[ A COMPLETED 2020 TEEN MYSTERY ] Life can take a turn for the worst when you least expect it, spiralling deeply out of control in mere days. It's hard to see the signs sometimes; it may be personality changes, or even just an odd remark, but if we...
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Stephanie
The walk to the police station was frightfully long, or maybe it just seemed that way because we were all busy avoiding the disdainful looks that the town folk were giving us.
How bold of them to assume that just because we were going to the police station, that we have done something wrong. I glance quickly at my father a few times, and even I can see the redness of his cheeks and the obvious shame upon his usually stone cold face.
I pondered upon my current situation. I had no living relatives, and my father was almost certainly going to go to jail. What would happen to me? I was seriously worried, because although my father had hurt me, I'd still had everything I needed to live a perfectly good life.
Our house was enormous, and our resources were stocked up in the basement. I could find practically everything I needed there for school projects, or even for whims I wanted to complete on occasion.
However, when I did think about it, my father hadn't gone down to the basement in years. Thick clouds of dust polluted the boxes down there, so they must have been untouched for a long time.
Perhaps they were there from my mother's time? That was certainly a possibility. If there was one thing I remembered of my mother so vividly, it was that she was always prepared. We'd go outside and she'd bring anything that we might need. She must've thought up multiple scenarios in her mind and planned accordingly.
I remember that one time we went to a picnic with my parents' friends, and it was all absolutely marvellous looking. There were teeny sandwiches, cut to the perfect size for toddlers like I had been. Carrot sticks, because who doesn't love that crunch when you bite it? There were so many more things that my mind was completely overwhelmed, I remember seeing a chocolate fountain and a bouncy castle, but everything else is a blur because I just couldn't take all of it in.
There was only one thing missing, a seemingly unimportant drink that had not found its way into the refreshments menu - and that drink was orange juice. I know what people might say to this, how on earth can something as luxurious as this picnic forget orange juice of all things? There was apple juice, and lots of it, may I add. Freshly squeezed, obviously. But there was no orange juice in sight, and at the time that really got to me.
I remember clamouring onto my mother's lap and begging her for orange juice, practically in tears already. She'd asked the waiter (these must've been some seriously rich friends - too bad I can't remember who they are) and he'd told her that no, there was no orange juice.
I remember just beginning to sob uncontrollably, my tears staining my mother's shirt, snot included. She'd patted my head comfortingly, then slipped a hand into her purse. You wouldn't believe me if I told you that she had brought a tiny juice box filled with the very drink I was craving.
