Wander

Chapter One: The Chaos Theory, Also Known as the Butterfly Effect

{Kasandra "Kassie" Bean}

                     The feeling of leaving the system left me with a strange emptiness in the pit of my stomach. Something about the word diploma and finished didn't quite intermingle in my mind.     

                     There was no return. There was no more: I didn't do that paper, I didn't finish that essay .There was no more passing the same faces in the halls. There was simply no more.

                     Something about freedom still captivates me, whether it be freedom through hard-fought battles and harsh winters or a diploma being put in your hand. I could have done anything, anything after that. I can do anything, anything now.

                   My first thought, though I tried to suppress it, such things were completely unlike me- some strange teenage angst I'd never had before surfacing, was that I'd do something reckless and celebratory like most recently-not-seniors did, get a tattoo or throw a party where confetti spurted from the walls. But I didn't do any of that, I didn't have the chance.

                    I hadn't talked to my Mom in five years, not since she packed her suitcase and left when I needer her most. She had been nothing more than a tragic tale left imprinted on my mind. She had her life and I had mine- we didn't mix. We were like two bodies of water with a dam placed right down the middle. That's how it stayed for a long time, separate, different, untouchable, unknowable. Until the dam that seperated us imploded, placing us on opposite ends of cautionary tape.

                     I still don't fully understand why she did what she did. She wasn't a perfect person, she drank too much and cared too little. I imagined it was impulsive, a rabid desire that called to her in a foggy state of mind. Maybe she had a falling out with someone her shriveled little heart had the capacity to care about. Maybe she was just drunk.

                      That's when the Chaos Theory popped into my head, kind of like a black streak of paint accidentally drawn across a canvas. The theory states that something as small as a butterfly flapping it's wings at the perfect time, in the perfect place, will later cause a hurricane. Any moment, any movement, any detail may be your undoing. I didn't give it much thought, but for a split second I wondered if I was some sort of trigger; If I was a misplaced music note, or a melody in her life's now finished symphony.

                        So there I stood, a recently-not-Senior, fingers curled around yellow cautionary tape, that blocked off the used-to-be railing and the rest of the world; Eyes misty, the only family member to bear witness to the charred bits that remained of my Mother's death vessel as it lay in a dried out riverbed, the ending of a story, but at the same time the beginning of one. College wouldn't be the marker of Chapter Two in my tale, this would be. This would be...

                       I felt like a ticking time bomb, unsure when my feelings would burst and take my heart along with it. I suddenly wished I'd told someone, any companion besides Police Officers would have been nice. I wished I didn't have to make my own choices knowing I was one family member away from being an orphan. I wished I didn't have to know. I wished to live on in unknowing bliss, anything would be better than this.

                        But I couldn't do that, not just because it was illogic and impossible- but because it wasn't right. She may have been ignorant, impulsive, drunk- but she was still my Mother, she didn't deserve to be laid to Earth alone. I doubt I'd have felt any better if I told her I'd loved her, but the 'maybes' still float around in my mind. One brush of a butterflies wings. One detail.

                         The chief investigator told me to go home I think almost five times before I could pry my eye from the ghastly sight of charred, warped metal and shattered glass juxtaposed against fair sand and the occasional river rock. The crisp smell of incinerated metal burned my lungs like acid, but I couldn't bring myself to cough or cover myself. I couldn't move.

                           I had one permeating thought spinning like a Merry-Go-'Round in my brain. Once I left this place- there would be an investigation and a funeral. There would be some sort of memorial stuck haphazardly in the river bed. I would forever be the daughter of the looney who threw herself off the bridge, she would always be the looney buried in the town cemetery. I would forever be the harbinger in the twisted tale that would circle indefinitely in this small town until it grew gummy and tasteless as old candy on the local tongue. If I'm ever to have such a thing as a legacy, is this what will define me?

 I trekked up the hill I'd sprint down only an hour ago to my silver car that used to shine when it was new. I let out a long-needed sigh and plopped down behind the wheel, thus beginning the longest drive home I'd ever experienced. The harbinger, the witness, but also in some pitiful way: the victim. 

{To whomever it concerns, welcome to my story-draft-thing! I'm always editing and always searching for improvement so constructive criticism is always useful and appreciated. Currently working on a better cover ( because I'm somewhat good at the arting) and some drawings to put in each chapter, but it'll take awhile as I've decided to do them by hand which entails scanning and detail touch up etc etc. Also if you haven't already  noticed I've basically given up on punctuation for the most part in this little section. Have a wonderful day! <3 Gilly

PS. If you can tell which Hamilton song I was listening to while editing this, props to you}