confusion.

“.....Ester? You okay buddy?” He tilted his head then asked

“Ester? Whose Ester?” Silence. All eyes locked on him.

“You are. Your name is Ester.” He tilted his head.

“Is it? I feel more like a Felix.” A devastating cry bursted out of Lila behind me. I turned to see her bury her face into her husband’s chest, who also couldn’t hold back the tears anymore and were now streaming down his face. I turned back to give Ester my “you're joking right?” face which he paid no mind to and was focused on the crying couple who couldn’t look at their son.

“Who are they?” He asked me, noticing my own puffy eye, tear stained, all around sad face.

“Your parents.” I responded.

Life doesn’t have a happy ending Julián. 

People strive for perfection- it’s just how it is - we live our days out trying to fulfill something that doesn’t exist. We change ourselves in hopes of some time accomplishing this thing of utter non-existence, throwing away our lives in the pursuit. We are driven by the hungers of humanity, craving love, but not truly understanding the meaning of it. Hunting for loyalty, yet stabbing others in the back. Repeating a lonesome cycle until the end of our days… that’s what life is it not, just a cycle, ever changing- never stopping.

I was raised to think of the world as a blank sheet of paper, taught to become the beautiful artist that would one day draw on it. The world isn’t made of paper, but no one looks beyond the curtain.

Ridgeport students are beautiful on paper and in real life. We have too much money not to be, but it’s all smoke. Paid off teachers when your kid doesn’t make the cut, French makeup when puberty hits you like a bitch. We know how to put up a facade like no other, But just to be clear, we’re not fake. Not where it matters. We’re not reality stars pumping out lies until they become the truth, falling down into an endless spiral of overcoming falsities. No, we’re genuine in our hearts, our lies white as snow in comparison to the rest of the world.

Ridgeport takes us in as skinny little brats, ninth graders not knowing the difference between living and life. They pump us out all shiny and new. “Perfect” little girls and boys ready to either take over the leagues, or bring corporate higher into the clouds. I guess it just depends on the person. I refuse to take part of the never ending corporate cycle.

My first day at Ridgeport was much more of a nightmare than a dream, but that was almost three years ago. Now just a faint memory tugging at the back of my mind. The feeling of wanting to crush all of my father’s and mys competitors, yet at the same time, run and take cover from the many enemies Kade Corporations had acquired over the years. But it didn’t seem to matter here at Rigeport, yes, when we left the grounds we were all enemies, but here, it didn’t matter if your father sued my father for millions of dollars last year. The distance set by the business world doesn’t exist at Ridgeport, everyone is your neighbor and your friend in a way. Its satisfying.

I’m a  Senior now, and I know I still have a story to uncover here at Ridgeport, people say that it’s that last final year there that decides everything. Some reason, that year defines you like no other, and no matter what happens this year, I’m going to stay on my feet. I’ve worked to hard to have myself uprooted by some random little thing. I promise, never again.

I smile at all the familiar faces, people bumbling around with large suitcases dragging behind them, brown boxes stacked high in their arms. Everyone is familiar, enemies or not. Corporate grows up together, friends turned foes just another quota to fill.

“Adrian!” Sasha yells gleefully, a smile wider than life plastered on her face. She drops her bulky box on the cement ground in front of her and rushes me like a linebacker, enveloping me in her small frame. I laugh gleefully into her blond curls, my arms plastered to my sides by her muscled arms.

“Missed ya too,” I splutter out breathlessly, she finally releases me drawing her hazel eyes up and down my body.

“Yowza chica, you’re tanner than that sand you must’ve been lying on all summer.” She says in that Southern drawl she has, real slow and lazy like, but some how still southern belle like.

“Yeah, yeah I know,” I say rolling my eyes “I may have gotten a little lazy out in that sun.” I sheepishly look down at my toes, all painted navy blue and fitted in my favorite pair of Birks.

I can feel Sasha smiling somehow and I can’t help but smile at an idiot at my toes. It’s just the effect Sasha has on people; she smiles, you smile.

“Guess what,” Sasha says suddenly, now bouncing up and down on her toes.

“What?” I reply looking at the blonde curls cascading down her shoulders.

“Guess!” She whines, still bouncing on her tippy toes like an energizer bunny.

“Sashaa,” I groan out slouching into my heels, its real hot and I don’t like guessing things and she knows it.

“Fine!” she pouts “Be the boring little schmuck you are- and don’t guess.” Her eyes are real big like a puppys and I can barely look her in the eye without making oohing and awing sounds.

“You’re miserable.” I sing out in a horrible falsetto, caving into her puppy eye pout.

“Jason became boring,” I guess anyway.

“Nope.”

“Layla got VP and dropped out.”

“I wish.”

“I died and went to hell where they are making me guess answers to problems I don’t understand in the least,” I groan pounding the palm of my hand against my forehead.

“You wish.” Sasha smirks lazily, leaning back on her heels and crossing her arms over her chest.

“Oh my god Sasha just tell me!” I yell in exasperation, shaking myself down in frustration. It’s sort of a bad habit I have, annoys the world out of my father which is probably why I like to do it so much.

“Okay yeah, I’ve had my fun,” she says with an evil smile “Kai’s back!”

I can feel the playful smile fall from my face, like a discarded mask. Sasha isn’t expecting this reaction and I can tell, I’m supposed to be happy. But I’m not, I don’t know what I am. He’s come back, but I feel as lost as I did when he left.

Kai Laurins is a legend around here, equal parts kindness and humor. He was something different, defiant to his father's expectations. Thats what we had in common I guess. Both born to follow in our fathers footsteps, but wanting to write our own stories out, from start to finish. We were born leaders, not followers.

Even though our fathers were each other’s biggest competitors, we grew up together. I think they were surprised that we could think. I mean, it was great for them and all, especially since we didn’t fight them too much on business. But everyone knows they were expecting normal corporate children. The kind they could control until their dying days, horrible, but seemingly essential to them.

When Kai and I were younger we used to go out to central park when ever our fathers met for business- sad attempts of clearing the bad air between them, they never worked out, but I always looked forward to seeing Kai. We’d sit out near this old duck pond in the back of the park, shaded from the usual bustle of Manhattan and the pressure of the outside world, and we’d just talk for hours. Not about anything of any real importance, just whatever came to mind. As we got older, it was just a way to load off, get something off our chests. Maybe it was stupid thinking that we could hide from the world, but in those moments, we weren’t in the city. We were somewhere where everything just, made sense.

My favorite class has always been English, have loved reading since I could remember.  From Mr.Darcy to Buttercup in the Princess Bride, words were my first friend.  I was born just a short year after Kade Corporations started to get real big and mom and dad were determined to travel as much as possible with their newfound money. I never really had what people would call a real friend until I met Kai. Soon after that, my dad started business up with Sasha's’ dad in Dallas. They were completely different but they made me feel alive, something I had never really truly felt before. Until sophomore year, Kai had always been there for me, even at my worst. He was someone you could depend on, until he wasn’t.

I’m ducked in the back of the library in my favorite little nook flipping through textbooks and watching Jason flirt with a freshman. She laughs real obnoxious like every few minutes, but it’s pretty amusing to watch.

Jason’s a real clown, been that way for as long as I’ve known him. He keeps the atmosphere chill when we get high strung. It’s pretty demanding job to keep all of us from cracking, and Jason’s better at it than one would expect.

When Jason first came to Ridgeport sophomore year, we gave him the cold shoulder. He wasn’t one of us, it was as simple as that. His family was rich, sure, but they were late money.  They had a hint of normacracy to their name, they were- for a short period of time -part of the mundane world. Ordinance is threatening in world of so called extraordinary. Kai loved that about Jason though, was even jealous of it. Jason had knowledge of the world that- as hard a Kai tried -he would really never have.

Corporate kids grow are put on a track heading straight for industry the day they're born. Kai may have been born into a corporate family and put on that same line, but addiction can come in just a taste, and for Kai, it did.

He  wanted the little things, the notes in your lunchbox, the heart shaped pancakes in the morning. He wanted to love and be loved in the most simple ways. Kais’ life was devoid of even those big acts of kindness, love an undercurrent in the Laurins house.

Kais’ taste came from a nanny he once had, Charlotte. She was enigmatic and showed Kai the world without even realizing it. Her words drove him to become the person he is, but Charlotte was gone too quickly, her devotional love for Kai gone with her. She loved him like her own, and he- even with his little understanding of love -loved her too.

I’m jealous of what Kai grasped for even a short time, a love so different, so foreign to me.

Its late as I prop open the dorm door, Sasha sleeping sleeping quietly in her bunk. The room is nearly devoid of light except for the small rays that pool onto the floor from a night light near Sashas bunk. Ridgeport is rich, but they like to keep the dorm rooms simple, two bunks, two desks and the usual boarding school commodities. I’ve spent the last three years of my life in this room, same crappily made gold 57 on the door, same wood holding me up while I sleep. This is room is home, or maybe Sasha is, who even knows.

I let the pile of books in my arms tumble down onto my bed, textbook upon textbook and still, Sasha doesn’t stir. My stuff’s been shoved into the room, but cardboard boxes still lie unopened at the foot of my bunk, my oversized suitcase lying unopened half way underneath the bed. I’m not a real tidy person, never have been, Sasha tends to clean up my messes. Physically, emotionally and everything else in between. She’s a real neat freak. The kind of girl that keeps all her highlighters in rainbow order magneted to her desk, right next to that big planner she lugs everywhere with her. Life goes in columns for Sasha, she says its easier that way. Me, I’m more of a not so organized chaos person. I don’t have the time to clean up my messes when I’ve spent so much time making them, not my fault I’m only half lazy.

I slowly let myself down onto my unmade bed with my pile of textbooks, scooching my back to the wall. I’m tired, and even though it doesn’t sound like too comfortable a position, it’s kinda nice. The effort to make my bed isn’t worth it, so I just close my eyes and bring my knees in tight. Sleep comes easily.

Its a dream. I can tell it is because Kai’s right in front of me looking the exact same as I remember him, and thats just not possible. He has his dark brown hair is curly and unruly, his blue eyes shining. He’s talking to someone, their back turned to me, hidden by the shadows of an oak tree behind them. Who ever he’s talking to is  tall, coming nearly to the nose of his 6’2” frame. He’s talking fiercely in hushed tones, but yet his voice is kind and caring. I can only make out words here and there “leave” and “world” the only two standing out amongst his harsh whispers.

“Kail no!” a feminine voice says angrily, I know this voice. Its my own. I remember it now, I know what’s going on, I know the words that will come next.

“You have to understand!” Kai says in a loud whisper “I can’t live like that, hell, I refuse to live like that!”

“Fine.” I say finally, I’ve raised my head up to meet Kais’ gaze and thin strands of light criss cross over my face. That one word seems to hit Kai like a bull dozer, his face contorting in pain as the words leave my mouth.  What he doesn’t know is that, that one word, killed me when it hurt him.

I wake with a start, sweat glistening on my forehead. I’m still propped upright on my bunk, my knees curled up close to my chest. It had seemed so real, almost like an out of body experience or something. It’s one of those days you look back on and your heart just kinda sinks, it was the day Kai left.

Kai’s not like his family. He crave money or fawn over reputation, all he’s ever wanted was to help people, and Kai always gets his way. He hated the false glamour and the wasteful lifestyle. He didn’t wanna live that way for the rest of his life if he could change it. Corporate world could do there thing, but he wanted to do his own.

Kai’s not an artist, he’s an inventor. Looking to help the world, build to assist, not to paint over it. Even though he was determined to not live his life away like his father, no thought he would leave, least of all me.

“This is ridiculously gross,” I say stirring the tan bubbly things around in my cornflower blue cereal bowl. Ridgeport never gets any good food until about a week after school starts because they’re so worried about food spoiling if it gets to the grounds early. So for about a week every year, the entire campus eats steel cut oatmeal and canned soup. It makes your stomach hurt more than the skunk bean from bean-boozled.

“Oh come on, you don’t love the taste of dried dehydrated oats in the morning?” Sasha replies distastefully, frowning as her own concoction drips from her spoon.

“Ahhhh,” I moan dropping my head to the side of my bowl. I haven’t told Sasha about my dream, I don’t wanna talk about that day again.  Kai was my everything for years, he kept me on my feet when all I wanted to do was collapse. I hate this world almost as much as he does, but I can’t run. I wouldn’t have been able to leave him if it came down to it. Even though I resent him for leaving me- even though I know its selfish to want both him and Sasha by my side -I’ve missed him.

“Adrian,” a voice says, I have my arms over my ears so it’s distorted like the waves of an ocean.

“Sasha I’m tired as can be, will you let me- just this once -whither in peace?” I reply in a low groan.

“Adrian,” The voice says again, its deep and rich, most definitely not Sasha. I look up from my arms slowly, my hair falling in thin strands over my eyes, but the stray hairs block nothing.

I’m staring into his eyes, as familiar to me as my own palm. Blue like the sky right before a storm, flecks of grey like clouds hovering in its depths. A million thoughts are griping at the back of my mind, but I can’t hear anything. All I can feel, hear, see- is him. It’s one of those once in a lifetime moments, a moment that you know is going to change you forever. It’s like you uncovered a puzzle piece deep inside you that just clicked into place, suddenly everything makes sense.

Senior year will change everything, but change can be good, and in this case, I know it’s for the better. I’ve spent the last year convincing myself that I just want things to go back to normal, but I don’t even know what normal is anymore. Kai means something to me, something I don’t have the words for;  I realize this as I’m staring it the familiar shallows of his eyes. In that moment, the pain of missing him doesn’t exist, all thats matters, is that he came back. I let him go, and he returned. I know then, that whatever it is that I feel, must be real.

Early July

When I first found out, I was sitting at the kitchen table eating carrots. Ironic, really-- a girl finds out her best friend is diagnosed with glaucoma and she’s eating the exact vegetable claimed to improve vision. As I sat there listening to Mom ramble on about glaucoma, how it was caused by an increase in eye pressure, my mind wandered off to the last conversation I had with Lilia. It was over the phone, and she was laughing. “Dee, I can literally hear you chomping down on your nails. Quit worrying.” I tried my best to take her advice, but couldn’t ignore the twisting feeling in my gut. Lilia had said it was nothing, just a “simple case of blurry vision”. “Probably all that alcohol catching up to me, huh. I should’ve listened to you Dee -- too bad I just can’t seem to control the rebel inside of me,” she joked. I laughed softly along with her, but couldn’t help wondering: if it was just some tunnel vision, why was she going to the hospital? Lilia was certainly not one to be described as sensitive. “Lilia, I --” “So how about you come over tomorrow? We can pick up the new Vogue and find the fashion trends we want to bring to school in the fall.” I sighed. Lilia was done with the conversation, and I knew I wouldn’t get anything more out of this vision issue.

Yet here I was today, sitting at the kitchen table, finding out that the “simple blurry vision” was far from simple. I closed my eyes, trying to imagine a little glaucoma bug crawling into my eyes. Trying to imagine Lilia actually having this bug of a disease in her life, in her eyes.

***

I had just turned six when my family moved to Pennsylvania. The first day of second grade, I stood at the edge of the classroom as all my new peers mingled amongst each other, talking with their friends from the previous year and giving little attention to me, the mousy girl wearing a bedazzled shirt that boldly stated, “I’m Purr-fect!” The voice of another six-year-old echoed through the classroom, loudly explaining to her mom how the purchase of light-up sneakers would not only benefit her, but her mother as well. “If the power ever went out, I could just stomp and you’d be able to find me. These shoes are basically made to help mothers out. Think of how much less you’d worry.” The girl entered the classroom. She was shorter than I was, and sporting a hairstyle that could only be described as resembling a chicken's nest. But she carried herself with a confidence that made her hair seem more like a fashion statement than a failure to consult a mirror. Her eyes scanned the room, and landed on me. I shrunk a bit, her aura overpowering me as she marched towards my direction.

“I’m Lilia. What’s your name?” I stared at her, dumbfounded that she was addressing me. She cocked her head. “Can you hear me? Do you have a name?” “D-Diana,” I managed to choke out. “Hi Diana. Do you have any friends here?” I shook my head meagerly. “I don’t have any friends here either.” She looked at me again, squinting at my shirt. “I like your shirt. It’s shiny. I like you Diana. Let’s be friends.” She stuck her hand out, extending her palm out to me. “Take my hand then move it up and down a few times. I always see my dad doing it with other people and it looks fun.” I cautiously extended my arm, and as we tried out a handshake, I made my first friend.

Our personalities changed little as we grew in size. Lilia quickly made herself known to everyone in that second grade class, as well as to the rest of the people she met later on in life. I always trailed a little behind her, riding off her waves of self-confidence. Lilia was strong, Lilia was independent. Lilia was supposed to grow up and become a ruler of a country. A ground-breaking scientist. A world-renowned reporter. Lilia was not supposed to get glaucoma.

Early July

“Are you going to die?”

“No, stupid. Death and blindness are very separate things, and I intend to keep it that way.”

“Can they cure it?”

“Only if I pray every night and eat 50 carrots a day.”

“Lilia.”

“Kind of. I have to take eye drops that will help prevent any further vision loss, but my peripheral vision can’t be repaired.”

“Are you over 40?”

“What?” She finally peels her eyes away from the Vogue issue, and looks at me in bemusement.

“Are you over 40? People over 40 are more susceptible to glaucoma.” I try to keep a straight face. I know it’ll make her laugh.

She chuckles, eyes twinkling. “Are the wrinkles that bad already?”

The laughter dies out, and we’re staring at each other.

“Are you going to be okay?”

The twinkle in her eyes disappears. “I have no clue.” I look deeper into her eyes, trying to find see the pressure that was causing this disease. She frowns at me, seemingly catching onto what I was doing, and returns her attention to Vogue.

Late July

She grabs my hand one day and leads me out to her backyard to a field of flowers. She pulls me down with her, then promptly shuts her eyes. The sun bathes her face in light while the wind ruffles her baby hairs, and it is picture perfect. Then she frowns, her placid face crinkling into folds. Her eyes slit open, and she addresses me.

“We’re Practicing. I figured even though God has given me the good fortune of a treatable blindness, I should prepare for the worst. Now lie down with me.”

I feel as if the wind, previously gentle, is now a tornado -- the impact of her words, prepare for the worst, hit me and I can’t catch my breath or formulate a response. All I can do is lie down next to her, and shut my eyes. We Practice for a long time. I’m surrounded in darkness, yet aware of everything around me. The sunlight pierces red spots in my vision, and I can feel the breeze, hear the birds chirping on the tree next to us. But there is something missing: an intrinsic part of my ability to process and enjoy the world, and as I imagine harder and harder never being able to gain back this ability, the pit in my stomach sinks lower and lower. Unable to bear it anymore, I open my eyes, my sight rushing into me like a welcoming hug. I glance over towards Lilia. Her eyes are still closed, her face serene, but her fists are tightly clenched, her knuckles pale white from the tension. She’s trying to envision an entire life like this, an entire life with no sight. Just as I prepare to say something, a collection of reassuring and comforting words perhaps, her eyes fly open and she jumps to her feet, walking towards the house without a second thought. As she passes me, I hear a sniffle.

August

The eye drops do not work. Her doctors suggest pills in addition to the eye drops. Lilia takes in all the new information with a smile, but I can tell she hurts inside.

Early September

The seasons begin to change. The Practice field of flowers begins to wilt and die.

Early September

There are good days and there are bad days. On the good days, everything is the way it was before her diagnosis. We talk about school, about boys, about things that once seemed important but are now meaningless, just a way of distracting ourselves. On the bad days, she says nothing. She usually leaves to Practice, and I trail behind her, not wanting to leave, yet never knowing if she still wants me there. Sometimes she allows me to join her in the field of flowers. Other days she yells at me to go home, saying that she doesn’t need me, that she doesn’t need anyone, and that she can do everything on her own.

Mid-September

Lilia seems to lose energy each passing day. She refuses almost everything on her plate, and spends most of her afternoons Practicing, unable to find the strength to do much else. She grows thinner and thinner, weaker and weaker. The doctors conclude this loss in energy and appetite is from the pills, and tell Lilia’s mom that the setbacks of the pills far outweigh the benefits. Laser eye surgery is suggested. Lilia is taken off the pills and eyedrops, and a date is scheduled. Lilia is to be operated on in one month.

Late September

We are Practicing one day. I open my eyes first-- I always do-- and look over at Lilia. Her eyes are shut so hard that they have crinkled into prunes. A tear escapes from the corner of one eye, and a sniffle escapes from her nose. I begin to turn away, but she suddenly opens her eyes, and I notice they are sparkling with tears. She grabs my hand and squeezes it, squeezes it so hard that I can feel my pulse when she loosens her grip. We don't say anything, until finally she whispers, "I'm scared." Then louder, "I'm scared." And louder and louder until she's finally screaming it, screaming it in this field of weeds, and I see from the corner of my eye her mom rushing to the screen door and then Lilia turns towards me and we're hugging and she's still saying I'm scared I'm scared I'm scared. And we lie in the field hugging and she thinks she's holding onto me for strength but I'm holding onto her just as much, because I'm scared too, scared about how vulnerable she has just become and scared about what was to come.

Mid-October

Lilia only had a week and half before her operation when it happened. Her mom said Lilia had been showering, and everything had been normal until it wasn't-- her mom heard a scream and found Lilia lying in the shower crying, crying and I can't imagine it, I can't imagine her tears mixing with the shower water, I can't imagine Lilia helpless in the shower, screaming, DEPENDING on her mom to help her. The doctors diagnosed it as acute glaucoma: the pressure in her eye had suddenly increased to a dramatic extent, and by the time she got to the hospital it had been too late. I can't imagine her never being able to see a bar of soap anymore, I can't imagine her never being able to see my face again and I'm mad, mad because I'm selfish and I want her to see my face. She is blind, she is blind and the reality I knew, was always a possibility finally hits me with full force and all I could do is close my eyes and Practice.

Mid-October

I walk into the room clenching a bar of chocolate. As I near her bed, I am unsure how to give it to her. Do I just place it in her hands? Do I have to let her know I’m going to put something in her hands first? Suddenly I'm right next to her, and I see her, and she looks peaceful, serene, just like how I remember her when we first started our Practices.

“H-Hey Lilia. How are you doing? I mean obviously not well, I can see that-- wait no, um… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be offensive… ah shit. I have some chocolate for you.”

She chuckles, and holds out her hand. “Thanks Dee.”

We sit in an awkward silence, and she fumbles with the wrapping, her eyes still closed.

“So, I’m blind. Bet you didn’t see that coming, huh?”

I burst out in laughter, and she does too, and instead of a blind girl, I see Lilia, and she is beautiful.

(Parenthetical)

We used to go to church together, my mother and I. Every Sunday morning she would shake me awake with her left hand, her coffee in her right. “Come of, Jules.” She would say, “It’s only two hours out of your life.” It’s her redemption, I think.

            She dropped out of college when she was pregnant with me to marry my father. They didn’t get along. My father defined himself as some sort of tortured artist. He takes photos. They look something like what you find in a high school art room: Thousands of people glance at it in passing but do not care enough to look again. My father says that’s the problem with art these days: There has to be a deeper meaning.

            He would take pictures of my mother when she was mad at him and call it “raw emotion.” He only photographed her when they were fighting in tones I assumed were supposed to be hushed and after I fell asleep.

            It was the morning after we had come back from visiting my aunt’s house when finally fought in front of me. I was eleven. My aunt had been yelling at my father about something I wasn’t supposed to hear and I’m pretty sure she was just trying to help him. Either way it ended -more or less- with my father slamming the door behind him and my mother apologizing to my aunt in words I weren’t supposed to know about back then. A few days later my parent’s split up for good.

            The idea of working backwards from known information excites my mother. I never understood this when I was little because Christianity is based off of an uncertainty. My mother never taught me how to pray. Whenever the pastor told the congregation to everyone would get on their knees and I would just mimic them. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say to God if I didn’t really believe in him to begin with.

            No one in the church ever prays out loud. Instead they clasp their hands and tilt their heads down and imagine the words. Now, I think I understand. My mother never learned how to pray either. No one ever teaches you what God really wants to hear. So somewhere along the way prayer got mixed up with complaint, or want, or “Listen, you’re a great guy and all, but there’s still some stuff you can do better.” Maybe God just isn’t the sort to appease people with answers.

            Either way, my mother still prayed. I’m not sure what she asks God, but I don’t think it ever worked because she still works in an office, and my father still left, and she still gets down on her knees every night so God can hear her better.

            My father sends me birthday cards. They always come late in the mail because he lives in New York now and he keeps forgetting to send them until a couple days after the actual date of my birth. He is a forgetful man. Sometimes it’s his keys and sometimes it’s his family. He doesn’t mean to forget things, not really. So my mother just says, “Quit taking it personally.” I still do, just without telling her; and she still cries when she thinks I’m asleep, just without telling me. So I guess we’re even.

            The last time I saw my father was when I had just begun middle school. He came to tell me that he was moving to New York because he got a job taking photographs for this magazine that people read in front of their coworkers to seem cultured. I didn’t say anything to him, but he hugged me. And that was the end of whatever I had dreamed up in my head about him: he was no longer someone I was obligated to love unconditionally anymore; forgive, maybe. But not love.

            Lately, I have not been holding my words inside of me. Instead, they come out at the wrong time and are misheard or misinterpreted. My mother says this makes me seem spiteful, and I’m okay with that because I’d rather seem like something, not be it. My mother doesn’t seem spiteful, but she is. I’m pretty sure she has it worse than me.

            A lot of people have it worse than me. This is true, but not helpful. My mother has used it in countless arguments against my complaints. Whether it be food I don’t want to eat, or the fact that these days I haven’t been sleeping she just says that someone else has a life that sucks more than yours does. I think the implied ending of that statement is get over it. But just because someone else has it worse than I do, doesn’t make things any better for me. Not that I expect everything to get better.

            I learned how to be a pessimist from my mother. It was unintentional. She spent all her time waiting for something good to happen to her. She talks to the pastor a lot about this and he keeps saying God has a plan for her. It’s his job, to seek out good things. As if good things are always waiting to be noticed.

            My father called on a Sunday morning because he knew my mother would be at church. I had stopped going by the time I was fifteen because my mother was sick of me questioning the bible’s authenticity. His voice was stronger than I remembered, more confident. “Jules,” he said when I picked up, a sigh escaping as if maybe I had taken up my mother’s ways entirely and decided he was, in fact, a no-good-bastard-who-better-hope-he-never-calls-again. “How are you?” He questions. This was the only question my father knew how to ask me. Even when I was little and he picked me up from school he would utter those same three words in the same tone of voice as if my answer would someday change into something he could hold onto, carry with him as if it meant something more than the it’s automatic quality.

            “I’m fine,” I say.

            “Listen,” he says, and his voice falters like it used to when he fought with mom and didn’t know how to prove himself right, “I have a favor to ask.” My father had never asked me for anything. He asked my mother, and his mother, but never me. Sometimes he needed money. When this was the case my mother would spend all of dinner listing the reasons why she shouldn’t give him anything or pick up the phone again. Then she would give it to him anyways and spend all of the next dinner regretting it.

Maybe he was right to wonder if I was becoming my mother. I had started pressing crescents into the back of my hands with my fingernails when I was worried, I put chapstick on my lips more than I needed to because I hated it when they cracked, and I couldn’t figure out exactly how to say “no” to someone even if I wanted to. I guess if you sit in front of someone at a dinner table for long enough you pick up their habits.

“What?” I asked. He sighed, long and breathy like he wanted to make sure I knew this was hard for him.

            “I want you to come to my wedding.”

            The ceremony was nice, and too long. His wife seemed to pretty and nice to be real and she talked to me like she knew me. Afterwards I kissed my father on the cheek, flew back to Wisconsin and unlocked the door to an empty house.

            Later I would learn that my mother wouldn’t come back. Later I would cry because I knew my mother did not have the audacity to visit me again after she had done this. Later I would call her absence an excuse to file my love for her away and press blunt fingernails into my skin and pretend it was surreal enough that I couldn’t feel it.

            But then I walked into the house, turned on the news, and fell asleep on the couch. Nothing hurts like knowing there was a time before you can say you have a history with.

            My father came to pick me up a week after my mother left. The phone conversation I had with him was long and uneventful. There wasn’t any surprise in his voice when we talked. He just said he would pay for my plane ticket and I could move in with him.

            I don’t remember walking through the airport. Somehow I had gotten from the airport to the gate to the plane and now I was sitting between an old lady and middle aged man. I slept on the way over and my father and his new wife were waiting at the airport. We exchanged friendly greetings in voices that were anything but. My father carried my bag even though I asked him not to.

            The taxi we rode in was number 8335 and We ask that you do not smoke; direct complaints and compliments to the number below. We didn’t speak besides my fathers cautious pointing at the buildings I should know about. There was too much traffic for our silence to be pleasant. The cab driver honked loudly snapping me out of some trance I hadn’t even noticed falling into. “What are you waiting for?” He says in a matter-of-fact manner. As if he knew something pedestrians didn’t. “Your grandmother? She’s dead, moved on, you should too.” And just like that, we were laughing.

I woke up one day and just looked outside my window, just wondering when spring would begin. It was spring and there were flowers blooming, with bees buzzing by them. The winter breeze, it was finally gone. Yet the misty was still there. With the start of spring ment a new day, a new year. Not only for me but everyone around me. I close my eyes for I do not want to see it change. But change is something we must all go through, and it changes us on the way. It should end I wanted it to end, but where I was living it didn't matter. The difference of winter and spring is that winter is a bit colder and bitter but it never gets lower than a certain degree. Florida. It's really just the one word you need to describe this place. But it's home and it's where I live, and this is my story.

I was only eighteen years old yet I knew more than people people did at that age.This was my senior year, and it was going to be the best year. Everyone said it was and I told myself I would make sure that would happen. I remember the first day of school. I grabbed my bag from the side of my bed, being really nervous for really no reason. I remember glancing into the kitchen to see my mother. Dropping my bag to the floor I ran up to give her a hug.

“Mom.” I whispered into her ear. “I love you,” she whispered back to me.

Letting me go she looked at me in my eyes. I glanced back at her. “I’m planning on having the best senior year of my life.” I boasted to her. She laughed at me, grabbing a towel from the sink. Turning back towards me she said, “I’m sure you will Leah. Sadie should be here soon.” She didn't smile. Then all of a sudden she looked away. I never could forget that moment. Like everything we just talked about was gone, right out the window towards the butterfly bush.

All I remember then is getting a knock at the door.

“I got it.” I yelled to my mom as I made my way to the door. I swung it open to see my friend Sadie standing there with my other best friend Cooper. I Hugged them both. That's when I realized that I was finally smiling again.

“So are you ready to go?” Sadie looked at me. “It’s senior year you know!” She got very excited.

That is exactly why it made us such best friends. I smiled at her, not questioning any of her flaws.“Well of course silly.” Cooper just stood over in the corner with his hands in his pockets. He hasn't said much since he was invited in the house. I had never seen him so down in the times that I knew him.

So I asked him.

“Hey Conner, are you excited for senior year?” He looked up at me. Pulling his hands out of his pockets he answered me. “Yeah I am.” I smiled at him. It was an answer I needed. "Good. Let me grab my bag and we can go.” I said.

I didn't walk fast back to the kitchen. I started to walk slowly then I tired around to see that Cooper was actually smiling. I had made a difference by just saying no something to him. That made my day, and I was so sure that this was going to be the best year of my life. I would never have the same chance like this again. So I went back to the kitchen and picked up my bookbag. I remember that I was about to shut the door to the house when a butterfly came into view. It was one of the weirdest things. I tried to shoo it away again, and again. But It just wouldn't budge. It was yellow, and was absolutely one of the prettiest butterflies I had ever seen.

“Yo, Leah. Do you even want to go to school?” Sadie yelled from the car.

She was really getting on my nerves that day. Mostly because I was thinking, hey its the first day of school. Then I thought twice about it and then it didn't seem like that was the problem. I tried shaking that out of my mind and opened up the back door to the car. That was the official quietest car ride into school ever. She parked the car, and didn't even glance at me. I could tell that she was pissed at me for something. It just wasn't there that day. I didn't even want to go to school.

The thought was clouding my memory. That stupid butterfly popped into my mind, and just reminded me that it was my mothers favorite. She would tell me everything she ever knew about them. No matter what kind of butterfly it would be. It always kept me to be a more open minded person in life.School went really fast that day, the fastest it has ever been. I could not ever go back to how I felt that day. I was making my way back to the car, when someone started to yell at me. “LEAH! Why the hell was I being attacked by some butterflies! I was about to go into my bio class when she stupid butterfly wouldn't let me go inside. I was late to class!” She pushed me. My books then dropped. I was really started to get mad. “Sadie, I have no idea why butterflies would do that to you, okay.” I was telling the truth. I didn't know. I know now, but thats a different story. I bent down to pick up my books that she had made me drop.

“Hey, I’m talking to you.” Sadie kicks my books from under my hand. She didn't just kick the books either. My left hand was bleeding. I started to burst out in soft sobs that turned into louder ones. A hand was on my back all of a sudden.

“Leah, Leah. Are you okay.” I look up to Cooper who isn't smiling. I cling onto my left hand, which he did not see.

“Who did this Leah?” I looked up to find Sadie, but she was nowhere to be seen. I started to cry again. It wouldn't stop. My crying. Copper just sat there with me on the ground. “Ill take you home. Okay?” I just nodded. I was just in that moment where i couldn't believe that my friend just did that to me. Cooper helped me walk back to my house. We reached my front door when a butterfly showed up. I didn't think I was actually going to hit it, but I did and it fell on the ground. Cooper didn't see me. Which was a good thing. I turned around to Cooper. I gave him a hug. “Thank you so much.” I whispered into his ear. “Of course.” Was all he whispered back to me, then let go of me and walked away. I smiled and opened the door. “Mom.” I said. No answer. I shut the door behind me. “Mom!” I yelled this time.

She always answered me. So I decided to go check the kitchen since that was the last place I saw her this morning. “Mom! Mom!” I just kept repeating. Over and over again. I remember the growing pains in my heart as I looked on the ground that day. Life exited my body, within a second I was screaming on the top of my lungs screaming for help. I couldn't call 911. I was just so scared that she was dead. I grabbed at her cold hands. All of a sudden I heard a knock at my door. I didn't answer it. I didn't want to I just kept screaming again and again. Then the door snapped.

It was Copper, he broke the door down.  I didn't know it in my mind at first but I knew that it was after it all happened. “Leah what's the matter.” He actually did stop midway through his sentence. “Oh my god.” The next second he was by my side hugging me as closely as he could. Honestly that was the best moment with him I have ever had. That moment ended. My mother died I lost my best friend. Everything went down hill that day. But what didn't was Cooper. He was always there for me. Even when a week later, when it was time for the funeral. He was there. The one thing that was very interesting was that I saw a butterfly outside the church right before the funeral ended.

Then I remembered my mom, and how much she loved them. It made so much sense to me. The butterflies were like warning signs, to help my mother. They were the spirit of my mother, and when I killed that butterfly that day I also killed her. Every time I come back to this moment I think of this. Butterflies have a short life, but that doesn't make it a sad life. Just how we live everyday. We might have a sad moment in our life, and it might feel like we have a sad life but thats not the truth because if that was true then everyone in the world would be just as sad as the person next to them. Having a sad moment is not a sad life. But it is life and there will be sad moments in it.

Shards of memories littered the floor, hidden in each piece of the broken vase.  Sierra picked up the first shard, a pale blue, gazing into it, hoping desperately that something would happen. She looked again, deep into the crystal blue, and the blue became the ocean. She saw herself, younger, perhaps three years old, laughing as her father lifted her into his arms, threw her into the luminous blue water. Sierra quickly grabbed for another shard. This one was dark, deep green. It happened again. The green shifted into a forest. Sierra could almost smell the pine needles. She was climbing, racing her brother to the top, with an enormous smile lighting up her face. Yellow turned into dandelions as a seven year old Sierra created a dandelion crown, beaming as she placed it upon her mother’s head. Red, light green, navy blue, each shard brought back painful memories, stinging tears appearing in Sierra’s eyes. She was the last one left, picking up the shards of glass, remembering the things that no one else could bear to remember.  Her neighbor had offered to sift through the wreckage; to call in a team that would take away the last solid things that Sierra had. But, no, she had to be the one to do this. That idiotic stubborn will that forced her to follow through on anything that she said she would do was at work, once again, and sometimes made her mad. Sierra didn’t even want to do this. She just felt compelled to come here one last time before she was carted off to who knows where, never to see the place that she had grown up, the place that she had lived her life, again. Sierra picked up another shard, the only one in deep, paralyzing black. She was expecting something happy, motivating, inspiring, another one of the memories that made her feel gleeful, cheerful. Instead, the night of the tornado replayed itself in her head.

Sierra was alone in her house, her mother, father, and younger brother out for dinner. She had wanted to go, but her pages of homework had kept her alone at home. Sierra had just finished the last of the dreaded math, and was flipping through the channels on T.V. when her television started beeping.

“TORNADO INCOMING. PLEASE TAKE COVER IMMEDIATELY!” flashed across the screen. Grabbing ahold of her phone, and a blanket, Sierra holed up in the basement bathroom, curled tightly in a ball, as she tried to call her parents. Nobody answered. The beeping from the television that she had left on grew louder and more frantic, and Sierra heard a roaring noise, and the noise of breaking and falling, and then silence. She crouched down, hiding from everything, from the world, wishing that she would disappear. She wondered where her family was- whether they were alive, whether they were hurt, wondering when they would be coming home.

As it turned out, they never made it back. Sierra quickly dropped the black shard, tears falling down her cheeks, grabbing for another, this shard colored both gray and blue. The gray dissolved into rain, and the blue into the small bit of blue peeking out from underneath the sky once the tornado had ended. Sierra saw herself again, this time at her current age, her hair tangled and wet as she stared at the police car sitting in front of her house. She saw a police officer step out and walk towards her. The police officer began to speak.  

            “No, no, no!” Sierra said to herself. She closed her eyes, and randomly grabbed another shard of glass. This one had to be another good memory. It just had to be. She gazed deep into the shard, picking up only her neighbor offering to let her stay with them until someone figured out her living situation. She tossed memory after memory aside, brushing away the shards of painful memories. When they had found the dead bodies of her family, the funerals, everything. Finally, Sierra picked up a last shard, glimmering with color, or so she thought, and Sierra felt herself fall to the floor as she watched the image inside. She wanted to run away, find herself in a world where none of this had happened; maybe she could even find herself in another universe or something. Devastating images, every bad thing that had ever happened to her shown in tiny pieces of shattered glass. Just then, Sierra remembered that there was a full house to inspect. Maybe she would be able to find a salvaged old book of her father’s, or her younger brother’s favorite stuffed animal, or even just some of her mother’s favorite soap. She could always buy more, Sierra reminded herself, but that wouldn’t be the same.

Finding only old broken dishes and uselessly overturned chairs in the kitchen, and the ripped sofas covered in shattered glass in the living room, Sierra started to venture up the stairs. When she reached the place where she most wanted to go, her own bedroom, she stopped. She was scared, she realized. Sierra didn’t want to be reminded of all the things that had happened in this room, all the fun memories, and all of the ones that didn’t bring a smile to her face. She didn’t want to see that all of her most important possessions had been destroyed, her last tangible remains of the life that she had once had. But she stepped through the doorway, and looked at what she had left. A few books seemed to have been missed; everything that she had kept in the table of her extremely durable nightstand seemed basically unharmed. But that was only books.  Sierra wanted- needed to find something more. Something that she could take with her to wherever she ended up, to carry with her. She saw the broken fragments of a picture frame, and picked it up to see three pictures that, by some miracle of nature, were unharmed. Sierra’s lips curled into a slight smile as she saw her brother grinning at the camera as he put bunny ears behind her head, herself, clutching a doll tightly to her chest, and her family, just smiling at the camera, sheer joy reflected in their faces. Sierra grabbed the photos, gently pocketing them as she moved to what had once been her dresser. Amid the broken bits of wood, there was an old scrapbook. She reached for it, taking it into her hand and clutching the precious things to her chest. Then, Sierra moved, staring out the window at the gray skies and the rain that had just begun to fall.

The rain was beating down more now, as Sierra realized that no matter how painful the memories could be, she could never really let them go. Never. They were a part of her, etched into her very being. They were what made her human, and without that, she was nothing. Sierra decided that she had had enough. She left her room, walking down the hallway out to the stairs, where she went back into the room with the vase, where before, she had seen her own memories. She tried again to see the happiness, but this time, nothing appeared. It had been an illusion, she realized, her brain so desperate for comfort that she had imagined visions of happiness in her head. Sierra had a sudden idea, and she carefully picked up each precious shard that contained her memories, putting the fragile bits into her purse. Maybe, she could glue the shards back together to recreate the vase, but if she couldn’t, maybe it wouldn’t be all that terrible. She could come up with something new to make out of the glass. Sierra had finally realized that no matter how desperately she wished for the world to end, despite her greatest wishes, the world kept spinning on, but maybe, that wasn’t such a terrible thing. Maybe the world wouldn’t be the worst thing, after all.

past

Icarus. Bright eyes, dark skin, usually smiling. Such a delightful boy, elementary teachers wrote in bright blue pen, on report cards that made it home, unlike countless misplaced; a shrug was all he’d ever given as explanation. He wore his identity in a smirk, in a laugh that echoed off the subway stations and dingy sidewalks of New York in the fall. If he wasn’t in good spirits, even for a second, he wouldn’t be himself, or that was how the third grader had explained it so many years ago, when they’d slept in a homeless shelter and he’d had no pajamas.

He had several pairs now, stuffed in a splintered cobalt chest. Surely this meant Icarus was better off, he slept in an agreeable bed, had a real bathroom. He should be happier by all means.

Teachers didn’t refer to Icarus as smart, and he was absolute in the belief of never becoming smarter, of just filling his head with education until it burst. The sum of two digits was another, the earth was polluted, but what could Icarus do about any of it?

They called him a multitude of things, almost always fondly. Impulsive yes, but never ill mannered. Ambitious, certain the world was in his hands and would continue to be. Friends came with ease and were never lost, the same going for girls. Attention-seeking, from the very first day. A pudgy-faced, ebony toddler running with the older boys, wailing when he couldn’t follow or scraped a waiflike knee.

No mother, not for a long while. Just a wayward father who’d once planned to live comfortably in the middle class, but had decided on making inventions instead of money.

All Icarus remembered of his mother was long coiled locks that fell past a low neckline, and long fingers that were gone by the time he needed a permission slip signed. In a fit of anger a year back, Icarus shaved his head, the curls dropping to the concrete like black feathers.

Icarus spent the majority of his childhood homeless, loudly laughing the whole way through. It helped that his father, Daedalus, never left. This set him apart from the other doleful children, dressed in pale faces and rags. Icarus was decidedly different, because he was never alone.

Daedalus was better now, had a real job in a narrow office with unmarked walls. It hurts his head, but pays the bills, which go to a real home. He comes home tired and doesn’t get much sleep, dawn to dusk, five times a week. Daedalus doesn’t smile, perhaps he never could.

Icarus misses the shelter, but he won’t say it out loud.

Daedalus. Weathered face and world weary hands. Streaks of grey shone through a battered cap and aging lines seemed etched into his skin. It was the eyes that threw people off; they were alive, always moving and when he talked, they looked right at you.

It was a bit of a strange habit, to make eye contact so directly, that you would almost dread starting a conversation. Daedalus didn’t mind.

His coat was several sizes too big, resembling a green shroud that fell past his knees. Homemade pockets adorned the back, stuffed with odds and ends that would fall out as he walked.

Back at the shelter, a crowd of small children were never far behind. Hiding behind metal fences and stone pillars, snickering and fighting over anything that dropped. Sometimes it was a brass button covered in equations, sometimes a whirring metal dragonfly. Daedalus used to spin around and mock-growl at them, hiding a smile when the kids would flee, giggling, back to the old mattresses they called home.

Daedalus could be seen vanishing into back alleyways across the city, always moving at a fast, clipped pace. Some people were like that, whispered the shopkeeper to his wife as they watched him leave; always late, even with nowhere to be. Where was it the old man went at night, when wind tore at the flimsy buildings built too high, and snow blanketed the city, silencing everything?

In the end, it wasn’t a growing boy needing a place to do homework that caused them to leave. It was needing a place to store his mechanics, as they were overflowing the pockets. Daedalus was smart, and got a job with ease. The problem had never been his education, it was that he’d had no motivation.

Perhaps Icarus was a gift sent to teach him to care, to try for something. Daedalus was clever, in an outdated, steam and machinery sort of way. If it wasn’t for his heavy Spanish accent and lack of charisma, he might have been a successful businessman in another life.

A small studio in the slums of Brooklyn, up two flights of stairs and an off-putting landlord, could be bought from a few years of hard work. Some distant uncle loaned them enough to pay a year, and they moved in a blur of tears and tantrums. Icarus was just a clumsy boy then, angry at his father and at the world. He’d been more a part of the shelter than his father, who was aggressively introverted.

The door stuck, and the fastidious lock had been broken long before. Muffled shouting could be heard from all walls, until it wasn’t noticed, just a part of the home. They adapted, bought a heavy bolt.

When Daedalus was as old as Icarus, he’d planned to to be an inventor. Still did, but life kept getting in the way. Daedalus tinkered with microwaves, had a spare room full of broken gears. Nothing that would pay the bills. Such great potential, according to his grade school teacher. Where had all that potential gotten him? Stuck behind a desk.

present

Icarus comes home late, and when the front door finally screeches open, he smells of smoke and gasoline. Daedalus starts awake, lifting his head from the low table where he’s sat for hours. The movement causes the bills and crumpled documents piled around his head to flutter. An envelope falls to Icarus’s feet.

“You didn’t have to wait up.” Cue the head tilt. “What’re you doing?” He picks up the envelope, carefully, so the wax doesn’t burn his fingers.  

Daedalus gestures for the envelope, plucking it from his nephew’s fingers. “Making sure you got home safely. How’s that girl you like, Maya?”

Icarus peels off the ratty coat carefully, like it’s a second skin. “I expect Maya will be much better, now she’s rid of me.” He grimaces, shrugging a pair of knobbly shoulders.

Daedalus starts to speak, pauses, and looks away. Daedalus is considerably better with machines than people.

Icarus yawns, a dramatic air in the way he throws his coat onto the chair. “I’m exhausted!” He fills a space that was somehow empty, with pearly whites and laughter. Muddy boots thrown in a pile, grabbing a milk carton and slugging. It spills; he’s so absurdly messy that Daedalus just rolls a pair of tired eyes. It’s too late to stop the fond expression creeping on his face.

“Maybe you should’ve come home before twelve then?”

Icarus shrugs, swinging the fridge door shut with a bang. “I lost track of time?”

He’s always losing things these days. His gloves, test results, headphones. Daedalus blames it on puberty, a phase, not to be confused with what happened to his mother. Thank every god Icarus only inherited a mild iron deficiency from her.

If a small part of Daedalus fears that his son will follow her drunken footsteps, the way she left one summer night and didn’t return, well he doesn’t show it. If he sits at that worn table every night until Icarus comes home, well it’s only because he likes to work there. No, Daedalus didn’t wait up, he was just about to go to bed, was Icarus gone? Perhaps he hadn’t even noticed. The lies slipped out his mouth every night, sounding dry, leaving a bitter taste.

Icarus looked at him for the first time, still looking pleased at some inside joke. He had many of those, causing him to burst into laughter or beam throughout the day.

“Go to bed, dad,” he teases, throwing the words off his shoulder. “You look old.” There’s a furrow in his brow; it looks out of place. A small moment of melancholy, this fleeting concern for his parent.

“I feel old,” Daedalus grumbles, blinking at the taxes, hoping they’ll disappear.

A chuckle is all he gets in response, then the closing of a doorway. The clock reads 12:32, and Icarus has to leave for school at six. One hour later, Daedalus takes the subway to his job, an accountant in the city. He hates every second of it, but hates letting down his family more.

Icarus drives a battered Prius to school; he got his permit last year. The boy drives fast, without a seatbelt or a care in the world. Daedalus cares, he cares an awful lot. Watching his son pull away and almost hit the curb, every morning without fail, is no easy task.

Daedalus can hardly remember the days before he was a father, before every choice was made by asking, how will this impact Icarus? Those days were gone, fleeting memories of a house in the west, and a back that didn’t ache. Of gazing up at an ethereal, burning sun that seemed to never set back then, and thinking it seemed a whole lot closer than the woman beside him.

Something slams across the dingy hall, and he rises with a groan to investigate. The door of Icarus’s room is covered in dents, a metallic sign warning intruders to keep out!  Daedalus opens it quietly, peering in.

The miniscule brick-walled bedroom is shadowed, the only light coming through the window surveying the fire escape, which is open. The faint sounds of city life trickle in, shouts from some party on a nearby roof. Frigid night air makes Daedalus blink, but it doesn’t seem to bother his son.

Icarus sits in his bed, leaning out, chin propped up on one hand. The other tempt a pigeon with a cracker, who pecks cautiously. In the silhouette of the golden streetlights, his features are soft, the ghostly outline of a skinny boy. Icarus looks like he could float away with the next passing breeze, and Daedalus resists the urge to leap into action, pull him to safety.

The animal is supposed to be a secret, as if Daedalus hadn’t found the droppings all over his windowsill. It’s missing an eye and most feathers; it has to be the ugliest pigeon in the world, showed up last fall and has visited every day since. Icarus coos soft words at it, and the pigeon gargles back.

Daedalus must have bought at least a hundred cracker boxes for that dopey bird. It better not leave anytime soon.

He pulls his head back softly, treads away before making his footsteps loud, stomping up to the door again. The panicked sounds of a pigeon being pushed off a fire escape make him grin.

“Icarus?”

“Come in!”
Daedalus opens the door to find Icarus tucked in bed, innocently stretching his arms. “I was almost asleep!”

“Sorry kid.” He looks pointedly at the open window. “I’d shut that.”

Icarus laughs nervously, pulling the cracked screen down. “G’night, love you, sweet dreams.”

“Love you too,” Daedalus pulls the door shut with a yawn.

The small apartment is soon quiet, both inhabitants tucked in bed. One sleeps with a smile, the other’s bones ache terribly. Night sounds wash over the New York landscape, broken only by the indignant cries of one bird.

days later

He’s never been one to explain, and when Icarus slams the fading front door at 2 a.m., he doesn’t. In a blind panic, Daedalus scrambles to stop his son from escaping into the bathroom. Icarus looks askance at him, all drooping eyes and hanging sleeves.

“I need to use the bathroom, dad. Mind moving?” Icarus quips. A cigarette winks at Daedalus from between the Icarus’s fingers and he glares at it.

“I- where have you been?” The sentence sound feeble, crawling off his mouth.

“Where have I been? Where do I begin?” He yells, swinging around. Icarus is smiling, but it’s a manic sort of smile. “All over the city!”
“You can’t drive that junked up car this late,” Daedalus’s voice grows louder with every word. It doesn’t seem fair that he should love such a reckless, irresponsible child so much. “You can’t skip school for a smoke, and you can’t seem to get it through your head-”

“Where have you been?” The boy cuts in, and in the light of a cloudy lamp at 2 a.m., his cheeks look hollow and edged, as if someone sharpened them with a knife.

“Waiting for you,” Daedalus is weary of playing the same game every night, not knowing the rules and never winning.

Icarus scoffs, looking around the dim lit hallway as if searching for the right response. “I’ve never asked you to do that!” As if hitting the maximum of emotion he could show, the next words are softer. “I mean, dad, just get a life.”

He pushes past Daedalus, and Daedalus lets him, motionless. The door slams, ending his last chance at reconciling. You are my life, he wants to admit, but the words get stuck a little past his throat.

consequently

The officers comes at midnight. Daedalus was sitting at the same table he’d been every sunset before, waiting for his zealous son to burst in, vague about where he’d been and was going. Daedalus had a mental handful of notecards, I’m sorry’s and I love you’s written in the wrinkles across his brow.

Instead, the thud of knuckles rapping on the door. Later, he would remember thinking it was strange, and preparing to tease Icarus about losing his key. Unlocking the bolt, Daedalus chuckled, shaking his head.

The policewoman has eyes like his son, matching her uniform. Beside her, a somber man with dark attire and low-lidded eyes. Some instinct in the recesses of his mind warns to close the door, that there can be no good news here. Daedalus ignores it, inviting them in, would they like something to drink?

The man speaks in short bursts, as if losing momentum between each sentence. Starts to tell Daedalus how tragic it all is, how there’s no easy way to say this. Daedalus is inexplainably furious then, wants them out of his house. “Don’t say it then.”

The pair keeps talking and the terrible feeling grows in Daedalus’s gut, until he’s certain they’ve come to tell him he’s dying, that could be the only explanation for this crippling sense of loss. He wishes wholeheartedly for this to be the case, and Daedalus hasn’t prayed for many years, but he prays now. A mantra repeats in his head, a steady stream of please, please, please, no, no no.

For the first time, Daedalus wishes he wasn’t so clever. He doesn’t want to know.

“I bid you to wait, my son Icarus will be home soon, and this must concern him too.” Daedalus stutters, rising from the chair and stepping back, repelled by the somber glances they’re emitting.

They convince him to sit back down, and against the old man’s will, begin to speak. Daedalus keeps his eyes on the door, begging Icarus to walk in, raise eyebrows at the scene. His prayers go unanswered.

Wrapped in apologies and condolences, a story comes out. The roads were poor, the weather was worse, black ice covered the streets in a sickly sheen. Icarus had gone driving as Icarus loved to do, down to Manhattan, perhaps in pursuit of that girl, Maya.

Daedalus cut them off, insisting there was a mistake, he’d scraped together some money for winter tires, to prevent this very sort of thing from happening.

But Icarus hadn’t been going the speed limit, or anywhere near it. It was near a blizzard out there, he couldn’t have seen ten feet in front of him. Icarus had started the ignition anyway, recklessly driven the tiny Prius straight off the road.

Daedalus felt as if it all happened at once. The crushing realization that this was no faraway child whose story he’d read about in the newspaper. This was his son, his loveable Icarus, his whole life.

It’s ripped from him with one patch of ice, leaving a gaping hole and a empty bed. It was quick, Icarus didn’t feel a thing, no that was left for Daedalus to do. He’d finally found something he was good at.

The tears come freely now, collecting at the bottom of his chin. The policewoman with a the blue-slate stare is expressionless, an unfeeling slab of rock.

The man speaks of investigations and reports, but Daedalus is far away, sees Icarus. He’s laughing in Central Park, surrounded by pigeons, or pedaling his old bicycle, “look Daedalus, no hands!” Icarus had once again flown too close to the sun, and would continue to do so, every life onward. But no matter how short, all of them were important.

9/12/01

Dear Diary,

Yesterday, the Taliban crashed 4 planes, that killed thousands of innocent people and themselves. It was the worst attack on American soil, they say. it devastated thousands of people, including me.

Both my parents worked in the twin towers. They were there when the planes crashed, when the towers came crashing down to the ground, the the buildings crashed down, toppled on to my parents, and killed them.

I didn’t know what had happened at first, but everyone was telling me, “I’m so sorry,” "Everything's going to be okay,” “I know you can get through this,” and everyone was crying, or about to cry. I was so confused about what had happened, then someone finally told me. I couldn’t believe it, my parents were dead.

Leaving me an orphan. I’m one of those kids who’s parents are both dead. I now have to be one of those kids, who live with their aunt and uncle.

I don’t want to be one of those kids, but I don’t have a choice.

Bye,

Carter Wilson

9/11/02

Dear Diary,

It has been a year. One year since I moved into this house. One year since my parents died. One year since I became an orphan. One year since my life had changed.

Today was the one year anniversary of my parents death. It’s also the one year anniversary of 9/11.

Everybody today at school kept telling me “Everythings going to be okay,” but they're wrong. Everything isn’t going to be okay. I’m still going to be the girl who lives with her aunt and uncle, not her parents. I’m still going to be the girl whose parents are dead. It’s not going to be okay. I’ll never be like everyone else, who live with their parents, because my parents are dead.

Bye,

Carter Wilson

9/11/03

Dear Diary,

I have delt with my parents death for two years. I have been dealing with their death for two years, today. I have been living in this torture chamber for two years. Two years too long.

I should be living in my old house, not this cruddy one. I should be living with my parents, not with my aunt and uncle. I should be living a normal everyday life, not this one.

September 11th is the one day a year, where I can’t pretend that I live a normal life. I would do anything for a normal life, having both my parents, living in my old house, and enjoying life the way I used to.

Bye,

Carter Wilson

9/11/04

Dear Diary,

Today is the three year anniversary of my parents death. I have been an orphan for three years. I have been living this life that no one understands for three years.

Everyone has no idea what my life is like. They all live with there parents, I don’t. They have both parents living, I don’t. I have to deal with the fact that my parents are dead, and theirs aren’t.

I even live with people who don’t understand. My cousins have both their parents living and I’m constantly remind that I don’t. They try and make me feel better by saying “it’s okay,” “Everythings going to be okay,” “You don’t have to be so strong,” but I know they really don’t care.

This is the first year that September 11th isn’t on a school day.  I’m super glad, I didn’t have to go to school and be surrounded by people who don’t understand.

Bye,

Carter Wilson

9/11/05

Dear Diary,

Today is the four year mark.  Four years ago, my life completely changed. I lost both of my parents with no goodbye, with no warning, for no reason. They didn’t do anything, all they did was go to work. Because they went to work that day, I became an orphan. All they did was go to work. That’s all it took to change my life.

This year September 11th, was on a sunday. That’s means I didn’t have to go to school and face all those people who act like they care. They try to  cheer me up, by saying “it’s okay to be upset,” and “Everythings going to be okay,” but they’re only doing it, so, they don't having my negative energy rubbing off on them. They think it’s so easy to get over the loss of your parents, but it’s not.

I’m not looking forward to next year, because it will be on a Monday. Which means I have to go to school.

Bye,

Carter Wilson

9/11/06

Dear Diary,

Today is the five year anniversary of many things. It’s the five year anniversary of the crash of four planes. It’s the five year anniversary of 9/11. It’s the five year anniversary of my parents death. It’s the five year anniversary of the day, I became  an orphan.

I’ve noticed over the years, there’s less “Everythings going to be okay,” on this day. That’s how I want it. I want people to stop acting like they care. When I know they don’t.

This year September 11th, was back on a school day. I realized, that I like it better when, it’s on a school day, because I’m not alone. I’m surrounded by people, which helps me act like I’m okay even though I’m not.

Sincerely,

Carter Wilson

9/11/07

Dear Diary,

The past six years have gone by so slowly. Six years of no one understanding me. Six years of everyone pretending to care, well, almost everyone.

This past year is the first year I wasn’t the loner girl of the school, since my parents died. This past year I went from being the loner girl of the school, to being one of the “nerds” in the school. Being a “nerd” isn’t all that bad, because at least I have friends. Okay one friend, but it’s not like I have no friends. Like I used too.

This year to try to cheer me up, my best friend, Sara and I went shopping. She kept saying “Shopping is very therapeutic.” I don’t think so, but there was no harm in letting her think that.

Sincerely,

Carter Wilson

9/11/08

Dear Diary,

Today is the seven year anniversary of the day four planes crashed. One  in the Pentagon, another in a field in Pennsylvania, the last two crashed into the twin towers, where my parents worked.

To get my mind off my parents death, Sara threw a party for me. There were a lot of older guys who showed up for the party, not me. They brought a bunch of beer. I got into trouble for all the drunk dudes being around and for the fact they were all under aged drinking. I wasn’t drinking, even though Sara kept telling me “Have fun and drink a little.” I got into trouble, because it was my party, they all got drunk at.

Thanks to all those random guys, I’m now grounded for two weeks.

Sincerely,

Carter Wilson

9/11/09

Dear Diary,

It’s been eight years since my parents died. Eight years doesn’t seem that long ago. Eight years is 2,922 days, 70,128 hours, 4,207,680 minutes, 252,460,800 seconds. To me that doesn’t seem that long, but eight years is pretty long.

This year, instead of throwing me a party that’s going to get me into trouble, Sara and I hung out. It was much better than last year because I didn’t get into any trouble. Instead I got extra brownie points by including my little cousins. Even though they have no idea what’s going on in my life, they wreck my stuff, and act just like siblings, towards me, they’re still my cousins.

At school was great. No one treated me like a charity case this year. It was like I was normal again. Since 2000, this was the best September 11th.

Sincerely,

Carter Wilson

9/11/10

Dear Diary,

The nine year anniversary of 9/11, when my parents died is today. Nine years of living without my parents. That’s about half of my life.

This year, my boyfriend, Darren took me out on a date. He took me to this really expensive restaurant. After we went to an open field near the woods and looked at the stars. It was a really simple date, but he made it special, by doing it all for me.

When I got home from my date, my cousins surprised me by having a little family party, that included Sara. They also made me a cake for dessert. It was dorky, but it’s the thought that counts, and Sara wouldn’t judge.

Sincerely,

Carter Wilson

9/11/11

Dear Diary,

The ten year anniversary is today of many things. 9/11. My parents death. Me becoming an orphan. Me moving into this house.

I heard that they are almost done with the memorial for the victims of 9/11. I saw plans for it, it looks really cool. I think it’s a great way to remember the victims of 9/11.

I looked back at some of my old diary entries from previous years and I can’t believe how clueless I was, when I was younger. I mean, I should have been upset. I was eight years old, when I lost my parents. I just can’t believe some of those things I thought. I thought I wasn't going to be okay, because I wasn’t normal. I’m not normal, because I’m an orphan, because both my parents are dead, but I’m not the only one.

I was so wrong. No ones normal. We are all different. No ones the same. I can see why eight year old me thought that, but eight year old me was wrong.

This year I get to live the life of a college student. I’m a Freshman at Michigan State University. Sparty hardy! I went to school out in Michigan, because no one knows what September 11th means to me. They don’t have to feel bad for me. They know me for me, not the girls whose parents  died ten years ago.

Sincerely,

Carter Wilson

“Turn left onto Moon Road,” the GPS voice said.

“Left?” my father asked. “Why is it telling us to turn left? You can only turn right here.”

“Turn left onto Moon Road,” the GPS repeated.

“Maybe the thing’s broken,” my mother suggested.

“Wait, Mom, you can turn left,” my brother Jim said. “See? It’s a dirt road. It’s just hard to see.”

“Are you sure?” Mom asked.

“Ugh,” I groaned. “At this rate, we’ll never get to the lake.”

“Don’t worry, Izz,” my dad assured, using my nickname for Isabella. “We’ll manage.”

It was a sunny, Sunday afternoon in mid-August, and we were on our way up north to a little town by Lake Hudson. It was the annual family road trip we looked forward to every year, but this year it wasn’t starting out so well.

My brother was always a Mr. Know-It-All. He had straight A’s in his classes, and wasn’t modest about it. He had dark brown hair like our mom, our dad, and myself. It was long and shaggy and he wore these thin brown glasses that he thought made him look so intelligent.

I, on the other hand, looked completely different. While we both had long brown hair, brown eyes, and skinny, bony bodies, that’s where the resemblance stopped. In my opinion, I looked more modern and presentable. I always wore clean-cut blouses and pleated skirts. I didn’t do too bad in school, but A’s were about as rare as D’s and E’s, and if I ever did get an A, I didn’t brag about it to the whole family.

I’m pretty sure that while we were riding in the car, Mom and Dad were completely oblivious to Jim scrawling out math equations on his sneakers. I rolled my eyes and took out my iPod to listen to music. I wasn’t allowed to have a phone. Jim was, but he never even used it. Such a waste.

We traveled along the mysterious dirt road as Katy Perry songs flowed through my earbuds. We never took this way before, and it was also our first time using this new GPS Dad bought last Christmas. There were very few houses along the roads, mostly dead crops and abandoned farms, the barns burnt up and the silos all rusty.

I don’t know why, but machinery and scary metal things always creeped me out. Especially rusty farm equipment. I think it’s just from all the horror movies I’ve seen and the few scary books I’ve read where things go wrong with the machine and someone ends up hurt.

I knew it was just a road trip, though. And nothing could go wrong if we just stayed in the car, right?

~~~

Thump. Boom. Clink-clink. Sizzle. Blrsssst.

“Uh-oh,” my mother’s voice squealed.

I lifted my head up from where it was resting on the door.

“What was that?” I asked.

“Sounds like the engine combusted,” my father grumbled, opening his car door and stepping out.

“I’ll help you take a look at it, Dad.” Jim followed after him.

Great. the last thing we needed right now was for our suburban to break down in the middle of nowhere. It was probably that stupid GPS’s fault. Dad wasted like three hundred dollars on that thing because “ it was a good deal”. Please. The sales clerk was probably just telling him that so he would buy it, because nobody else wanted that crappy GPS.

I heard Dad and Jim’s voices outside, Jim using all these fancy technical terms like he knew anything about cars. Luckily, Dad knew some basic stuff and was able to figure out what was wrong.

“Well,” he muttered when he poked his head into the car. “Looks like the engine isn’t working.”

Oh, wow. Really?

“I’m gonna try to fix it,” he continued. “Anybody have a phone?”

“No,” I glared pointedly at him, because it was his fault that I didn’t have a phone.

“I didn’t bring mine either,” Jim added. Of course he didn’t.

“I’m not getting any service out here, hon,” Mom sighed.

“Isabella, Jim, why don’t you two go see if anybody’s home up on that farm house down the road to call for a tow or something?” Dad asked.

I looked at Jim, and he looked at me. We both groaned.

“Here, take this flashlight, my pocketknife, some Lifesavers-”

“Lifesavers?”

“I don’t know! Here, take this, and go look for help!”

Jim and I stepped out of the car, Jim carrying the supplies and I slamming the car door as hard as I could in exaggeration.

“I’m sure if I could just get my hands on a calculator I could figure out how to reconstruct the wiring system-”Jim started.

“Come on,” I pleaded. “Let’s just go.”

We headed south down the dirt road, called Moon, leaving Mom and Dad behind to work on the car. We stopped in front of house with the numbers “395” on the rusty old mailbox.

“I don’t think people still live here,” Jim stated as we neared the pathway that lead toward the house. “It seems abandoned.”

The house was white with a grey-shingled roof and grey shutters, very old-fashioned in a farm-house way. The wood door had red paint peeling off and showing the original brown color of the wood. Toys and children’s things were strung around the front yard, a swingset here and some toy monster trucks there. We could see further beyond the house there was a shed, and then a barn, and then all the farming equipment. It looked like they owned about fifty acres of land, and all the crops had withered away and died.

We stepped up to the front door and Jim’s hand wrapped around the knob.

“Wait!” I whispered, reaching out to stop him. “Shouldn’t we knock?”

“No,” he said flatly is his little know-it-all way, as if I was a foolish toddler suggesting we play with their sandbox. “Obviously no one is living here anymore. And we don’t need to whisper. Why are you whispering?”

“Oh. I… I don’t know,” I shook my head. It’s not like we were robbing them, right? We just wanted to borrow their phone to call for help.

Jim rolled his eyes at me, and went to turn the knob but it didn’t move. He shoved against the door but it didn’t budge.

“It’s locked,” he said.

“No, really?” I asked sarcastically.

“Let’s check the back.”

“Check the back for what?”

“For a door, Izz. Hopefully an unlocked one.”

I followed Jim around the side of the house to the back yard, which was enclosed in a rusty metal fence. The gate swung open easily but made a screeching noise.

“Yikes,” Jim muttered. We stepped into the backyard and went to the screen door. A heap of red, slimy mush lay beside the stone pathway. I gasped.

“Gross! I almost stepped in it,” I whined. “What is that?”

“Looks like roadkill,” Jim offered.

“Why is it in a big pile back here?”

“Maybe they eat it.”

“Gross, Jim! Uh, it smells too.”

As we stepped in through the back door I eyed the heap suspiciously. It was definitely carcauses, but not necessarily animal. I couldn’t really see any fur, but then again, it was so mutilated it didn’t look like much of anything. I shuddered at the thought.

There was a mini entryway where we first walked in, which led into a combined dining room/kitchen area, where a cord phone hung on the wall.

“There, Jim,” I pointed at the phone. “See if that still works.”

He picked up the phone and listened for a dial tone.

“Yeah,” he nodded. “It does. Who should I call?”

“Um, 911, obviously!” I cried.

“Izz, this isn’t an emergency,” he muttered as he turned back to the phone.

“It is to me,” I frowned, walking away to explore the rest of the house while Jim contacted different people.

“Where’re you going?” he hissed.

“Upstairs,” I hissed back.

“Isab-” he started to call after me, but I ignored him.

Upstairs, there were two bedrooms and one master, so I guess the people who used to live here had kids. The odd thing was, everything was still furnished. The beds had covers laying upon them, and the floors were a bit untidy with clothes, toys, and books. It didn’t seem as if they had moved out. It didn’t even seem like they were on vacation, because everything was covered in a layer of dust. It seemed like they just…

“Disappeared!” I heard Jim’s voice from back downstairs. “The flashlight, Dad’s pocket knife, the Lifesavers- they just disappeared!” I ran down to see what was happening.

“Jim, what’s wrong?” I asked.

“I lost all the stuff Dad gave us,” he replied. “And it’s getting dark.”

“It’s fine, we should be heading back to the car anyways. Did you contact anyone?”

“Nobody we know personally answered. But I found a phone book and called the nearest gas station, which is at least twenty miles away.”

“What did they say?”

“The guy said he would do what he could, send someone down here, but….”

“But what?”

“Well, I told him the address of the house….”

“Yeah?”

“And he said….weird  things have been happening here.”

“Weird things?”

Jim looked away, and then down at the phonebook.

“You know what?” he said. “I’ll just call a tow service, ok?”

“But Jim, what kind of weird-”

“Just forget it, okay?’

“Do you think this place is haunted?”

“I said forget it, we’re getting out of here.” He turned completely away from me and picked up the phone again, dialing a number for tow service he found in the book. I walked towards the front foyer, where pictures and decorations lined a mantel where you first walked in.

I could barely hear Jim’s voice on the phone now that we were on opposite sides of the house. I handled one of the pictures from the mantel that was in a dark wooden frame. It showed the whole family, a handsome father, a beautiful mother, a daughter about my age and a younger boy, somewhere in the toddler years. Something was off about the picture, like they were pretending to be happy but they weren’t. Like they were hiding a dark secret that cost their life if they told.

Freaked out, I sat the picture back down, and looked out the window to see a tow truck only about a mile down the road, coming our way.

“Jim!” I called for my brother excitedly. “Jim, a truck’s here, come on let’s go!”

I heard a loud bang, and then I rushed into the kitchen area.

“Jim?” my voice cracked. I looked around the kitchen, he was nowhere to be seen. All there was was just a splotch of blood on the kitchen counter, and the phone hanging off the wall, swinging by the cord.

I ran out into the backyard.

“JIM?!” I screamed. “Jim, this isn’t funny! Please, where are you?”

My eyes scanned the fenced-in area, but I didn’t see anything. All I noticed was the bloody heap seemed a little bigger than it was last time, and beside it was a white Nike with “2x -5= -45” on it.

~~~

I returned back to the car, where my parents, a tow truck driver, and a car mechanic were waiting. I didn’t even realize I was crying until my mother asked me why I was so upset.

“Jim…” I started. “He…”

“I know,” the driver said, and we all turned to look at him. “He’s gone. Just ‘disappeared’, right? Like the family that used to live there, and anyone who’s visited since.”

“You know?” I asked, surprised.

“I used to think it was a legend,” he replied. “But it turns out to be true. Something about that house… weird things… You’re lucky to be alive.”

“Yeah, I guess,” I sighed, climbing back into the car.

“Well,” the mechanic said. “Looks like you guys are all set to go.”

“Thanks,” my mother smiled.

“We really appreciate it,” my father added.

The tow truck guys and the mechanic left, and we all buckled up in the car. I found a green Lifesaver sticking to my seat.

“If only a Lifesaver could’ve saved Jim,” I thought, as I traveled with my family up north, now as an only child.