Crossroads

1 | Good Morning, Sunshine

O N E

~My shadow's dancing without you for the first time.~

a d e l i n

The blaring sound of my alarm is the first thing I register when I gain any semblance of consciousness.

It makes me twist in my bed, scrambling to turn off the panic inducing noise, a groan of dissatisfaction rumbling from my throat as I blindly search for my phone and tap the snooze button.

Trying to rub sleep out of my eyes, I look at the time, squinting when the bright light almost scars my vision.

5:30

And like always, the lockscreen makes me pause.

Aaron; grinning from ear to ear, his gaze fixed on me as I admire the delecate golden ring which he had given me as a gift for our 17th birthday. His was identical.

The same ring that now hangs around my neck.

I'd wanted his ring as well but all that had remained in that warehouse was charred, so much so that the bodies had been downright unidentifiable.

The thought is enough to send shivers down my body and open my mind to the sea of unwelcomed memories.

Our seventeenth birthday was a massive celebration, the day forever captured by professional photographers. The room had been bustling with business tycoons and influencial social icons, it was merely a strategic business gathering under the guise of a birthday celebration.

We'd even been featured in an article of Forbes, a fact that had left our mother's surgically filled lips in a haughty smile for weeks and given our father enough boasting amo to last until the next month.

It was grand, over the top and completely meaningless and yet still a great time because of the people I had celebrated it with, though now one of them-the very person who had cut that damned five tier cake with me-was gone.

Which was why I had come to resent the date of my birth.

Today marks the first day of senior year, one that I'd been dreading ever since the incident had taken place during summer vacations. Reluctantly rolling out of bed and the heavenly linen sheets, I place my feet on the heated marble floor.

Not a day goes by where I don't appreciate this aspect of being the descendant of a filthy rich family.

Not wanting to waste any time, I trudge to the bathroom, splashing my face with frigid water, the splash feeling more like a slap and doing its job of waking me up properly.

My eyes run over the girl in the mirror who looks back at me with puffy eyes. Fatigue seeps through each and every feature of my face, showing itself through the half moons under my eyes.

I was used to it by now, after Aaron it happened often. The nightmares always tend to have this drastic effect on me.

They're always a repetition of the same events and still the deafening sound of gunshots always make me want to cover my ears, even if it's just a figment of my brain playing the sounds it had once heard.