Sudden Silence

Chapter 1: So Quiet

It was so quick. The other car's head lights blinded me and my mother's arm shot out in front of me. Our fun day out abruptly ended. We flipped and landed upside down.  Glass was every where, in my hair and in places it had deeply cut me. My mother never once screamed. She was silent. Like she as holding her breath knowing it was her last. I called out to my mother as we dangled. She locked eyes with me as a few silent tears fell down her face. This only made me call out to her more but, I couldn't reach her. My arms strained under the confines of my jammed seat belt. The look of horror in her eyes as she accepted the fact that she would soon die shook me to my core. She let one last silent breath and she just died. The piece of railing that took her life now dripping a cold color of crimson. Just 30 seconds ago we were talking, making plans. I was the one that insisted we saw that movie, it was my fault. I shut my eyes and screamed. I screamed so loud and just like that just as my mother had accepted her death I had accepted my fault in it.
~
Gloria, the social worker on my case, shifted uncomfortably in her car's cheap leather seats as she peered onto my street. "So, Evie you need to go inside and grab anything you want to have from here." She pulled into the unusually empty driveway and breathed in deep. She turned around to face me. "You know anything special to you." I smiled wearily at her and walked up the path to the house. I opened the door and it was so weird. So quiet. There wasn't my mother's favorite music playing like white noise in the background and a cheesy soap opera wasn't on the TV. I entered further and grabbed my coat from the hook and went down the hall to my mother's room. I tried to keep my head down and not look at the framed pictures that sprinkled the wall. I went into her closet and pulled out her old leather suitcase that grandpa had given to her for her graduation. I carefully began to fold a few clothes of her's I wanted into the case and went and grabbed her shoe box of memories. I went back to close her drawers and on her dresser was her perfume bottle. It was the scent she had always worn, flowery and sweet. I just poured my clothes from my drawers and put a few special things like my phone and laptop in a carry on back pack.

If it wasn't for my luggage I would of been blown away with the wind. The bitter cold hit face as Gloria and I loaded it into the small trunk of her car. I body ached with each move I made. The healing set of stitches on my side radiated pain under the ripple of my shirt. I slowly slid in as Gloria watched my face in it's fit of pain from the mirror. Sympathy clouded her eyes. She knew that this was't fair to me, that I didn't deserve this. I have already been through so much. When I was 5 years old my mother and father got a divorce. It was nasty and my famous last name made it very public. My father was heir to Ashry Industries but, couldn't inherent his business until he divorced my mother. My grandfather's fail proof plan to separate my parents. I remember the day that he left with all my brothers and how they cried for me and mom as they drove away. Thinking back on it now, I realize why he chose to leave me behind and not one of my brothers. Could a female ever take over the family business? Their answer was no. My mother and I's faces were plastered on every magazine and news station. I was now know as Ashry's abandoned daughter.

I laid my head against the cool glass of the back seat wi ndow. I hated the fact that I was in a car. Every little bump and honk of a horn as we entered all the city made me shrink deeper into my seat. Right now there was nothing I wanted more than my mom twin brother, Ethan. Well you know besides my mother still to be alive I haven't even thought of my father or my brothers in a while. I stopped sending letter years ago-stopped crying about them after I turned 13. I guess I decided that there was no point crying over people who didn't want me.

Gloria came to a quick stop. It jerked me forward and my head shot up. Rows of brake lights and neon signs blinded me. We had made it to the city. The red-haired woman turned to me with her hands still on the wheel. "Evie, I'm sorry I stopped like that I didn't mean to scare you." You could probably switch lanes and I would have panic attack, I thought but stayed quite. Gloria's pointer finger bounced anxiously on the tan of the steering wheel. She must have something to say. Must be more bad news for my broken heart to listen to again.

When the paramedics confirmed that mom was indeed dead. I broke down all over again. I don't even remember what happened. All I know is that when I woke up my heart was heavy. Silent, little tears fell down my cheeks. I was too exhausted to wipe them away so they fell. It all was to much for me, too much. Somehow, I drifted into a dreamless sleep. Gloria tapped me in an attempt to wake me. I pleaded with sleep herself to let me continue my nap. That 30 minutes of sleep was the first peaceful moment I had had in 3 days. Expecting to be at the airport, I reluctantly opened my eyes. To my surprise we where still on the road. "Are you awake, now?" I tore my eyes away from the window to her and shook my head. Our eyes connected in mirror. Her eyes held such worry that I began to worry myself. "So... I need to tell you something." She took a deep breath and focused on the road. " The judge decided that you will no longer be placed in a group home. You will be staying a little bit outside the city" I cleared my throat. "They are letting me stay with Aunt Grace?" My voice felt weird on tongue and my voice held something that I had felt in a long time-hope. "No, actually you will be staying with a man named Robert Ashry, your father." That newfound hope was gone.