Prologue

All I really remember was that it was a brutally cold, windy evening, sometime in early December. There may have even been a snowstorm that night; I can’t really recall. My memory from that night is slightly blurry, mostly because I blocked most of it out, unintentionally. That night was just so intense and made such a drastic impact on my life that I decided I’d rather not remember exactly how it all went down. I do, though, remember most of the details from before I left. Those details are much harder to push out of my memory.

I was sixteen. My birthday was just over a month away. I couldn’t wait to turn seventeen, mostly because it just seemed so much older than being sixteen. I’d heard too many times from my parents that I couldn’t do things because I was only sixteen. I was too young. But seventeen, well, that was different. At least that’s how I thought it would be. It didn’t exactly turn out the way I planned though. Nothing did.

My little sister Cassandra was six years old. She had just turned six, too. And she loved being six. She was amazing. She could always make me smile, always. Even when I was having all of my sixteen-year-old freak outs, she was always there to give me a silly face or something. And she loved making me laugh. I knew that when I left, Cassandra was the only thing I was going to miss. And I wished to God that I could have taken her with me. I should have. But I was only sixteen.

The afternoon of the day it all happened, I had come home early from school. My stomach had been feeling weird all morning, and when I almost puked my lunch all over my best friend, Ashley, he brought me to the nurse’s office himself. The nurse called my house, and when no one answered, she called my mother at work. My mother told the nurse I could walk home. So I did. What I didn’t know then was why my stomach had been feeling weird. I didn’t know what was to come. When I got home, I saw that a white pick-up truck was parked on the road in from of our house. I didn’t recognize the truck, but didn’t really think anything of it. Why would I? But when I went to unlock the front door with my key, it was already open. Confused, I went in to find the front hall completely torn apart, everything thrown to the floor and nothing was as it should have been. I was scared, but knew that I had to get to the phone and call 911. I didn’t make it that far. A man that I didn’t recognize stopped me in the living room. He didn’t look like a serial killer or anything. He looked like an average man in his mid-thirties. He didn’t have a weapon. He didn’t even look mean. He looked terrified. He hadn’t been expecting anyone to be home, or come home, obviously. I figured he was a burglar. He wasn’t. The man didn’t say anything to me except his continuous begging that I didn’t call the police. I, with my hands shaking, told him he should leave. He left, but not before begging me again not to call the police.

After he was long gone, I picked up the phone and called my mother at her office at work. She asked if I was feeling any better. I told her I was fine. And that I had come home and there was a man in the house. A man who drove a white pick-up truck. To my amazement, she didn’t seem as surprised as she should have been. She didn’t even seem frightened. She just told me to lock the doors and stay in the house, and not to call the police. Then she hung up the phone.

My dad came home from work around three o’clock, with Cassandra in tow. I had attempted to clean up the mess in the front hall, but I was pretty freaked out and still wasn’t feeling good and so I did a very half-ass job. My dad immediately asked questions. Lots of them. I told him what I knew, mentioning the man and the white truck, and even my mother’s reaction to this. And my dad didn’t seem as surprised as he should have been, either. I didn’t understand. I was only sixteen. And poor Cassandra was only six.

My mother didn’t get home until seven o’clock, two hours later than she usually arrived home. I knew just by that that something was going on. Something was seriously wrong. But I had to pretend that everything was fine, for my little sister. We had already eaten dinner by the time my mother got home, so I took Cassandra upstairs to her bedroom right away. I didn’t know what was going to happen, but I knew I didn’t want my sister to see it.

After at least an hour of screaming and yelling and fighting, which I attempted to not let Cassandra hear, although I’m sure she did, it all stopped. I could no longer hear my dad’s voice, loud and angry, asking why she had done it, why she wanted to ruin our family. I couldn’t hear my mother’s scared voice, crying, telling him she was sorry. I didn’t hear anything. And it terrified me. And then I heard the gunshot. I had no idea that something like that would happen. But I knew my dad’s temper; I had even inherited it from him. So I should have known. But how could I have? After I heard it, I told Cassandra to stay in her room and not move. I told her everything was fine, and that I would be right back. I knew I was lying to her, and I hated myself for it. I went downstairs and found my mother lying in a pool of her own blood, a gunshot wound in her chest. Before I did anything, I went to look out the front window. My dad’s car was gone. And then I saw the note.

Lily. The ambulance is on its way. I’m so sorry. Tell Cassandra I love her. I love you so much. Dad.

It was simple and straight forward. Just like my dad had always been with me. But now I hated him for it. I looked back down at my mother then, and knew she was going to die. She was still alive, but barely breathing and her eyes were closed. There was just too much blood. It was too close to her heart. And suddenly it all made sense. And all I could think about was that she deserved this. And then I knew I had to leave.

I should have gone back upstairs for Cassandra. I should have grabbed her and put on her coat and hat and mittens and boots and told her we were leaving, going far, far away and we weren’t going to see mommy or daddy anymore. I wanted to do it. But I knew they would find us. They would find us and they would take her away from me anyway. And that would be worse than this was going to be. And so I just put on my shoes and grabbed a sweater from the front closet and left the house. I could hear the ambulance’s sirens in the distance. They were coming for my mother. But it was too late. Too late for her and for me. She was already gone, and so was I.