Living in a Jumble of Wishes

Chapter 21

Living in a Jumble of Wishes

Chapter 21

It has been exactly four weeks since Zack and I broke up. Our break up and what I told the popular clique remained the school’s hot topic for two weeks.

People were giving me impressed looks all the time and many people complimented my courage so I got a lot of friends out of it.

Even when I was with the popular clique, I didn’t have that much friends.

And unlike the populars, those people were genuine.

The popular clique kept sending me glares –especially Zack—but I ignored them and when they tried to bully me, I would stand up for myself and everyone around me would stand up for me too.

They eventually found out that they weren’t in control anymore. The whole school was on my side now and against them.

They stopped bullying people and just stayed together in their own usual place.

Carla, Kate, and I were fine again. It seemed like things were slowly getting better, just like they were before the popular incident.

Landon and I have been seeing each other almost every day. We had been on seven dates and each one was amazing.

Every moment I spent with Landon was amazing. He always had little surprises for me like sometimes I would come home from school and find him on my front porch with a flower in his hands and his school bag still with him. He always arrived on time when we had dates and he always got me little gifts like a little teddy bear or a bracelet. The thing I loved the most would probably be the letters he writes me. Every week he gives me a one page letter. I’m saving them all because they’re beautiful.

Everything in my life seemed perfect right now. It was too perfect so I was expecting something not so perfect to happen. It had to come at some point, life is not perfect, and that incident came but it was much, much worse than I expected.

I came home from school one day and everything seemed normal. I had a sweet little text from Landon on my phone, Carla and Kate were planning to meet up later for a movie, and I had just gotten an amazing grade on my math test.

I unlocked my front door and when I walked in, I heard my mom crying.

I froze. “Mom?” I called out. She didn’t answer but I could still hear her frantic crying.

I dropped my bag and ran upstairs where her voice was coming from.

“Wake up! Please wake up!” I heard her screaming.

I could hear my heart beating in my ears as I ran towards their room. I stumbled a bit but that didn’t stop me.

When I arrived, I pushed the door open and it slammed against the wall.

That caught my mom’s attention and her gaze snapped to meet mine. It was the first time I had ever seen her like that. Her eyes were red and puffy, tears streaming down her face, her clothes wrinkled, and her hair messy.

I opened my mouth to ask her what was going on but my eyes fell on my dad before I could.

There he was, on the bed, dressed in his jeans and white shirt, one arm on his chest and the other lying lifelessly on the bed. His eyes were staring at a spot on the ceiling. Blue eyes cold, blank, lifeless. Dead.

No.

This was not possible. He was fine. My dad was perfectly fine. We had his favorite dinner yesterday and I watched Animal Planet with him for hours. We talked about college and the future last night.