Chasing Fireflies

Chapter 1

August 17th, 2020 was the coldest August 17th in the past 50 years in Monroe, North Carolina. 48 degrees. At least, that's what the weather forecast said when my alarm went off at 6:52am, a computerized voice reading out bits and pieces of the news to me. I couldn't figure out what kind of person wanted to hear the darkest parts of the world right when they woke up, but it was my alarm clock's default setting.

Now, I was starting my day thinking about the fact that there was a shooting last night at a club in Ohio, and some old white guy was projected to win the North Carolina governor election--as usual. You didn't need to be some kind of political analyst to figure that one out.

On the first day of school last year, Wren and I got up a whole hour earlier than usual—5:52am—so we could make sure our makeup was perfect, and make sure the outfits we'd picked out the night before still felt right. We met in the hallway between our bedrooms and played Red Hot Chili Peppers (Wren's choice) so loud that it woke up our dad, who spent the rest of the morning complaining that we were being "disrespectful."

Sometimes, an outfit felt good when you picked it out the night before, but then when you got up in the morning to put it on, it fell flat. It felt like a Halloween costume--something that might have sounded good when you were ready for bed and everything felt a little bit whimsical, a little bit out of the ordinary, but when normal life hit the next morning, you just wanted to go for your typical jeans and sweater or floral blouse.

At least, that's how it felt to me. Wren didn't seem to feel the same way. She'd wear whatever she wanted--sheer lace tops with nothing but a bra underneath, crazy out-there patterns, skirts so short you knew she'd get dress-coded--except no teacher ever wanted to dress-code her since that time freshman year that Mr. Ramirez had dress-coded her and she'd complained to the school about him looking at her ass. She said, "If he hadn't been looking at my ass, he'd never have noticed my skirt was so short!" I'd backed her up because that's what sisters did, even though I actually had never noticed Mr. Ramirez doing that. In today's day and age, schools couldn't ignore that kind of report, especially with not one, but two girls backing it up, so they let Mr. Ramirez go.

I felt kind of bad, but Wren didn't. And ever since that incident, nobody really messed with her, not even teachers.

Today, there was no real need to pick out an outfit. All the cheerleaders had agreed that we were going to wear our uniforms today, in honor of Wren. Strangely, no one had ever mentioned that plan to me when it was in the works. I hadn't found out until last week, when our coach sent out an email to the whole team telling us that some students had planned to wear our uniforms in Wren's honor. It was a little strange that nobody had talked to me about something they were planning to do for my own sister, but I was used to feeling like a stranger in Wren's life, like maybe she belonged to everyone else before me.

I took a deep breath and sat up in bed. My mom had only let me agree to go back to school today because I was "adjusting so well to the whole thing." If it was up to my parents, I'd have been homeschooled for my senior year of high school.

I understood their concern, at least to some extent. They were worried that after what happened to Wren and me on July 2, something bad would happen again. The person who'd hit us with his car that day and fled the scene, leaving both of us injured on the side of the road, had never been caught--and my parents were worried that maybe he was still out there, and that maybe what had happened wasn't an accident. But the truth was, there was nobody out there who had any reason to hurt me or my sister. What had happened was an unfortunate accident.

I heard a quiet knock on my door, and my mom peered in. "Annabelle?" she said softly. "Are you going to school, honey?"

"Yes," I said, looking back at the clock and realizing that it was already 7:01, and that I needed to get up and be out the door in a few minutes.