Scarlet leaned as far out of the car window as far as she could go. The wind whipped her dirty blonde hair around her face. Most people mistook it for brown, but a few weeks in Nevada's sun had bleached it to where it was an unmistakable gold.
"Sweetie, get back in here. You'll get bugs on your face." Her mother's dark skin was much darker after their trip. Although Scarlet and her father almost never got sunburned, her mother was toasted after five minutes, even with the layers of sunscreen she put on.
Reluctantly, Scarlet put her head back in, and rolled up the window. She didn't want the vacation to be over. She'd spent the last three weeks swimming in lakes thousands of feet deep, coming face to face with snakes that could kill you in minutes, and discovering a gold nugget (admittedly, it was fool's gold, but she kept it anyway). As soon as she got home, her parents would ship her off to the fancy boarding school they'd been talking about for a month.
The thought of it made her stomach turn. They didn't have a playground, never served fish sticks for lunch, and all the girls had to wear ugly plaid skirts and ash gray sweaters. She knew; she'd sneaked a look at the pamphlet her mother had been reading.
"Perk up, buttercup." Her dad, "The Golden Boy", as her mother called him, brought her out of her sad train of thought. He was stuck with such a nickname because he was always happy. Which he certainly was then. He incorrectly guessed that she was upset at her mother for making her roll up the window. He then preceded to, badly, sing a song from her favorite Disney movie.
Scarlet didn't want to, but she started laughing. So did her mom. The family was laughing and probably going a little too fast when a semi truck got off at the wrong turn. The driver later claimed that he'd been looking at his checklist, and that he hadn't seen the family's dark blue Prius until it was too late.
The last thing Scarlet remembered was her mother reaching for her husband's hand as they collided head on with a a truck.
YOU ARE READING
Scarlet
Science Fiction"At least they told me the truth when they told me my parents had died. It was the only thing they were honest about." Towards the end of a cross-country road trip, a tragic car crash killed off Jackson and Margaret Catros, and knocked their youn...
