Tears of Perfection

Chapter 6

           A few minutes later Katie turns into her neighborhood, blasting her music and singing along to the radio. She couldn’t wait to see if Marie liked her birthday present; it was something only she would get her so hopefully it was well worth the money.  Katie was also very curious to see what Brian had gotten her. Marie had always loved Brian and Brian looked at her like a little sister he as an only child, had never had. If one this was for sure his gift would be great, just hopefully not too great.

            As she drove down her street Katie was surprised to see that all of her neighbors were walking towards her house. Actually the closer she got the more people she saw standing or walking, trying to get a look into the house. That was silly of course; the Miller’s had a large fence, lots of trees, and a huge driveway so that they could have privacy. Plus why would they be trying to look into her house.

            Katie had a very bad feeling in her gut as she got closer and closer to her home, honking her horn to get people to move out of her way.  Looking at the window she saw that people were staring at her, making Katie feel even worse. Was her house on fire? Or maybe someone was getting arrested.  Had somebody died? Quickly she shook all of those thoughts out if her head. Negative thoughts led to negative outcomes. That thought had been drilled into her head since she was 13. You could affect if something was positive or negative, this had to be positive.

            It took a long time to make it to her gate due to the crowds of people, but finally Katie reached it and she almost had a heart attack on the spot.

            Blocking her gate was a police officer, a menacing one at that! She pulled up, the police saw who she was, and let her in before reclosing the gate. Before driving any further Katie took a deep breath to calm herself. Nothing was wrong, her parents were just throwing Marie some huge party and people were trying to crash so they had to hire security. Everything was peachy keen. It had to be.

            Pulling into the garage, Katie took a sigh of relief; the house was not on fire. Everything was going to be okay. Not knowing what else to do she cautiously stepped out of the car and walked into her house.  No giant party was in sight, actually there was an eerie air to the silence in the house, almost as if it had manifested into a physical form.

            That’s when she began to hear the crying and Marie screaming her name. Her sister came running downstairs and came up and gave her a huge hug, one which Katie returned with much hesitancy. Marie hated hugs and never hugged her like this.

            Katie pulled away and looked around, “Mar, is everything okay. Where are Mom and Dad?”

            Obviously she had said the wrong thing, for Marie had started to vehemently cry even harder. Katie pulled her little sister into her arms and whispered soft endearments into her ear saying that everything was going to be okay. But inside she knew something was wrong, she just didn’t know what. She didn’t hear footsteps above her sister’s tears and didn’t see anything but the long brown waves of her sister’s hair. All Katie knew was that suddenly she felt someone reaching over Marie to tap her on the shoulder. She pulled away from Marie once again and looked up to the eyes of another police officer.

            “Yes Officer,” she said, somehow managing to keep her voice calm.

            “Are you Katie Anne Miller?”

            “Um yes.  Is there a problem?”

            “You haven’t been picking up your phone. We have been trying to reach you for half an hour now.”