I had just killed a man.
The gun was in my hands, the metal was warming against my skin.
My palm was slick against the warming surface.
I heard screaming.
They told me later it was my own.
===+===
My mom is dead. She died in a fire in her corporate office last year. One year, nine months, five days. That’s how it’s gone through my head, like a twisted mantra, since the day we got the call that she was in the ER with most of her skin gone. Fivehoursfivehoursfivehours, twomonthsoneweekthreedays, Oneyearoneday. Oneyearninemonthsfivedays.
I miss her more than I ever thought I could miss anything. I miss the way her smile would light up a room, and the way the smell of her cinnamon vanilla pancakes would wake me up on Saturday mornings when my older sister Cindy was at her piano lessons, and my dad was out running. I miss her voice whispering to me when I felt alone and needed to cuddle. I miss the way she held this family together, made us talk, laugh. She was our buffer, what we could all relate to. I miss her more than anything.
“Reb! C’mon! We’re going to be late!...again!”
I sighed and finished lining my eyes in black. I pulled my backpack onto my shoulders, straightened my miniskirt, and pulled my hair into submission around my face.
“REB!!!”
“I’m COMING, Cindy. Jeez.” I stomped down the stairs to the satisfying thuds my combat boots made on the wooden surfaces, and out the open front door.
My picture perfect sister was standing by her car, blonde hair blowing around her face in picture perfect curls.
“Jeez, Reb, Goth much?”
“For your information, Cindy, this is not Goth. This is punk rock.” Truthfully, the outfit I was wearing did lean a little more towards Goth than punk rock, but I wasn’t about to tell my higher-than-thou sister that. I slid into the passenger side of the car and punched the power button on the radio, wincing when country music flooded the car. “Could your taste get any worse?”
Cindy slammed her door and gave me her best ‘shut up now’ smile. I decided not to annoy her further by changing the radio station. Quite kind of me, I thought.
“You know, I don’t have to take you to school.”
“Yes you do. Dad told you to.”
“So?”
“So, since when do you not listen to Dad?”
She turned to glare at me before turning the ignition and backing out of the driveway.
“Still…” Her sentence trailed off into the morning and I leaned back to take a brief nap before school started.
Hello senior year.
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