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- Story Listed as: Fiction For Teens
- Theme: Family & Friends
- Subject: Friends / Friendship
- Published: 10/02/2017
Prologue:
I was five. I was riding on a plastic pony named “Sandy” at Walmart. My mom was standing beside me. She had curly, dark brown hair and bright green eyes. She looked like me, except my hair was wavy. I kicked my heels into the sides of the plastic pony. “Hicha! Giddy up!” As I looked around, the scenery changed. I was in the Wild West, cacti and sand surrounded me. I was on a mission. I needed to herd the cattle. I whipped my lasso around and captured a bull. A hand landed on my shoulder, and the scenery returned to my actual surroundings: Walmart.
"Dawn, what are you doing?" My mom laughed at my play. I blinked at her. "I was catching the cattle," I stated. My mom laughed again. I continued to stare at her as I cocked my head to the side.
“Why that sounds quite enjoyable,” She giggled, as her green eyes sparkled in the light. I smiled at her happy face. I felt a rising bubble in my chest, and it burst. I fell off the horse and got back up. I squealed and ran around and around “Sandy”. It was the first time my emotions got out of control.
A couple weeks later, I was watching Little Einsteins, when the floor suddenly turned to lava. I screamed, and my mom came running in.
"Dawn! What's wrong?" She stood on a lava rock.
"Mommy! Watch out! The rock is gonna fall any minute now!" I screamed and tried to get her to run over to me.
"What rock?!" She yelled.
"The rock you're standing on! Jump over here!" I cried as the rock started to crack. "Mommy!" The lava disappeared. "The lava is gone! How did it go, it was so hot, and, and scary!" I continued sobbing and I crawled under the couch to hide so that my emotions could run wild. I saw a hand that pulled up the flap covering the bottom of the couch. I saw my mom’s rosy face. Worry filled it. The worry put a line in her forehead. I stopped crying and frowned. I put my hand on the line, and my mom’s eyebrows relaxed. The line went away.
A few days later, I overheard my mom talking to my dad. I was standing in the doorway. "And she said she saw lava on the floor, and that I was standing on a rock, and then she went into hysterics, crying," my mom said worriedly as she took a sip of her coffee.
"Maybe you should have the doctors check it out, but don’t worry too much, Ella. She is a kid, after all," my dad said.
"Maybe," The concern etched on my mother’s face gave me a pit in my stomach. I walked into the room.
“Daddy, is there something wrong with me?” I asked, a tear falling down my face.
“No, honey. We want to see why you see different things than we do,” my dad assured me.
That day, my mom brought me to the doctor’s office, where they then diagnosed me with schizophrenia. My mom told me it meant I would see things that weren't actually there. I became reclusive and mostly hid in my room, and at school I sat in a corner. Sometimes my emotions got extreme, or different from others. They would change quickly and made me feel sad, or crazy, or mad, or anything. I developed a constant buzzing sound that filled my head. It was hard to concentrate. I would have trouble falling asleep, or I would feel sleepy for the whole day. I hated it.
I heard my mom talk to my dad about something called bipolar depression. The name made me think of a polar bear, and I went growling and eating and sleeping like a polar bear for weeks. I couldn’t stop it, I was a polar bear. I was a polar bear. As soon as I was a little girl again, my mom died in a work fire and my visions got worse.
Nine Years Later
“Bye, Father!” I shouted from the doorway. I stepped out into the sunny, hot day. It was the first day of my freshman year of high school. I opened the garage and grabbed my bike. As I pedaled, I let my mind wander. It was a dangerous thing to do with schizophrenia. Usually, when I daydreamed, hallucinations came. But for now, I should be fine. A faint buzzing filled my ears. It has been like that for nine or ten years. Over time it got quieter, but never fully faded. I took a left turn. I was in the wealthy neighborhood. I wasn’t sure why I said bye to my father before I left. He was upstairs, most likely drunk. Ever since Mom died, my father changed. He drank, smoked, and never paid attention to me. When I was young, he always made time for me.
I lost my balance on my bike and fell. I shrieked and rolled to break my fall. I inspected my shaking hands. They were scratched up and grains of gravel were stuck in them. My knees were the same way. I got up and brushed myself off. I picked up my bike, got back on, and tried to keep myself busy, but it was already too late.
A black car that was driving slowly pulled up behind me and a man in dark sunglasses walked up to me. “You’re coming with me,” he said.
I screamed and ran. My feet pounded the road, and sweat ran down my face. I cried as I ran, knowing no one would notice I was gone if I got kidnapped. I leaned forward and tumbled onto the street. My face hit the pavement with a crunch. I could feel blood streaming down my face and arms. My nose pounded and burned.
I slowly wobbled up and when I looked around, I was in an unrecognizable place. I limped to the sidewalk and sat down. I looked around, but saw no one. I curled up into a tiny ball. The problem with my hallucinations was that they twisted my mind into thinking what I was seeing was real. I should have been taking medicine to keep the hallucinations and depression at bay, but my father was too busy gambling and getting drunk to care. I sat still on the ground, with nowhere to go. I imagined that I didn’t come home at all, and that my father cared. I imagined him calling the cops, and they found me dead on the ground, and maybe for once, he cared about me. I sigh.
A red sports car pulled up to me. I stumbled forward, but wound up falling again. A teenage boy stepped out and walked over. He bent down. I scrambled away from him but he put his arms around me and lifted me up. I gave in to my weakness and leaned heavily on his shoulder. He lead me into his car. I went limp. No way was I was getting kidnapped this easily. Or it could all have been a hallucination. He struggled to keep me upright.
“No,” I mumbled.
“It’s okay, you need help. Let me help you,” He said, laying me down in the backseat of the car. He got into the passenger side.
“Gabe, you better not be kidnapping someone, Mom would kill us,” The older boy said from the driver’s seat. The teenage boy, Gabe, turned around to face me.
“Are you okay?” Gabe asked. I grunted. Did I look okay?
“Where were you headed?” He asked.
“School,” I said.
“Kamiah Middle School?” He asked.
“Clearwater Valley,” I said. “High school,” I wasn’t very tall, but I was no middle schooler. Gabe faced forward and buckled up. The car lurched forward. I bit my tongue, holding in a groan of pain.
When we arrived at school, Gabe took paper towels and wiped the blood and dirt off me. After taking me to the nurse for an ice pack, he escorted me to my first class, which we shared. We were twenty minutes late. Gabe helped me into an empty seat and sat across the room in the only other open one.
“So nice of you to join us,” The teacher said dryly.
Gabe smiled, “The pleasure is all mine, Mrs. Scencin.”
“You two must be Gabe Adams and Dawn Ayers,” Mrs. Scencin said. I nodded, and Gabe winked.
He sure seemed a lot different in school than when I met him.
Throughout the day, Gabe escorted me to all my classes, and it didn’t seem to faze him that he was late to every one of his own classes. One of the other two classes I shared with him was gym class. The gym teacher screamed instructions at us. With every sentence, spit flew out of his mouth, and I flinched. Apparently in high school, you didn’t get breaks on the first day. The gym teacher shepherded us outside, into the blistering heat. We had to run three miles without stopping. After one mile, I felt like collapsing, and then I saw a dog jump over a fence and sprint over to me. It was foaming at the mouth. I screamed and ran away from it, but it caught up quickly. I screamed while everyone was staring at me. Couldn’t they see I was about to be bitten by a rabid dog? The dog jumped. I let out a blood-curdling shriek and fell to the ground, but the dog went through me and dissipated. I looked around me. Everyone was staring at me, a few were laughing, and many were whispering to each other. Gabe went up to the gym teacher and whispered something in his ear. The teacher nodded. Gabe jogged up to me and put his arm around my shoulders. He led me back into the school. I cried.
“What- what happened?” Gabe asked as we walked through the halls. I explained to him about my schizophrenia, and the realistic hallucinations I had. When I arrived at the nurse's office, she asked for my parents’ number to call them. Instead, I told her that both my parents were on a business trip for two days and couldn’t be bothered. I sat in the nurse’s office for the rest of the day. I heard the bell ring, and I escaped from the office to my locker and packed up my belongings. I stepped outside. I'd lost my bike, so I had no other way to get home than to walk. Gabe was trying out for the football team, so I had to go alone.
After an hour, I arrived at home, threw my door open and slammed it shut. I threw my backpack against the wall. My father was on the couch, shouting at the television, with a beer in his hand. The things that football does to people. As soon as the door shut, he turned to look at me.
“You interrupted the game you—” He was interrupted by a loud crash in the kitchen. “Go see what the—” I didn’t hear the rest of what he said because I was already in the kitchen. Racoons were running around in the open fridge. Broken glass littered the ground from beer bottles. I couldn’t tell who broke the bottles— my father or the racoons. I grabbed the broom, and shooed the racoons out the open window. Once all of them had gone, I shut the window and cleaned up the kitchen. I ran upstairs to the bathroom. As I looked in the mirror, my reflection showed a haggard girl with a nose the size, shape, and color of a tomato. I put ointment on it, taped an ice pack to my face, and threw myself onto my bed. I closed my eyes and fell into a fitful sleep.
I set my alarm to go off an hour and a half early to make up for my new walking commute. I packed everything up and skipped breakfast. I wasn’t hungry. I arrived at school and Gabe walked over to me.
“What’s up, Dawn?” He asked. He had a different swagger at school. I think he was popular, or crazy. I shrugged. I went to first period, and we got assigned seats. Coincidentally, I was seated next to Gabe, but on my other side was a talkative girl.
“Hey, what’s your name? My name is Rebecca, but everyone calls me Bubbles. If I annoy you let me know, because sometimes I start talking and don’t know when to stop, or how or I don’t realize I’m even talking, and- oh- sorry,” She giggled and went back to doing her work. I scooted my desk away from her and began writing. I dropped my pencil and went under the desk to get it Suddenly, a bell went off. I stood up. It was the fire alarm. Mrs. Scencin stood up and told everyone to calmly walk out.
Mrs. Scencin took a final scan of the room and was satisfied. I screamed. A section of the carpet, two feet away from me, lit on fire. I scrambled away from it. Everyone else was out the now closed door. They forgot me! I would burn to death like my mother. All around me was fire. The only open path was to the window. I scrambled over to the window. The fire was slowly creeping closer. I opened the window and looked down. I was two stories up. I had to jump. I stood on the window sill. As the fire leaped, so did I. I screamed and I felt a sharp pain in my skull, and everything went black.
When I opened my eyes, the overly bright lights glared in my eyes and the room seemed to spin. I was in a hospital room. I tried to sit up, but my head felt like it got run over by a herd of cows. I turned my head to the left and saw someone’s head next to my pillow. I squinted my eyes and saw that the head belonged to Gabe. He was sitting in the chair but fell asleep with his head on my bed.
“Gabe,” I whispered hoarsely. He lifted his head. He had dark circles under his eyes.
“Dawn, you’re awake,” he said in a disoriented voice. What was Gabe doing here, and more importantly, what was I doing here?
“Gabe, what happened, all I remember is a fire and a window…” I said as I looked back into my mind.
“I’m not sure, we had a fire drill, and I heard a scream and ran over, and you were lying there with blood pooling around your head,” Gabe said. His voice trembled on the last words. “I told the doctors about your schizophrenia, so they gave you a pill. I have the rest of the medicine.” He paused and fiddled with the bottle in his hands. “I told them about your dad, I had no choice. I’m sorry,” he said, biting his lip. I shook my head.
A few weeks later, I got discharged from the hospital with stitches in my head and arm, along with a moderate concussion, but no lasting effects. I threw my front door open and ran into the living room, empty. I stepped up the stairs and walked into my father’s bedroom. He was sitting on the bed watching football on a television I didn’t recognize and drinking a brown bottle of beer, as usual.
“Father, I’m home,” I said meekly. He paid no attention to me. “Father.” Nothing. “Leo!” I shouted. I was sick and tired of being ignored. I picked up a pillow and threw it at him. He brought his arm back and threw the beer bottle at me. I flinched as it hit my face and shattered. I felt blood drip down my forehead. I walked out and slammed the door. We were already in debt. We couldn’t afford another TV! I walked into the living room and saw the old TV screen broken, with a shattered beer bottle underneath it. I screamed under my breath. I was done. I was done with him ignoring me. I was done with him getting drunk all the time. I was done with him not caring. I was done with him throwing stuff at me. I couldn’t take it anymore. The buzzing in my head got so loud, it drowned out everything else. I covered my ears until it died down. Tears were streaming down my face, but I wiped them away with the back of my shirt sleeve. I picked up the phone and called Gabe for help.
The next day at school, I was called down to the office. The counselor was waiting for me.
“Dawn, I’m very sorry, but your dad has been arrested,” the counselor said, her face the perfect portrait of sympathy. I nodded, and the buzzing in my ears pulsed and returned, but quieter.
“For the time being, until we can find you a new home, Gabe Adams’s family has offered to care for you. Your time there is expected to be two months.”
That day, I went home with Gabe.
“So, we’re going to be like siblings, for a few months.” I nodded.
He opened the door. I entered his house and met his family. Gabe’s older sister, Marina, was missing the bottom portion of her arm. Gabe later told me that she lost it in a shark attack. I then remembered that she was on the news protesting against shark poaching, she had put thousands of trackers on sharks to study their movements. She was pretty famous in this town. Gabe’s mother was warm and welcoming and his father was nice, if a bit strict.
Three months later, I moved in with my aunt, whom I had never met. It was different, being cared for. Sometimes I got annoyed with having a bedtime and a curfew, but I didn’t mind after a while. I became best friends with Marina, and when I grew up, married Gabe. It was a small wedding, with only family, except Leo, who just got out of prison and was in rehab.
I finally grew up happy and started a family, having a daughter of my own. I would always be there for her. I would never leave her. My schizophrenia was controlled by medicine for a few years until it finally went away. I still had to take medicine for my bipolar depression though. Eventually, Leo died; the funeral was short, and no tears were shed. I thought I would at least feel sorry for him, but I just couldn’t. He had plenty of chances to change. I promised that I would be better than Leo would have ever been, and I was happy to have been so lucky to feel the joy and love of having a family.
Just Imagine(Lyra)
Prologue:
I was five. I was riding on a plastic pony named “Sandy” at Walmart. My mom was standing beside me. She had curly, dark brown hair and bright green eyes. She looked like me, except my hair was wavy. I kicked my heels into the sides of the plastic pony. “Hicha! Giddy up!” As I looked around, the scenery changed. I was in the Wild West, cacti and sand surrounded me. I was on a mission. I needed to herd the cattle. I whipped my lasso around and captured a bull. A hand landed on my shoulder, and the scenery returned to my actual surroundings: Walmart.
"Dawn, what are you doing?" My mom laughed at my play. I blinked at her. "I was catching the cattle," I stated. My mom laughed again. I continued to stare at her as I cocked my head to the side.
“Why that sounds quite enjoyable,” She giggled, as her green eyes sparkled in the light. I smiled at her happy face. I felt a rising bubble in my chest, and it burst. I fell off the horse and got back up. I squealed and ran around and around “Sandy”. It was the first time my emotions got out of control.
A couple weeks later, I was watching Little Einsteins, when the floor suddenly turned to lava. I screamed, and my mom came running in.
"Dawn! What's wrong?" She stood on a lava rock.
"Mommy! Watch out! The rock is gonna fall any minute now!" I screamed and tried to get her to run over to me.
"What rock?!" She yelled.
"The rock you're standing on! Jump over here!" I cried as the rock started to crack. "Mommy!" The lava disappeared. "The lava is gone! How did it go, it was so hot, and, and scary!" I continued sobbing and I crawled under the couch to hide so that my emotions could run wild. I saw a hand that pulled up the flap covering the bottom of the couch. I saw my mom’s rosy face. Worry filled it. The worry put a line in her forehead. I stopped crying and frowned. I put my hand on the line, and my mom’s eyebrows relaxed. The line went away.
A few days later, I overheard my mom talking to my dad. I was standing in the doorway. "And she said she saw lava on the floor, and that I was standing on a rock, and then she went into hysterics, crying," my mom said worriedly as she took a sip of her coffee.
"Maybe you should have the doctors check it out, but don’t worry too much, Ella. She is a kid, after all," my dad said.
"Maybe," The concern etched on my mother’s face gave me a pit in my stomach. I walked into the room.
“Daddy, is there something wrong with me?” I asked, a tear falling down my face.
“No, honey. We want to see why you see different things than we do,” my dad assured me.
That day, my mom brought me to the doctor’s office, where they then diagnosed me with schizophrenia. My mom told me it meant I would see things that weren't actually there. I became reclusive and mostly hid in my room, and at school I sat in a corner. Sometimes my emotions got extreme, or different from others. They would change quickly and made me feel sad, or crazy, or mad, or anything. I developed a constant buzzing sound that filled my head. It was hard to concentrate. I would have trouble falling asleep, or I would feel sleepy for the whole day. I hated it.
I heard my mom talk to my dad about something called bipolar depression. The name made me think of a polar bear, and I went growling and eating and sleeping like a polar bear for weeks. I couldn’t stop it, I was a polar bear. I was a polar bear. As soon as I was a little girl again, my mom died in a work fire and my visions got worse.
Nine Years Later
“Bye, Father!” I shouted from the doorway. I stepped out into the sunny, hot day. It was the first day of my freshman year of high school. I opened the garage and grabbed my bike. As I pedaled, I let my mind wander. It was a dangerous thing to do with schizophrenia. Usually, when I daydreamed, hallucinations came. But for now, I should be fine. A faint buzzing filled my ears. It has been like that for nine or ten years. Over time it got quieter, but never fully faded. I took a left turn. I was in the wealthy neighborhood. I wasn’t sure why I said bye to my father before I left. He was upstairs, most likely drunk. Ever since Mom died, my father changed. He drank, smoked, and never paid attention to me. When I was young, he always made time for me.
I lost my balance on my bike and fell. I shrieked and rolled to break my fall. I inspected my shaking hands. They were scratched up and grains of gravel were stuck in them. My knees were the same way. I got up and brushed myself off. I picked up my bike, got back on, and tried to keep myself busy, but it was already too late.
A black car that was driving slowly pulled up behind me and a man in dark sunglasses walked up to me. “You’re coming with me,” he said.
I screamed and ran. My feet pounded the road, and sweat ran down my face. I cried as I ran, knowing no one would notice I was gone if I got kidnapped. I leaned forward and tumbled onto the street. My face hit the pavement with a crunch. I could feel blood streaming down my face and arms. My nose pounded and burned.
I slowly wobbled up and when I looked around, I was in an unrecognizable place. I limped to the sidewalk and sat down. I looked around, but saw no one. I curled up into a tiny ball. The problem with my hallucinations was that they twisted my mind into thinking what I was seeing was real. I should have been taking medicine to keep the hallucinations and depression at bay, but my father was too busy gambling and getting drunk to care. I sat still on the ground, with nowhere to go. I imagined that I didn’t come home at all, and that my father cared. I imagined him calling the cops, and they found me dead on the ground, and maybe for once, he cared about me. I sigh.
A red sports car pulled up to me. I stumbled forward, but wound up falling again. A teenage boy stepped out and walked over. He bent down. I scrambled away from him but he put his arms around me and lifted me up. I gave in to my weakness and leaned heavily on his shoulder. He lead me into his car. I went limp. No way was I was getting kidnapped this easily. Or it could all have been a hallucination. He struggled to keep me upright.
“No,” I mumbled.
“It’s okay, you need help. Let me help you,” He said, laying me down in the backseat of the car. He got into the passenger side.
“Gabe, you better not be kidnapping someone, Mom would kill us,” The older boy said from the driver’s seat. The teenage boy, Gabe, turned around to face me.
“Are you okay?” Gabe asked. I grunted. Did I look okay?
“Where were you headed?” He asked.
“School,” I said.
“Kamiah Middle School?” He asked.
“Clearwater Valley,” I said. “High school,” I wasn’t very tall, but I was no middle schooler. Gabe faced forward and buckled up. The car lurched forward. I bit my tongue, holding in a groan of pain.
When we arrived at school, Gabe took paper towels and wiped the blood and dirt off me. After taking me to the nurse for an ice pack, he escorted me to my first class, which we shared. We were twenty minutes late. Gabe helped me into an empty seat and sat across the room in the only other open one.
“So nice of you to join us,” The teacher said dryly.
Gabe smiled, “The pleasure is all mine, Mrs. Scencin.”
“You two must be Gabe Adams and Dawn Ayers,” Mrs. Scencin said. I nodded, and Gabe winked.
He sure seemed a lot different in school than when I met him.
Throughout the day, Gabe escorted me to all my classes, and it didn’t seem to faze him that he was late to every one of his own classes. One of the other two classes I shared with him was gym class. The gym teacher screamed instructions at us. With every sentence, spit flew out of his mouth, and I flinched. Apparently in high school, you didn’t get breaks on the first day. The gym teacher shepherded us outside, into the blistering heat. We had to run three miles without stopping. After one mile, I felt like collapsing, and then I saw a dog jump over a fence and sprint over to me. It was foaming at the mouth. I screamed and ran away from it, but it caught up quickly. I screamed while everyone was staring at me. Couldn’t they see I was about to be bitten by a rabid dog? The dog jumped. I let out a blood-curdling shriek and fell to the ground, but the dog went through me and dissipated. I looked around me. Everyone was staring at me, a few were laughing, and many were whispering to each other. Gabe went up to the gym teacher and whispered something in his ear. The teacher nodded. Gabe jogged up to me and put his arm around my shoulders. He led me back into the school. I cried.
“What- what happened?” Gabe asked as we walked through the halls. I explained to him about my schizophrenia, and the realistic hallucinations I had. When I arrived at the nurse's office, she asked for my parents’ number to call them. Instead, I told her that both my parents were on a business trip for two days and couldn’t be bothered. I sat in the nurse’s office for the rest of the day. I heard the bell ring, and I escaped from the office to my locker and packed up my belongings. I stepped outside. I'd lost my bike, so I had no other way to get home than to walk. Gabe was trying out for the football team, so I had to go alone.
After an hour, I arrived at home, threw my door open and slammed it shut. I threw my backpack against the wall. My father was on the couch, shouting at the television, with a beer in his hand. The things that football does to people. As soon as the door shut, he turned to look at me.
“You interrupted the game you—” He was interrupted by a loud crash in the kitchen. “Go see what the—” I didn’t hear the rest of what he said because I was already in the kitchen. Racoons were running around in the open fridge. Broken glass littered the ground from beer bottles. I couldn’t tell who broke the bottles— my father or the racoons. I grabbed the broom, and shooed the racoons out the open window. Once all of them had gone, I shut the window and cleaned up the kitchen. I ran upstairs to the bathroom. As I looked in the mirror, my reflection showed a haggard girl with a nose the size, shape, and color of a tomato. I put ointment on it, taped an ice pack to my face, and threw myself onto my bed. I closed my eyes and fell into a fitful sleep.
I set my alarm to go off an hour and a half early to make up for my new walking commute. I packed everything up and skipped breakfast. I wasn’t hungry. I arrived at school and Gabe walked over to me.
“What’s up, Dawn?” He asked. He had a different swagger at school. I think he was popular, or crazy. I shrugged. I went to first period, and we got assigned seats. Coincidentally, I was seated next to Gabe, but on my other side was a talkative girl.
“Hey, what’s your name? My name is Rebecca, but everyone calls me Bubbles. If I annoy you let me know, because sometimes I start talking and don’t know when to stop, or how or I don’t realize I’m even talking, and- oh- sorry,” She giggled and went back to doing her work. I scooted my desk away from her and began writing. I dropped my pencil and went under the desk to get it Suddenly, a bell went off. I stood up. It was the fire alarm. Mrs. Scencin stood up and told everyone to calmly walk out.
Mrs. Scencin took a final scan of the room and was satisfied. I screamed. A section of the carpet, two feet away from me, lit on fire. I scrambled away from it. Everyone else was out the now closed door. They forgot me! I would burn to death like my mother. All around me was fire. The only open path was to the window. I scrambled over to the window. The fire was slowly creeping closer. I opened the window and looked down. I was two stories up. I had to jump. I stood on the window sill. As the fire leaped, so did I. I screamed and I felt a sharp pain in my skull, and everything went black.
When I opened my eyes, the overly bright lights glared in my eyes and the room seemed to spin. I was in a hospital room. I tried to sit up, but my head felt like it got run over by a herd of cows. I turned my head to the left and saw someone’s head next to my pillow. I squinted my eyes and saw that the head belonged to Gabe. He was sitting in the chair but fell asleep with his head on my bed.
“Gabe,” I whispered hoarsely. He lifted his head. He had dark circles under his eyes.
“Dawn, you’re awake,” he said in a disoriented voice. What was Gabe doing here, and more importantly, what was I doing here?
“Gabe, what happened, all I remember is a fire and a window…” I said as I looked back into my mind.
“I’m not sure, we had a fire drill, and I heard a scream and ran over, and you were lying there with blood pooling around your head,” Gabe said. His voice trembled on the last words. “I told the doctors about your schizophrenia, so they gave you a pill. I have the rest of the medicine.” He paused and fiddled with the bottle in his hands. “I told them about your dad, I had no choice. I’m sorry,” he said, biting his lip. I shook my head.
A few weeks later, I got discharged from the hospital with stitches in my head and arm, along with a moderate concussion, but no lasting effects. I threw my front door open and ran into the living room, empty. I stepped up the stairs and walked into my father’s bedroom. He was sitting on the bed watching football on a television I didn’t recognize and drinking a brown bottle of beer, as usual.
“Father, I’m home,” I said meekly. He paid no attention to me. “Father.” Nothing. “Leo!” I shouted. I was sick and tired of being ignored. I picked up a pillow and threw it at him. He brought his arm back and threw the beer bottle at me. I flinched as it hit my face and shattered. I felt blood drip down my forehead. I walked out and slammed the door. We were already in debt. We couldn’t afford another TV! I walked into the living room and saw the old TV screen broken, with a shattered beer bottle underneath it. I screamed under my breath. I was done. I was done with him ignoring me. I was done with him getting drunk all the time. I was done with him not caring. I was done with him throwing stuff at me. I couldn’t take it anymore. The buzzing in my head got so loud, it drowned out everything else. I covered my ears until it died down. Tears were streaming down my face, but I wiped them away with the back of my shirt sleeve. I picked up the phone and called Gabe for help.
The next day at school, I was called down to the office. The counselor was waiting for me.
“Dawn, I’m very sorry, but your dad has been arrested,” the counselor said, her face the perfect portrait of sympathy. I nodded, and the buzzing in my ears pulsed and returned, but quieter.
“For the time being, until we can find you a new home, Gabe Adams’s family has offered to care for you. Your time there is expected to be two months.”
That day, I went home with Gabe.
“So, we’re going to be like siblings, for a few months.” I nodded.
He opened the door. I entered his house and met his family. Gabe’s older sister, Marina, was missing the bottom portion of her arm. Gabe later told me that she lost it in a shark attack. I then remembered that she was on the news protesting against shark poaching, she had put thousands of trackers on sharks to study their movements. She was pretty famous in this town. Gabe’s mother was warm and welcoming and his father was nice, if a bit strict.
Three months later, I moved in with my aunt, whom I had never met. It was different, being cared for. Sometimes I got annoyed with having a bedtime and a curfew, but I didn’t mind after a while. I became best friends with Marina, and when I grew up, married Gabe. It was a small wedding, with only family, except Leo, who just got out of prison and was in rehab.
I finally grew up happy and started a family, having a daughter of my own. I would always be there for her. I would never leave her. My schizophrenia was controlled by medicine for a few years until it finally went away. I still had to take medicine for my bipolar depression though. Eventually, Leo died; the funeral was short, and no tears were shed. I thought I would at least feel sorry for him, but I just couldn’t. He had plenty of chances to change. I promised that I would be better than Leo would have ever been, and I was happy to have been so lucky to feel the joy and love of having a family.
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