After They Died

August 4th

The windows in my old room were entirely too square. If I timed it right, the sun would come through the glass during sunset and bounce off the crystal vase on the dresser that my mother didn't want me to have. But really, the windows were quite too square to blend with the whitewashed attic feel I had going on up here. A whole floor to myself and not a single color popped out at me. On my desk were two framed pictures. One of me and Rena looking bored, sitting on the front steps of my house on a hot summer evening, the other a stylized family portrait, not a hair out of place. That's the third frame it's been in just this month, and my mother says if I need a fourth, she's taking the damn thing out of my room. To which I responded with retreating upstairs and locking the hatch in the floor that led up here. I hadn't been up here in months but everything seemed all a little too familiar. Sure, the bed had been made, the pictures taken off the walls, but there were little spots where the tape had been and it only served to remind me of what had once been hung there. There was a muffled shout from another floor and I figured it was my mother, calling me down again. Instead, I turned on some loud music and opened a window, sitting against the wall on the floor. There was a loud smacking sound that emanated from the hatch and I knew she was hitting it with the back of a broom to get me to put down the ladder. So, not wanting to make her even angrier than she already was, I got up and opened the little door in the floor of my attic.

"Honey, we still have to talk." My mother looked a little frazzled, holding a broom that was almost taller than she was and the French twist in her hair was messy.

"Don't feel like it." I shrugged.

"Well, it's not an option. Meet me in the living room in five minutes." She said harshly.

I sighed and put my hands on my knees before getting up and pulling my hair up into a ponytail. I grabbed my phone so if she started to lecture, I wouldn't be bored.

I found her in the living room sitting with her legs crossed and I noticed when I walked in that she'd fixed her hair.

"Sweetheart, we need to talk about school."

"Where's dad?" I asked standing in the middle of the room.

"Sit down and we can start." I just shook my head and she sighed, knowing she wouldn't get anywhere with me right now.

"What about school?" I asked cautiously.

"The fact that you need to go back to it."

"No. I can't go back there." I shook my head again feeling my stomach start to get nauseous.

She wouldn't send me back, really she wouldn't. Not after everything and I couldn't deal with seeing everyone again knowing the knew what happened, seeing it first hand... No, I needed a fresh start. I hadn't even wanted to come back here in the first place but my parents refused to move.

"It's the best school in the state, and there's no way you're going to that little school on the south side!" She started to get frustrated.

Did she really think that I would willingly oblige?

"My school doesn't matter! I'm not going back there! Don't you understand? They didn't know them but they know what happened to them! Do you think they knew that Madison's Favorite color was actually bright yellow even though she only wore shades of black? Did they know that Addison was afraid of dying young? Or Bailey's real last name?" I started yelling.

"No darling, I'm sure they didn't-" I cut her off before she could finish.

"Yeah, they didn't. So they don't get to walk around feeling sorry for us and pretending to know what really happened. They don't have the right."