The sounds of my mom’s cries, so high and ear piercing, swept throughout my entire house. I hid in the corner of the kitchen, ear pressed forcefully against the freezing wallpaper.

            “I just don’t know how this could have happened!” my mother shrieked, “Sure, the salon wasn’t doing amazing, but did they actually have to-” she sobbed violently, “let me go like I was dirt?”

            My dad shushed her softly. I could picture him with one hand rubbing soothing circles around my mom’s back, the other gripping the form that ended his wife’s career. And his brown eyes enveloped with sympathy and hope for a miracle, a miracle he couldn’t even comprehend, a miracle my mom was too hysterical to even think about, and a miracle that my sister and I were too naïve to understand. My mom- a crazy, stubborn woman, who always had the tendency to be incredibly masochistic, was probably fighting with him to read the letter again, to just be completely sure that there were no mistakes. But I knew, my dad knew, and even she knew, that reading it again would only hurt her more.

            His voice was re*censored*uring when he spoke, but there was no denying the hint of panic that hid underneath. “Trisha, just relax. Take a deep breath….good. Now, I’m sure we can find someway-”

            My mom’s shrill voice overpowered his. “No, Robert! No! This just…. With the money…” she paused for a moment. “The money. Jacqueline going to college soon and we have to take care of Emma. I just think; know, that we can’t go on like this.”

            It was silent, but I felt like so many things were being screamed. The rain pattered against the windows and ceiling, making quiet taps echo everywhere. They seemed like they hit in motion, one after another, in a line of planning, matching up the exact millisecond to take their chance and fall down, down, down.

            I don’t know how long it was- I felt like I stood against the wall for hours, playing the rain’s tune in my head- until my dad broke the silence. “We can doing this!” he seemed sure of himself. “Listen, the girls can get jobs, yeah! And, I could work extra hours, you could get a part-time job, preparing for a fulltime one, and we could have a garage sale! Trisha, don’t you see? This isn’t as horrible as you’re making it. We can make it through. Sure, it will be hard, but did anyone tell us it wouldn’t be? Did we expect a free ride to luxury?”

            I  peered into the family room. My mom was leaning against the corner of the wall, hands covering her face, knees wobbling. My dad had his arms pressed next to either side of her, leaning in slowly. She planted her hands on his chest and pushed him away. “Stop,” she whispered, agonized. “Stop trying to ‘Mr. Optimistic’. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get job now-a days? And for God’s sake, Robert! Emma and Jacqueline are just teenage girls, and sure they should get jobs, but for themselves. I want the money they earn to be for their cars, or their outings, or their lives. Not ours!”

My dad’s face turned dark all of a sudden, filled with an emotion I’ve never seen on him before. His voice was booming. “Why are you always such a downer, huh?” He stepped towards my mom, waving his hands around her face frantically. “Cant you, just for once, try to stop acting like such a darn baby and grow up?” He didn’t give her time to answer. “No! I am trying to be grateful, take what we have and make it good, and this is you, ‘oh it’s all over, Robert! We’re all gonna die!’”

“I am not like that, nor will I ever be! Is that honestly who you think I am?”

“Well right now I do,” he said, quieting down just a bit, as he paced back and forth around the room.

Again, no one spoke. The only sounds were the droplets of the rain steadying around outside, my dad’s heavy footsteps stomping, making the floor beneath me vibrate, and the quiet sobs escaping out of my mother’s lips as she struggled to shush them.

It all seemed to simple to me; my mom gets a job, I get a job, Emma holds back on the movies, my dad somehow manages to get a promotion, we all live happily every after, the end. Just how my dad had planned it, just how he saw everything in life; straight on, as if there was no such things as obstacles or changing directions, everything was set up in front of you, all you had to do was follow it. But my mom always thought things through. She saw life in the perspective that nothing was as it seemed, just because a door is unlocked doesn’t mean you should open it. And I always seemed to struggle with my sight on things, whether or not to go with your gut feeling or question your choices, or be spontaneous and open up to new experiences or avoid dangers and stick with what you know.

“Like a puzzle,” my dad had always told me, “put the pieces together, one step at a time.”

My mom was the one to speak again. “I just… I feel like I can’t do this.”

My dad looked at her suspiciously. “Notice how you say I? What does that mean?”

My mom walked towards the coffee table and began sweeping crumbs off of it with her hand, her red hair blocking out her face from me. But I didn’t need her face to know how she was feeling. Her hand shook and trembled against the stone and wood, light silvery splats of sweat planted on her palm. “I don’t know,” she mumbled to the magazines. “Everything just feels like it’s falling apart. And to be honest…. I’m not so sure how much longer I can hold on. Eventually, the girls are going to notice that we are burning in the dust-” 

“Wait, so now it’s we?” My dad said, mocking her bitterly. “No, no, no, this, this is you, Trisha. You are the one who made the mistakes. You are the one who put us all at risk. You are the one who is burning in the dust. And me? I’m the one who,” he slammed his hand against the wall, “has to work to the ground to keep us from falling apart!”

My mother cried hysterically, covering her face with her hands all over again. A sinking feeling overwhelmed my stomach, and something in the air felt different. Not unfamiliar, not empty, but almost as if someone had walked into my house without my parents or I noticing, grabbing a piece of the air and storing it away for themselves. It made it harder to breathe, like I was waiting helplessly for it to come back. I wondered if my dad or mom noticed it was gone, too. Or if the sinking feeling had snuck its way into their stomachs just like it had mine. But something must have hit them, because I barely had time to hide in the darkness of the cramped laundry room when my dad charged in the kitchen, throwing his wedding ring on the floor, and grabbed his jacket out of the coat closet.

“Where are you going?” my mom cried.

He looked at her icily, and sudden memories of him flashed through my mind, like a secret journal that was opened for the first time. I remembered a time when I was fourteen, and my dad took me, just me, zip lining across the woods in the Pochanoes. I could still feel the frigid waves of wind whip my hair in front of my face, sending creeps of shivers down my back. And how my whole body was numb, unable to move at the sight of the thirty-five foot drop I was going to go down on only a hook and a wire so thin it was barely visible through the crowded trees.

My dad, who was standing behind me, placed his hands on both my forearms and whispered softly in my ear. “Just hold on tight, baby girl. Just hold on like it’s the only thing keeping you alive.”

“I think it is, dad.” I laughed nervously. His hands seemed to do more than just warm my freezing skin; it felts as if that was all I needed, that he was the only thing keeping me alive. And when I watched him fall down the steel cable, skimming so fast and smoothly, I wanted nothing more than to just stand there, in the deadly cold and extreme winds, and watch him forever, listening to his crazy yells and screams echo farther and farther away into the distance.

Zip lining was one of those things- at least to me- where you can say “I’ve done it once, never doing it again”. My stomach, which had already been queasy from nerves, practically rose into my lungs at the feeling of being suspended and thrown down to near death. My eyes were sealed shut, I wish my ears could have been to block out my girly screams, and my head, well, I had no idea where that was at the moment.

“Robert, where are you going?” My mother asked again.

The ice got even colder. “Out.”

Unconsciously, I raised the camera that I accidentally brought out from my bedroom, and clicked without thought. The flash lasted about as long as my hope that my dad would turn back to my mom, and they would make up, putting everything back together again. But the fact that my dad didn’t even turn around to check what the mysterious flicker of light told me that he didn’t care. All he wanted was out. And when he slammed the front door shut, walking out the other side of it, I knew that he would not come back. That slam echoed across the entire house, filling the unbearable silence. And I knew was for so much more than escaping the house, or needing a break, or the pain my mother was feeling. It was to burst out of the future that stood before him; a future of bills that seemed to double in size, or stores that seemed to have turned their backs on him. So he left, and walked away, leaving only my mother on her knees, crying until her chest ached, my sister, who was at her friends house for a sleepover, to a terrible return home, and me, the girl that no one knew witnessed the end, standing in the portal of darkness, camera in hand, lost in her father’s picture.

My mom would not leave her room the next day. She was basically quiet, except for the low and trying to be hidden whimpers that would fight their way out of her lungs. When I did try to open her door, there was a part inside of me that kept yelling it wouldn’t be right. Seeing me, who had the same bright sea green eyes as my dad, same olive completion that Emma had always failed to have, and same thick lips, would do no more than bring back a flood of memories and drown her even more. She had always told me, during one of those moments where you didn’t quite know what to say, that my dad’s reflection hid deep underneath my eyes, and that when she saw them, it felt as if she understood everything about him. I never understood what my mom meant by that, but that was part of our relationship that was so special. Sometimes, it was just better to be left questioning.

With my mother seeming to have disappeared, I was left to give the news to Emma. She came home from her friend’s house, still in her white and red poko-dot sweat pants, dirty blonde hair thrown into a messy bun, smiling so much it broke my heart. Part of me didn’t want to tell her, just let her go on with her life as if nothing happened, but it was stupid. Within ten minutes, she would have heard my mom’s cries.

But it wasn’t even a minute later until her smiled faded away and was replaced with a frown of worry, and she slowly placed her sleeping bag and blanket on the floor. She stared at me for a moment, studying my face carefully, before she stepped forward and said in a low voice, “Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”

No words were spoken after that, we just stood there, on separate sides of the kitchen, searching each other’s faces for nothing in particular. In Emma’s, there was a sense of confusion and wonder, but also the knowledge that she always seemed to carry around with her.

“Jacqueline,” she said, her voice more urgent, “I know something’s wrong. What is it?”

I didn’t even realize the hot tears that were streaming down my face until it hit me that the sound of cries weren’t coming from my mom’s room. “Dad,” I whispered, as if just saying that would explain everything. “Dad.”

Emma walked towards me and placed her hand on my shoulder. “Dad what? Jacqueline, please tell me.”

“Left,” I choked out, grabbing her hand and walking over to the kitchen table. “Dad left us. He just walked away last night, out of nowhere, Emma! Mom lost her job, went into some insane depression, and now she won’t leave her room. I don’t know what to do!”

Emma put her elbows on the table, resting her head on the palms of her hands. Besides not having red hair, she looked exactly like my mom at the moment. I remember her sitting in that exact same chair, in that exact same position, over some sort of stress; whether it was work or family, or money or friends. But I couldn’t even remember once when my dad was the cause of the sores on her elbows.

“What do you mean?” She asked, her voice sounding slightly cracked with something. “This isn’t funny, it really isn’t.”

“I’m a horrible liar, Emma, and why would I lie about something like this? Mom and Dad, I guess, had a fight last night,” I paused, crossing my arms on the table and placing my head on them. I sounded muffled against my skin. “It was bad. It was really bad. And then, I woke up, and he wasn’t here, and mom was crying, her door locked. Emma, she never locks the door, never!”

Emma didn’t say anything to me. Instead, she got up, walked near my parent’s door- which was downstairs since we never knew what to do with that room. It was originally the playroom for the children who used to live here, but my sister and I were too old for playing board games and Barbie. So, my parents abandoned the tiny room that was supposed to be for them, made that a guest room, and took the one downstairs instead. But watching Emma press her ear against the door, listening carefully for any sound of movements, the past suddenly seemed so far away. Like my whole life, from needing stitches after I fell off my bike riding around the neighborhood when I was ten, to getting offered my first cigarette and being this close to saying yes because he was a hot guy three months ago, all seemed unreal. It was as if I watched them go by in a film, only catching the slightest glimpse of everything, and suddenly, my memory was beginning to spill out with my tears, leaving my remembrance blurry and unreadable.

Emma stood still for a second, listening one last time, before coming back towards me and slumping down in one of the kitchen chairs. She played with a bracelet on her wrist, pulling and tugging at the colorful beads than shined in the sunlight, which slid in from the open window next to the kitchen counter. I tried to read her face, slowly tilting my head down to get a better look, but the second I did she turned away. I wondered what she was thinking about that moment. But guessing never worked out right with Emma; she was too unpredictable, too much of a closed book.

My head shot up the second my sister spoke. “Well then,” she said in a voice I have never heard her use before. It sounded sour and almost bitter. She stopped playing with her beads and placed her hands firmly on her table. “I guess times are-a changing, aren’t they?”

“What?” I hissed loudly. “ ‘I guess times are-a changing?’ Emma, what does that even mean? Dad left, okay? Our whole lives are going to be shifted. Nothing can ever be the same. We can’t even pay the stupid bills! And all you have to say about that is times are-a changing?”

“What else is there to say, Jacqueline?” The kitchen suddenly felt smaller and more cramped, like the walls and counters were all pressing together in one huge force, trying to make the minimum amount of space for me to breathe. I was getting claustrophobic, and Emma’s voice was an exhilarating pounding in my head. “Let’s just die now so we won’t have to face the future? Really?”

“So you don’t even care that dad left? This is just an ordinary day for you, isn’t it? Oh wait, maybe it’s even better!”

I didn’t even see her hand. One minute, I was there, furious more than I had ever been, and the next, Emma’s palm swatted across my face as hard as my dad had slammed the door the night before.  And let me tell you, it hurt. My cheek burned where she slapped me, and I placed my hand on it, the firing sensation increasing more by my touch.

“Jacqueline,” Emma whispered softly, staring down at her hand like it would come and hit her too. “Oh, my god. I’m so sorry, I-”

But I didn’t let her finish. I stood up sharply to stand right in front of her, and, without any thought but revenge, placed both my hands on her shoulders and pushed her against the window. There was a loud crash from the force, and the flowerpot that fell on the tile and broke into a million pieces. I stood silently, staring at the dirt and diffused pedals, as if they would do something, or at least anything, to let me take it all back. It felt so strange, being there, physically fighting with my sister. This wasn’t my life, this wasn’t me, this wasn’t Emma. “Nothing can ever be the same,” I had just said. And I was right. When my dad left, he had taken a piece of every one of us, to keep to himself maybe, or maybe to just throw away. But whatever the reason, they were gone, lost in his future.

My parents’ door burst open, followed by my mother barging in, tears and shock covering her face. “What are you doing?” She screamed. “Jacqueline Ramussen, did you just push your sister?”

“No,” Emma said before I could answer honestly. “I tripped and fell. She was only trying to help.”

I stared at Emma, bewildered, my mouth in an O shape. She stared right back at me, shaking her head and mouthing “Your welcome”. My mom looked back and forth between us, seeming to decide whether or not to believe Emma. She ran a shaky hand through her messy red hair. “Well, okay, than. You two girls clean this up.” She turned around, slouching back into her room and closing the door softly. The only sound was when I exhaled sharply.

I was still staring at Emma as she bent down to clean up the flower mess. “Thanks?” It sounded more like a question.

“Don’t be,” She snapped. The dirt had gotten itself in the cracks between each tile, and Emma was sticking her fingernails in them, pulling in and out over and over again. I got on my knees to helped her, but she shoved me away. “The only reason I didn’t rat you out was because mom didn’t deserve any more problems. And us fighting would make her feel even worse. It wasn’t for you.” She turned away from me, glaring at her dirt-covered fingernails with disgust. She wiped them against her shirt, and I watched a few pieces of flower pedals fall onto her lap.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “It’s just… I can’t even explain it. I don’t know whether to feel angry or sad, and you just really pissed me off with your cool and calm reaction. Why did you just say ‘times are-a changing’? Is that really all you had to say?”

She stood up and leaned against the window, staring out at the Berring’s house next door. You could see, through one of their windows, Mrs. Berring cooking macaroni and cheese. She was smiling, swaying her hips, laughing at the mini T.V next to the stove, taste testing her food. She wore a white apron that her kids had gotten her for her birthday last month that said in big bold rainbow letters “Worlds Best Chef” with the chef crossed out, and beneath it, in sloppy scribbles, Mom was written. I wished I could have been over there, away from the emptiness of my house, feeling like I was welcomed, never having to hold my breath and wait for another disaster to take it away.

Emma’s face changed then. I don’t know how exactly, but it was like a mask had been ripped off of her and her expressions were left naked. She had no way to hide. “No,” she choked, “No. I don’t want to talk about it. All this emotional and getting towards your inner feelings aren’t for me. And I know you want to cry and tell me everything, and I’ll be willing to listen to you. But don’t expect any feedback.”

“No feedback?”

“None,” she was serious.

“You sure?”

She looked annoyed. “Yes.”

“So it’s a deal?” I asked.

Her eyebrows rose. “Deal?”

“Yes, deal,” I took my sister’s place, bending down on the floor to clean up the mess that was ultimately my fault. I resented the feeling when clumps of dirt get stuck in your fingernails. “Let’s just not talk about it, okay? Cause I don’t want to feel like the weak one who always has to cry while you just stand there and pretend to care.”

“Jacqueline-”

“Is it a deal or not?”

Emma sighed. I knew, that for once, I had won. “Fine,” she mumbled unwillingly, “It’s a deal.”

We did keep the deal, and it felt like my mom was in on it too.  I got a job at the local movie theater, where a couple of no-good “bad boys” were always hitting on me. They constantly would wrap their arms around my waste as they p*censored*ed me to get popcorn for an irritated customer, whistle every time I bent down to crab a package of Skittles on the bottom shelf of the candies, or just wink and try out useless pick up lines on me. I don’t even think they knew my name, I never talked to them, never gave in the slightest amount of interest. But did that stop them?

No.

Emma babysat Mrs. Berring’s four children when her and her husband would go to work. Mrs. Berring’s children hated going to daycare. I knew because every morning between Monday and Friday, at exactly 7:45,  I would find myself covering my ears with my pillow, tangled up in the sheets, doing anything to block out the youngsters shrilling screams. And every morning it would last exactly twenty minutes; and I could barely hear Mr. and Mrs. Berring soothing and shushing their kids, telling them gently to quiet down. After a few minutes of no success, they would harden their tones, using the all to familiar lay down the law voice that every kid has heard throughout their lives. Once it was over, I would try and try to fall back to sleep, but it was like the yelling and screaming was stuck inside my head; rattling around and growing louder, doing anything it could to put me in hell. Mrs. Berring was all too happy to accept the offer. I watched out the window as Emma walked over to their house, standing tall and proud, as if it ere and definite she would get the job. Mrs. Berring came out of her open garage in mud-covered overalls, her dark brown hair sticking up from its misshaped ponytail. She was holding a pair of yellow gloves, wiping them across her thighs over and over again. I watched her as she placed them underneath one of her arms and shook my sister’s hand. Emma bent one of her knees, and I watched her mouth move quickly, trying to catch anything she was saying. Mrs. Berring jumped up and down, threw her gloves on the concrete and hugged Emma as if she had just told her she would live forever. Emma hugged her back hesitantly, stepping back as soon as she could and waving to the children who were playing on the front lawn. Mrs. Berring and her shared a quick conversation before Emma walked back inside, putting her arm up and bending it down, mouthing “Cha-ching”.

My mother did nothing. She spent most of her time in her bedroom, crying occasionally or watching soap operas, and only came out for food. She didn’t eat dinner with us; I would come home every day from work at five and find a big bowl of pasta and Valqua sauce planted on the center of the table. One plate would be on one side of the table for me, another on the opposite side for Emma. I always wondered what I should have done; took my chance and talk to her, call a therapist, or at least knock on her bedroom door and say I’m home. But every time I placed my hand on the doorknob, it was as if it was on fire, burning up my entire hand and running down my skin. I’d pull back immediately and slam into the wall behind me, breathing rapidly and uncontrollably. I don’t know what it was that made me pull back; maybe it was the thought of seeing her face, seeing all the pain and agony once and for all; or maybe it was just as simple as what Emma was like, that I was too afraid of letting all my emotions go and finally opening up. But in the end, it didn’t really matter why I wouldn’t talk to her. Whatever the cause, it still ended up with same solution.

            No one ever spoke. Emma and I, on the days that we weren’t in our horrible moods, would exchange about one minute conversations. And those conversations usually only involved the simple “what’s up?” “How’s work?” and “can you p*censored* the Parn*censored*ian cheese?” There was never any talk about my mother or money; we usually kept to our thoughts for that. My dad never came up. It was as if there was a hidden picture between us and him, so tenebrous and vague, it seemed like it went on forever. And there was always a chance to step into that photo, to take a risk and melt into whatever lay head. But whenever it would come into view, something would stop me; a feeling that going through with something you don’t have any knowledge about would only make you fall deeper. Fall deeper into what I didn’t know. But sometimes, it was just safer to be left wondering.

            “Jacqueline?” Emma asked me one morning. She was doing the dishes; the sound of clinking plates the first thing I heard when I walked into the kitchen. It was raining- again- and Emma was still in her purple robe I had gotten for her in Christmas last year. She had her sleeves rolled up to her elbows, wrists and under hidden in the bubbles of the water.

            I was holding a laundry basket, doing my daily routine. Emma was in charge of dishes, vacuuming and mopping, and dusting three times a week, while I did the laundry, cleaned the bathrooms, and watered the plants. It all seemed so perfect, so organized, so unlike either of us. We were always the ones who made last minute plans, jumping from activity to activity, no schedule, no directions, no anything. Our instincts always seemed like enough to hold us up. But now, with so much to take care of, that wasn’t an option. Every second of our day, from waking up in the morning to brush our teeth, to turning off all the lights before we went to bed was printed out on The List posted on our refrigerator door. I don’t even understand why we still had it; Emma and I could name our exact location and activity, no hesitation, at any time without The List.

            I completely forgot Emma was even standing there, waiting for me to answer. “Yeah?”

            “Can we talk?” She took her hands out of the sink, wiping the water off them with a snowman dishtowel. Why it was there was a mystery. It was the beginning of summer. She leaned against the counter, staring past me and into the empty hallway, like she was waiting for some exhilarating action scene from a movie to suddenly appear there.

            “Talk?”

            She rolled her eyes and sighed, frustrated. “Yes, talk.  What, am I speaking some foreign language here? Or is having a conversation with me that horrible.”

            I placed the clothes filled laundry basket on the floor in front of me. It made a small thump when it hit the ground. “Neither,” I told her. “And talking to you isn’t horrible, Emms, and you know it.”

            “Really?” She sounded doubtful and outright bratty. It felt like she wanted me to slap her or something. But I wasn’t going to through that again. “Than why haven’t you?”

            “Why haven’t you talked to me?”

            She blinked twice. “I asked you first,” was her brilliant reply.

            “I asked you second.”

            “Exactly,” she snapped.

            “What does ‘exactly’ mean? Why haven’t you talked to me?”

            Emma slouched down on the floor against the counter, one knee propped up against her chest, the other stretching out in front of her. She didn’t look like a fifteen-year-old girl. Fifteen-year old girls worry about their hair, and boys, and trying to get into an R rated movie. They don’t worry about not speaking with their older, and should be more mature sisters, or their depressed mother, or trying to keep their family financially stable. It just wasn’t fair. Emma shouldn’t be doing this; she shouldn’t be running and running as fast she could to find herself only at the exact same place she had begun. She should be moving, flying past all her small problems with flying color. She should be focusing on how to win the race, not on how to get started at all.

“Look at us,” she whispered. “This isn’t how we used to be. We used to be so…. so…”

            “Inseparable?” I finished for her.

            “Exactly. And now, everything is falling apart. And it’s all dad’s fault,” The way she said dad made him sound like some disgusting fungus that grows in your food when you don’t eat it soon enough. I hated her for that, but let it go. “If he hadn’t left, none of this would be happening. If he would of just stayed, maybe we’d be making some real money and be able to afford a crappy pair of socks! I just can’t stand him! He is so horrible…”

            “Stop!” I yelled. Just mentioning my dad, just hearing all her resentful comments about him, made me feel like there was a hole in my heart, expanding more and more by each word. I could already see his face, blonde hair tucked underneath his favorite New York Giant’s Cap, green eyes teasing me with whatever prank he had up his sleeve, and his smile, that special crooked smile he only had for me. I remembered all the times I would see it; when he would wake me up in the morning at six o’clock even though it was Saturday, or when he forced me to go on Batman in Great Adventure even though roller coasters were my biggest fear. Every prank, every adventure, every moment between us.

            And my sister was blaming him. She was blaming the person I loved more than anyone in the world. And she didn’t even notice how much it hurt me.

            My hands were sweating. They always sweat when I got nervous, and I hated it. “Just stop talking about him that way,” I picked up the laundry basket again, my palms feeling burning hot and sticky against the plastic. “I can’t take this anymore. All of this, it’s just too much.”

            “And you think I’m on a joy ride, here?” Emma wasn’t looking for an answer. “No. This isn’t our fault, Jacqueline. It never has been, never will be. So we just have to stay on our toes and fight-”

            But I was already gone, turning my back on my sister and walking down the hallway. It felt so dark in there, so narrow and dead, and through my parents’ door I could hear a commercial for a new horror movie playing. Bang. A girl screaming. A whispering voice in the shadows. But then I realized that the whispering voice wasn’t only coming from the bedroom, it was coming from my head, chasing me, taunting me. It was a mixture of voices, all set in one. It sounded distant, like a dream that is barely out of your reach, but that only made it worse. I wanted to know what it was saying, wanted to know what it needed. Coming to an understanding that I never would, I tried to wipe it off as I walked towards the laundry room and shut the door. But unlike everything else in my life, it was there to stay.

sorry i wrote a lot, you don't have to read all of it

haha thank you!! your so nice! here's a piece of chapter two

Chapter 2

It was at that instant that I made my decision.

            It was about two o’clock in the morning; all my lights turned off, the only sound was the soft slurring of the vent. I was curled up in my bed, hiding underneath my covers as much as possible. It was freezing. The kind of freezing that seemed to go right past your clothes and skin, running its way up your bones, into your lungs, up towards your brain, then back down again. Emma’s room was on the other side of the hallway, and I could see her body, still as ice, under the covers. I could only make out the outlines of things in my room through the endless darkness; my nightstand, placed next to my bed, my fish tank from when I had my fish, Tetra, and the pictures on my Picture Wall, the photos plastered in an orderly manner. I tried to find one picture in particular; it was one of my entire family and I, in Captiva Island in Florida. We asked a tourist, I remembered, a young, slightly obese girl holding a baby boy, to take our picture. We stood on a dock with which seemed like hundreds of different boats surrounding us. My mother, in a very cheesy navy blue and white sailor hat, had each of her arms around Emma’s and mine waists. Our entire bodies were a burning red- my mother had bought a sunscreen of 20SPF instead of 30SPF- and we looked like “perfectly ripe tomatoes”, as Emma had put it. My dad, the daredevil that he was, stood near the end of the dock, leaning back, pressing his hands against the poles supporting the boats. The second the girl, Teresa I think her name was, snapped the picture, my father had lost his grip, sending him flying off the dock and into the warm blue water. The shot shows exactly when he started falling, his hands off the poles, and feet slightly above the ground, mouth in an “O” shape. His eyes basically bulged out of their sockets and his blonde hair was waving in the air, along with his Giants cap. It was so funny; everyone was bursting with laughter, faces redder than our skin, barely being able to breathe. My dad’s head popped out of the water, and he raised one hand and screamed. His cap floated helplessly in the water beside him.

            The rest of that vacation was what I now called our “Happy Times”. The times when we laughed and joked around with no worries. The times when everything was all right; our smiles were genuine and never forced, and our voices were never ending; there was always something to talk about. And I wished, for that split second I pictured that photo in my head, that it would somehow suck me up and take me away with it,  away from my home, away from the future, and bring me back to the past.

            I stilled myself as much I as possible when I heard soft footsteps coming down the hallway. It was my mother. She had her back to me, standing in Emma’s doorway, hands placed at her sides. Her hair was thrown into a ponytail and she was so careful with every step she took, like one off move and the ice beneath her would break, leaving her drowning in deadly cold water. She looked at Emma a minute longer, and I could have sworn I heard her say something, before she turned around and faced my room. The scene was mirrored. I couldn’t make out her facial ex
pression, but by the way she breathed slowly and carefully, I imagined that she was in some sort of pain. She did speak, her voice as soft as clouds, quieter than a whisper.

            “Sweet dreams, angel. I’ll see you when I wake up.”

            I got the double meaning.

More chapter 2 to come!!!

Double meaning?

I love it.

hey guys! sorry i took so long to update, but I had writer's block. You know, that evil little thing in your head that keeps you from writing well. It got to me, but I think my groove is back on. I'm not crazy about the writing itself in this part, but I'll post in anywhere. Here it is..... (posted down)

continued chapter2....

Hey guys!!! listen, if you can, can you read mrsmasonmusso's story "Three Piece Puzzle" and comment on it. We're like partners in crime here <3 But can you.... pleeze????? Haha, well anyway i dont really like the writing in this part of Ch. 2, but i'm posting it anyway. Not much dialogue, it mostly consists on Jacqueline's life before and things like that. So.... here you go "That's like... like.... 16 words and 2 commas! That's confusing!" lol

Our plan was set. Annabelle’s father, Matthew, took barely any re*censored*urance or convincing to buy me the first cl*censored* plane ticket to Marlington, California, dated July18th. He had always loved me for no reason at all, since the day Annabelle had introduced us. We were at their house, sitting near the pool in our baggy sweatpants and stained sweatshirts. It was the beginning of fall, and the cold air was refreshing compared to the exhilarating heat in the Cauroben’s house. Annabelle’s housekeeper, Martha, a barely under the status of elderly woman, with a plump body shape and tempered dark brown eyes, would do absolutely anything to escape the wrath of coldness. Matthew had come home from work with his briefcase in one hand and local newspaper in the other, wearing a rather looking expensive black work suit. Annabelle slid of her sungl*censored*es (She insisted we wore them. The day was cloudy and moist, but Annabelle has always complained about her eyes burning, even during the night.) And introduced us to each other. Actually, introducing would be a very big understatement; the way she did it was as if we were two contestants on a game show, saying our names, our relationship with her, even though that was quite obvious, and our likes and dislikes. Matthew’s favorite food was Taquitos, his favorite drink Semillon Wine, and his favorite activity was studying history. She did the same for me; my favorite food sausage egg and cheese tortilla wraps, drink, Peach Snapple, and favorite activity was photography. Matthew, which he insisted I called him, smiled genuinely like his daughter, laughing and making casual conversation with me like I was some good old friend he bumped into at the grocery store. He was a nice man, neat and organized, formal and established, but still friendly. We spent over an hour talking, the three of us, I couldn’t remember about what exactly, but ever since then, Matthew Cauroben has treated me like complete gold, as if I were the most precious thing in the world.

They bought the plane ticket on Expedia, which was known to be the cheapest. I got the e-mail for confirmation three days later, pages and pages of facts that I didn’t pay attention to about the flight, and what rules and regulations they had. On the very bottom of the page there was a six-coded ID that I needed to bring for the flight. I copied the ID onto Microsoft word and printed it out while Emma was at work. It was stored secretly in my pillowcase, a place that was sure not to be discovered by my sister. Just the thought of getting caught, the thought of her face staring vacantly at the numbers, transformed into agony when she finally realized what it was, caused a throbbing pain in my gut. She shouldn’t know. She couldn’t know.

Over the next few days, I would leisurely pack up my clothes. Bit by bit, my draws would become a touch emptier, and my hairbrushes and bands would somehow disappear. I kept my toothbrush and toothpaste in the bathroom; Emma would notice if they were gone, and that was something you could buy anywhere for beyond cheap. As I packed, I noticed how each shirt and pair of pants had a unique memory. A blue and white striped shirt I bought at the mall with Annabelle had a small, curvy rip in the center. It was from my jacket. I was going out to the store with my mom. I zipped up my coat, and suddenly the zipper felt heavy, like there was something attached to it. When I pulled it down, there was a tearing noise, and my mother automatically turned around and sighed. She mumbled something like, “Oh, Jacqueline,” grabbed scissors, and easily cut the string.

It was so strange for me, how something so small and average like a shirt or a pair of shorts can carry so many memories. But when I thought about it, I realized it wasn’t at all. We wear these things everyday of our lives; everything we ever do, they’re involved in. So memory after memory, I took time to look back on all of it, trying desperately to reach in and grab a handful or warning signals, ominous signs, of where I was right now. But all there was were piles of joys, happiness, and small bumps in the road. How could a photo, so clear and content, transform into something vague and mysterious within the bl
ink of an eye? How can everything change when in truth it was all the same?

Annabelle called twice a day, once close to the afternoon, eleven most of the time, while I got ready for my dreadful day at work. And then again at night, usually around ten or ten thirty. The night calls were always more talkative. Annabelle would babble on about how she met this guy and that guy at either Marlington Book Store or the local Steak House. The first guy she ever mentioned to me was Lyle. He was apparently studying marine biology, following in his father’s footsteps, who died when he was only twelve-years-old in a plane crash. She told me that he was gorgeous, over six-feet tall, blonde, slick straight hair, buff as anything. He gave her his jacket, apparently, a black and green varsity coat he won in track during his junior year in high school. He was also three years older than Annabelle, which she found to be utterly sexy. Annabelle never dated someone younger than her. She believed the man should be the oldest in a relationship. I never asked why, I never even really cared to know why; it kind of freaked me out. But that was just Annabelle. She was as hard and heavy as a boulder with her personality. You could push and pull all you wanted, aching to get her to move, but it was impossible. No one could ever change her.

Two days after her “Lyle Fest”, Annabelle called me telling me all about Joshua. He was Spanish, she had said, and came to California on a college semester at seas. They met at the boardwalk, she “accidentally” dropped her purse and he “coincidently” picked it up for her. It was a click connection, the second their eyes met the second their souls had crashed. He was even more of a stud than Lyle, I heard, who she had gently broken up with the second she came into contact with Joshua. He was beyond tan, black crispy hair that she felt a needy sensation to run her fingers through. His Spanish accent was to die for and his abs would make her knees weak. She claimed she was in love with him, that he was the one she was going to marry. Every night, she had told me, they would walk across the beach together in their bare feet, hand in hand, talking about life and what they wanted to do with themselves. He wanted to be a family therapist, helping children deal with their parent’s divorce or help moms and dads cope with their drug addict teens. He seemed perfect, like somehow Joshua jumped out of a perfectly colored coloring book and stalked his way over to my best friend. Annabelle fell hard for him in five days.

Until Joshua had to go to Texas and Bryan came along.

Annabelle’s romance life was like a pinball machine. She would bang on one thing, and then somehow manage to crash into another. She could never stay in one position for too long; Annabelle got restless with the same things over and over again. She liked spice. She liked change. And when she called me at exactly 10:26 pm., while I was tangling my room in a million pieces searching for my I’m Jacqueline! Welcome! Badge for work, telling me all about Joshua, her one true love, I knew on the surface that it wouldn’t last long. A day, definitely, a week, maybe, two weeks, impossible. I won my own bet. They lasted almost a week, barely a click away from hitting that maybe mark, but Texas and a professional swimmer got in their way, pulling their hearts apart, with one major jerk. I had always wondered, with all the “perfect” men she meets, if Annabelle ever realized how easily she falls. She seemed immune to her own senselessness, coming on the phone every few days with a whole different guy in hands, the other one barely acknowledged at all, just thrown away, bit in the dust, gone for good. It never even phased her back when she was in my high school, all the horrible names girls would write about her in Bathroom 8, first stall. There would be her name written at the top; Annabelle Cauroben, and underneath, an endless list of She stole my boyfriend L, or She made out with TWO!!!! Football players in ONE day! Or even, I heard she got pregnant and had an abortion!! OMG! The first two might have been true: I never paid the slightest attention to the school’s drama nor went to any of the football games. And the third one, I knew for a fact was totally fake. Annabelle never got pregnant, and she definitely did not believe in abortions. I would get so furious seeing all the disgusting trash written about my best friend, I would even go in the bathroom when no one else was around and cross out every ****, *****, or *** placed firmly on the stall door, clear as day for every female in the entire school to lay their scheming eyes on. It was a secret I kept to myself. Every time the topic would come up about the rumors spread about her, Annabelle would just shake her head three times, roll her eyes, sigh, and say firmly, “Who cares what they think. In ten years, they’re all gonna wish they’d been nicer to me.”

I, on the other hand, had nearly no experience with guys. The closest I had ever gotten to a real boyfriend was in freshmen year, the Winter Wonderland Dance the day we had off. Annabelle had forced me to go, dressing me up as if I was a Barbie she bought from a dollar store only minutes before. My hair was slick straight, my make-up pretty n pink, and my dress purple, wavy, and gorgeous. I felt more confident than I ever had in my entire life, standing tall as I graced over the red rose covered corridor, my two-inch high heels clinking and clacking with every fearless step I took. Through the trees and bushes, I could make out the school’s hotties, dressed in either black or a mysterious red dress so small it looked like lingerie. They were chewing bubblegum “seductively”, making annoying little popping noises every time they popped their gum. A half dozen of guys were crowding them, sliding their arms around the girl’s waists or holding each other’s hands. Annabelle made a gagging noise next to me, bumping my shoulder and smiling. I grinned back at her. She looked so beautiful it hurt. Her golden blonde hair was in soft waves, falling down a touch below her chest. Her make-up brightened up her face even more than usual, red and pink, complimenting her pale skin. And her dress resembled mine, only with a slightly different design and it was hot pink, not purple. She put those bubble-gum popping, boy touching dirt bags to shame. And she didn’t even have to try. She didn’t even know.

We walked into the gymnasium, and Annabelle was welcomed with a couple smooth whistles from a few guys leaning against the snack table and chewing on Doritos half-heartedly. They nodded at her and she turned away, placing my hand in hers and dragging me over to an empty table near the corner of the gym. But as we got closer, I realized it wasn’t completely abandoned. Zach Evans, the guy I had been crushing on since 7^th grade was sitting in one of the chairs, one hand running through his black hair, the other tapping gently on the snow-flaked covered tablecloth. He looked so adorable with his white t-shirt and baggy black jeans. You would have thought he was going to Drug Fair or Wal-Mart, not an all gussy up high school dance. But somehow, even with the heat of beautiful girls and guys dressed up in tuxes, he looked the best of everyone. Besides Annabelle. He smiled at Annabelle, and then extra softly at me, as if I would crumble to the ground at the site of him. But part of me did. My heart was bursting out of chest, and I could already feel my hands transforming into sweat puddles. Stay cool, I told myself; he’s not going to bite you. It did help a little bit, my self pep talk, but Annabelle did most of the work. She whispered how hot I looked, and that running a hand through your hand was a sure sign that a guy was interested. I repeated her perks over and over again, trying to push them in my brain and make them permanent.

Annabelle introduced us game-show style, and I started to picture Matthew’s face in my mind, smiling brightly and welcoming me as if I were one of his own. I only hoped Zach would be half as nice. He stuck his hands in his pockets as Annabelle and I sat down. Annabelle placed one leg formerly over the other, with her hands folded and placed on her lap. She widened her eyes at me, nodding her head in a demanding motion, and I mirrored her position. Almost. Hers was elegant and silky, mine was clumsy and awkward.

Zach and I did have some sort of click connection. We began trash talking our shared science teacher, Mr. Powels, laughing and giggling at how he would always start to drool while reading out of the textbook. I was thankful to know I wasn’t the only student who noticed it, or acknowledged that he would always burp when writing on the dry erase board. We talked for about ten minutes, until it was ruined by only five words.

            “Do you want to dance?”

            I gripped the back of my chair for dear life, turning around slowly to face a pair of legs that went on for days, and a short black skirt that barely reached their mid-thigh. When I looked up, there was Laney Donsen, brown hair straighter than mine, make-up done with too many layers, and dress cut way lower than should be allowed. She shot me a death glare, before returning her liner covered eyes to Zach, who was looking at her up and down, and by the way his mouth was in an O shape, he liked what he saw. He nodded silently at her, not even noticing me, as if I dissolved in the disco lights and the sound of booming music blasting through the stereos. She grabbed his hand, a possessive gesture, and pulled him to the dance floor, swaying her hips and poking his chest as he still looked in a daze.

            That was when I learned, you can’t compete with confidence.

            I stumbled my way towards the girls’ restroom, pushing and shoving my way through the cluster of dancing teenagers, stepping on a few people’s feet and having them doing the exact same thing to me. My tears were already swelling up, I could feel the hot liquid forming in my eyes, and I tried to get to the bathroom as fast as I could before anyone would notice me balling.

MOOSEMAN!! haha

Hey guys!! Sorry I have taken so long, I can never seem to commit to anything without being distracted. Don't be afraid to be COMPLETELY honest with your opinions, my feelings don't matter tle="Tongue out" />. Well, anyways, I'll shut up now...

. I got in the bathroom eventually, and a couple of girls, Paula Hardwood and Diane Banjing, standing side-by-side as always, in matching green and blue puffy prom dresses, were redoing their lipstick and eyeing me skeptically through the reflection of the outstretched mirrors. I couldn’t find the will in me to glare at them. I couldn’t blame them for staring at me, either. My mascara was running down my olive face, making my skin appeared dry and chapped. My eyes were red and puffy, swollen to the extreme, my hair was tussled to what resembled to be a haystack, and my dress was all rumpled from barging into complete strangers. I looked like a zombie.

            Paula and Diane both mumbled, “Boy trouble,” to each other in unison as they patted my back and walked out of the bathroom. Paula’s blue puff was the last sight of them I saw.

            I sat in the third stall, on the toilet, using the toilet paper as tissues, crying as silently as I could. My sobs echoed throughout the bathroom, seeming to somehow play Ping-Pong with the walls and floors before finally finding a permanent destination to absorb into. My mind was somewhat delusional, imagining everyone pointing and laughing at me, telling me that I was nothing compared to Laney, and that just attempting to be with someone like Zach was a total waste of time. I could picture Zach and Laney, dancing to “Earth Angel”, his arms snaked around her waste and hers wrapped around his neck, moving in a slow, steady, graceful motion and smiling at each other like they were the only ones in the room. And then, she places her head on his shoulder and he lets her, giving himself a mental pat on the back for dumping Little Loser Jacqueline Ramussen for sexy and flirty Laney Donsen. At the end of the night, right before they leave the dance, they both simultaneously lean their heads forward, tilting them to the side as there lips meet.

            I shut out my thoughts when I noticed a small pale foot in a pair of expensive looking white high-heels roaming around the bathroom. “Jackie….” Annabelle said, her feet placed right in front of the stall. She knows I’m here, I thought. “Listen, I saw what happened and I am so sorry for ever getting your hopes up.” She paused, and then started talking a million miles a second. “Not that you shouldn’t have. I mean, your gorgeous, and sweet, and caring, maybe that’s why he chose Laney. Guys like that, Jackie, they’re afraid of the girls who truly deserve them, the girls that will put up a fight and actually want to make something out of the relationship. They’re scared of losing those girls, so they’re dumb enough not to take them at all. It’s stupid, I know, but it is a true fact. You can check any magazine for proof.”

            I unlocked the lock on the stall and opened the door. Annabelle looked like she melted a little bit at the sight of me. She stepped forward, into the cramped area, and shut the door all over again. It was so narrow and tiny in the miniature space, the two of us barely had any room to stand, but we did it anyway.

            “Hey,” she said, smiling a little bit, “It’s alright.”

            “No it’s not,” the tears were falling down my face again, and I gave up attempting to wipe them away, “I liked him so much! And we were so close to finally actually talking when all of a sudden,” I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned against the wall, “Laney Donsen just walks right in and suddenly Zach is some perverted dog.”

            Annabelle patted my shoulder when she spoke. Even in the overly bright fluorescent lights of the bathroom, which gave everyone’s skin a bluish tint to it and made your make-up appear less effective, she still somehow managed to awestruck me with her gorgeous looks. “Don’t be sad,” she told me, “There’s more fish in the sea.”

            I nodded at her upper body, emphasizing on her chest. “Easy for you to say. You’ve got the best bait of them all.”

            Annabelle just laughed.

            It was in moments like that that I was grateful I ignored my mother’s complaints. She never understood, nor approved of Annabelle’s ways; ignoring obstacles, always going with the flow, p*censored*ing through guys as if they were easily broken fences. She believed Annabelle pressed a “strong, deadly sensation to turn to the dark side of adolescence” on me, and I would remind her over and over again that it was never going to happen. And after a few weeks of me not coming home with any short skirts, or high-heels, or smeared lipstick, my mother eventually learned to trust Annabelle. But she never liked her.

            And as I sat cross-legged on my wheelie computer chair in my bedroom, tilting my head back and focusing on the whiteness of my fan, attempting but not succeeding to line myself up perfectly in the center of all three light bulbs, I started to reflect what my life would be in California. I mean, it would be completely different, with no rules, curfews, and constant telling of “clean your room”. There would also be no responsibility, no weight on my shoulder that seemed to be crushing me down until I eventually couldn’t take it anymore, dissolving into the floor beneath me. As great as that sounded, as wonderful as being free as a bird and being able to do whatever I want with no consequences, I couldn’t help but wonder if the lack of worry would make me feel relieved or naked. It was one of those things, however, that you could only learn by experience. Like riding a bike. You could read all the books you want to, search the internet for hours, ask experts for all the advice in the world, but once you get on that bicycle for the first time, all of that research suddenly evaporates, and you’re no better than someone who hasn’t done anything at all. It didn’t seem like a fair deal to me, working with all your might, trying until you could do no more, and getting absolutely no pat on the back for it, no one step forward or any sense or rewarding. And some lazy bum sitting next to you, popping their gum and leaning back against the wall has the chance to move past you without even trying, without even caring about the pain and worthlessness they just put inside of you.

            It was now July 16^th, and my days left home were now down to two. All of my packing was done, my suitcases hidden securely under my bed and my I.D still living inside of my pillowcase. It was weird. Some nights, I would be searching every inch of all of my draws, wondering where the heck my shirts went, and how they got so spare. It took a few moments, and occasionally even a few minutes, for me to realize that my room wasn’t their home anymore. And suddenly, the whole house felt different. As if this was just a vacation, and every move or sound I made would be recorded. I didn’t like it, it made me feel cautious and anxious, but I did my best to ignore it.

Emma- First off, I just want to tell you that I love you. The days and nights seem to be. You know what, I'll start this letter the way you like everything. Straight to the point. You probably woke up to find me not in the house. That is because I am not. Listen, I know in your mind you’re probably thinking that I abandoned you, left you in this horrible place all alone, but I want need you to understand that I'm not. Sure, this place is a hellhole, but I realized I'm only making it worse. Unlike you, my beautiful, strong-willed, stubborn, annoying little sister, I am not strong; I cannot make it through hard times just to be faced with them again. You, on the other hand, can. I never truly understood how you could just stay so tough courageous, how you could just push past all your problems and make everything okay. I wish I could be like you; I want nothing more than to be just as brave as you are, but I'm not. And that is exactly why I am leaving. I won't tell you where I am going, nor will I e-mail you, but I promise that I will be back before school starts. Please don't hate me, please, please, don't. I love you more than anything, Emma, and you will never be able to comprehend how much. I'll be back soon, give mom my love, even though it's you who truly deserves it. This not is ONLY between you and me, okay? Now don’t go and be a tattletale like you used to be.Jacqueline             Seven times. That is how many times I have skimmed my pen over the paper, only to throw it out in the garbage can again. It seemed impossible, to get every feeling that has been crawling inside of you out perfectly on multiple white lines. I kept rereading my letter over and over again, memorizing every sentence and placing it in the back of my head, as if I would need to come back years from now and revise it. But the more I looked at my writing, the way I would add a soft curve on the bottom of all my lower case Ts, or how I would write some letters in sc
ript, the others in print, every sentence seemed to be shrinking, seemed to mean less and less with every p*censored*ing second. This wasn’t enough, a voice kept telling me continuously, it’s no good. The feeling of screwing up was flooding me in its wrath, and I felt like I was drowning in my own flaws. But I can’t write it again, I tried to convince myself, I’m all out of things to say. The feeling didn’t fade the slightest bit with my attempted optimism. It was as if they were having a battle inside of me, pushing at each other like two bulls, tiling forward and giving it everything they got to make the other one fail. I couldn’t figure out which one was winning. I left another note posted on my refrigerator, held by a guitar-shaped magnet that I bought at the dollar store five years ago. It was much shorter than the one I had left Emma, less emotion and more facts. I was expecting myself to pour out love and sympathy in this letter to both my sister and my mother, but I felt like a worn out car, barely having enough left to keep going. Mom and Emma,I love you both so much. I just need to get away for a little while, somewhere far away, but I can’t tell you where. I’ll be back by the end of summer, and then you have my complete permission to stab, beat, kick, or shoot me as much as you want. I probably deserve it.Jacqueline It was now 1:30 in the morning, and everywhere seemed to be buried in a never-ending portal of darkness. The atmosphere felt lifeless, like everything that had once made this world lively and colorful suddenly disappeared into nowhere. It could be compared to a horror movie, the suspension, but the only difference was there was no killer coming out to bloody murder me.I hoped. It was extremely hard to trudge my suitcase, which probably weighed twice as much as I do, out from my room, through the narrow doorway, and into the hallway. Not being able to turn the lights on didn’t help either. There was a little clinging and banging every so often when I would find myself making physical contact with my dresser or night table, and every time, I would stand still for at least ten seconds, barely breathing as I listened closely for any sign of movement. As I rolled it down the carpet of the hallway, staring amorously at each and every centimeter of the walls, mesmerizing all the photos and pictures, having endless amount of flashbacks of my life before this moment. And for a moment, so quick that I questioned if it ever happened, part of my body shifted so that I was turning back towards my room. It didn’t feel like doubtfulness, my feet were toasty warm, but it was only if for that minuscule second that my thoughts were put aside, and I let my instincts take control. But instincts weren’t everything, I thought, there’s more to life than that.