1.
"This is the way you left me, I'm not pretending, No hope, no love, no glory, No happy ending. If anything should happen, I guess I wish you well. A little bit of Heaven, for a little bit of Hell. This is the hardest story that I've ever told, No hope, no love, no glory, Happy ending's gone forevermore."
-Mika, Happy Ending
“Once upon a time, a girl, not too different from you, learned that she was an angel. “ My father said.
This was my favorite story when I was younger. My father and I even made a little book out of cardstock and crayons for it. Daddy would never stick to the book; he would always add a few little details to make me laugh. Whenever he would come up to tuck me into bed, he would tell me to pick a story—any story—and then I would always ask him to tell me the one about the angel. It would always end with, “And the angel and her brother lived happily ever after.” He would tuck me in, and for the night I would dream about happily ever afters.
He loved to tell me stories about an angel that saved the world. I didn’t know how deep they actually were until I was older. I don’t think my dad could have even guessed how the stories would actually end.
But then he left, and there were no more happy endings. I discovered what the angel stories were really about.
The girl was me.
It began on a day that started like any other.
I turned my music off while I did my hair. In the mornings, I would always blast music with screaming guitars and loud beats to wake me up a little bit. I scrunched my long, dark black hair in my hand and lined my blue-grey eyes with a thick black line. I looked at myself one more time in the mirror before my friend picked me up. I was wearing a black v-neck shirt and a pair of skinny jeans and dark Converse.
"Kiara!" Someone outside shouted to me.
I looked out of my window and found my friend's black-and-pink-swirly-old-fashioned Volkswagen Beetle sitting in the driveway. My friend, Audrey, was waving at me. Audrey and I had been friends forever, and she loved to fix things up. Even when we were little, she found little things and made them beautiful. She found the Bug at a junkyard and fixed it up that same night. She was always proud of her work.
She had dark chocolate, wavy hair that went all the way down to her waist. She wore her signature cutoff denim vest, a long sleeved striped tee that had rolled up sleeves, a denim mini skirt, black leggings, and a pair of black leather boots that were well worn.
The guys at school knew better than to stare at her and ask her out. They all know that she will kick anybody’s butt that breaks up with her.
I gathered up my black-and-white checkered backpack and climbed over my crowded room. I climbed into the car, and looked grumpily outside. My family consisted of only me and a brother who could care less about me. When my parents left, Blake and I had been on our own. It had been my brother and I versus the world. And my brother didn't need to know I was leaving because he didn't care. The difference between my brother and I was that I actually cared about how I chose to live. He was a mess. We weren't poor, but we weren't exactly rich. He worked at a fancy restaurant and was a chef, so he got a fair amount of income. We had bought a new house last year when we got a letter from our parents saying that they wouldn't be back anytime soon.
I looked out the window, remembering how that day went. Blake and I had just gotten home from school.
“Look! Blake! It’s a letter from Mom and Dad!” I said, carrying in the mail. He walked in to the house soaking wet. He was a senior at high school, the best year of his life, he said. Even though he was a senior, he still refused to wear a coat or carry an umbrella. He walked over to the table and grabbed the letter from my hand.
