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Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

If someone was to compare life to a large amount of water contained in a sink, the water would be steadily draining down the pipe as years of the life skipped by. When the sink of water depleted entirely, it would ultimately equal death and passing of the life. A normal life would consist of the water draining fully without the faucet being turned on to refill the sink. In a normal life, there are no second chances.

The summer of 2011, however, was when a plug was lodged into the drain of my life’s sink, and soon I would find that, unlike a normal life, my sink got refills it didn’t even need.

And my life was stopped in its tracks by this metaphorical plug, lodged so deep in the drain that eternally the water in my sink would sit in stagnation.

…

But when I thought about it, I realized that the summer of 2011 would’ve been, more or less, the most stagnant time of my life anyway. And during that period of time I could sum up the reason in about two words: the baby.

James--or Jimmy, as most people liked to call him (excluding me)--was my baby brother, fifteen years my junior. He came unexpectedly, and my mom couldn’t stay home to watch him because of her demanding job requirements.

“Ava, I need you to step up to the plate,” she had told me shortly before her delivery date.

I think that she would’ve asked my dad to take some time off of work to help, except when James was born, my dad’s work mysteriously asked him to “pick up some more shifts.” So asking him to baby-sit was an impossibility all in itself. Although, I think that my mom was just satisfied whenever my dad changed James’s diaper--which I heard was a big, fat never when I was a baby.

So, with my dad skipping out and my mom at work, I spent all of my time with that small child in my arms.

Because of my newfound occupation with James, I was surprisingly happy when the school year began again. School meant eight less hours that I had to spend with the crying, drooling, burping, eating, sleeping, pooping thing.

So the first day of school rolled around--rejoice!--and before I had to leave the house I stood in front of my bedroom mirror, breathing a sigh of relief. I stared into the mirror, and my grayish-blue eyes stared back with seemingly no emotion. They traveled down to study my hair, which, strangely enough, hadn’t grown past my shoulders all summer. My hair not growing wasn’t a huge concern, although before that summer my hair had always grown at a decent rate. What I didn’t know at that time was that my hair would never again grow out.

I checked my watch. 7:10. Go time.

Hoisting my backpack onto one shoulder, I kissed my mom and my brother goodbye before departing the house to walk to the school.

On my way out the door, my mom stopped me. She was fighting with my brother to try to get his socks on, which he kept peeling off.

“Don’t forget, you need to pick Jimmy up at daycare after school today,” she reminded me, still struggling with his socks.

Awesome,

I thought, closing the front door behind me.

I distinctly remember walking to school that day, because that’s when I saw it.

It was an entrance in the woods I had always passed on the way to school. The opening was around three feet wide, and it looked as if there was a trail that led deeper into the woods from it. The trees around the entrance looked dead and withered, while the trees farther away appeared to be in perfect shape. It was curious.