Evangeline (Unedited)

00

P R O L O G U E

My heart beats rapidly, and I feel as though my chest is about to explode. I stare at the police officers nervously, chewing the inside of my cheeks as I await their news.

Just four hours ago, police cars and officers swarmed my house, demanding for my mother and stepfather. I watched from my bedroom window as they cuffed them and dragged them out to the police cars, gentle tears rolling down my cheeks. My mother's eyes locked with my own, tiny fragments of emotions swirling in her blue eyes, ranging from understanding to fury, to love.

She knew I was the one who called.

That evening, I came home from 'The Blue Bird'—a cozy flower shop that I sometimes find myself escaping to when I need a moment of solitude. It was like any other night. Dimmed lights shine softly in the living room while the news (nobody pays attention to) drones on and on about some tragedy that struck earlier that day. Sometimes I wonder if the reason for all of the dread that fills the interior of the house, runs like water through the cracked foundation, is fueled by the constant sound of humanity failing miserably. I walk to the coffee table, picking up the remote and muting it. I walk to the kitchen, in search of my parents.

Eventually, I found them, arguing quietly as they wiped white powder off of their upper lips and took swigs of the various bottles surrounding them. I sighed, backing away and retreating to my bedroom for the night. I knew that where those versions of my parents were, their friends followed soon after. I usually didn't like to stick around.

I pushed a chair up to the doorknob of my bedroom, staring silently at it for a second before snapping out of it and catapulting myself onto my bed. I rested my eyes for a while but eventually shook awake when I heard a door slam shut. Screaming followed suit, glass shattering, and finally the straw that broke the camel's back.

A gunshot.

I didn't move for what felt like hours. My eyes widened—but I couldn't quite decipher if it was fear or shock. Probably a mixture of both. I eyed my door wearily, afraid someone would come into my room. Nobody did, but I didn't tear my eyes away until I heard a car ripping out of our driveway and speeding down the street.

I involuntarily let out a shaky breath, wiping my face as if to rid of my thoughts, only to find sticky tears on my hands. I hadn't even realized I was crying. I walk slowly to the door, hesitantly pulling the chair away and opening my door. The house was eerily silent, but somehow so loud. The pictures on the walls sent shivers down my spine. Smiling faces, birthdays, vacations, just your average family photos. The further down the hall from the stairs you walked, the fewer photos there were. The more empty the walls became.

That's because when I was 9, the family I had slowly broke. My accident, the loss of my brother, my dad's diagnosis—it was destined to end badly by fate. Fuck fate. My mom turned to substances I don't even know the name of, but it was whatever her shady friends could give her. My stepdad didn't enable it at first, in fact, he shielded me from it. But even he couldn't resist. He tried it once, and from there on out, it tainted everything I knew.

The stairs creaked under my feet as I made my way to where I thought I heard the noise. Almost like I was possessed, I didn't stop. I crept closer, my breathing turning shallow by the second. I pushed open the brown door that was slightly ajar, and my eyes scanned the room in anticipation. My mother, sobbing into my stepdad's arms as he glued his eyes to the floor.