It's funny how life works out.
One moment, you're as happy as can be, living a peaceful and stress-free life.
And then in the blink of an eye, everything changes and you find yourself spiralling downward towards what most people call Hell.
That's kind of how my life worked out.
One day, Mom and I were living peacefully together in our little flat near downtown New York. The next day, she got sick. Or rather, sicker than she usually was. And then, in a blur of hospitals and doctors shouting confused orders, she was gone. Snap! Just like that. In the blink of an eye.
Dead.
Funny.
Or maybe not. At least not according to me. I bet God up there is having a real hoot, though.
Here's the story behind my demise.
When I was five years old, my father left my mom to go pursue his dream of opening up a prestigious preparatory academy somewhere in New York's countryside. He never looked back at us once. He never called, never came to check on us. Poof! He was gone.
Which was odd, considering he claimed that he was in love with her. Clearly, love was secondary to pursuing goals. At least according to my father it was.
But that was all right. Mom and I were just fine on our own. We lived in a tiny, two-bedroom apartment. Mom worked as a secretary at US bank for the first few years.
But then--and I think this was the first of God's jokes on me--she collapsed at work one day. She broke into a terrible fever and passed out. She was rushed to the hospital and the doctors were confused. What was this strange disease she had? Finally, one symptom led to another, which led to the discovery of her cancer.
Damnit, God. Damnit.
So she was diagnosed when I was nine years of age. She couldn't work as much because she was sick. So she had to cut down her hours at work. As I grew older and came of age, I was able to pick up a side job at a small boutique. I had to do something to help her out. Once I got my job, I forced Mom to quit her's. I couldn't watch her go to work while she was so weak. I was so confused. How was it that her cancer spread so fast?
The doctors were dumbfounded as well. They said they had never heard of such a case and it was such a strange cancer. They told me they were beginning to doubt it was even that. They said it was some unknown disease and whatever it was, it was killing her. Fast.
They told me to help make the remainder of her life enjoyable. I wanted to laugh at them. How the hell was I supposed to do that? I was 16, for God's sake. Between going to school and working almost full time at the boutique, I barely had time to keep myself alive.
But I knew I owed her something. She took care of me all by herself after my father left. Now I had to return the favor. So I did everything I possibly could to keep her happy. I took her to different places in Europe. One summer, the summer before my senior year, we went on a month-long road trip across Europe. We visited France and Italy, Greece and Germany, Portugal and Spain. I bought her a photography camera, something she had always wanted, with the little money I had saved up. She loved it and took pictures the whole way through the trip.
When we got back from this whirlwind adventure, she fell seriously ill. She couldn't move. She couldn't speak. She was pale and weak and dying. And I just stood by, helpless.
She died in my arms one night. It had been a beautiful day outside. The sun had been shining. There wasn't a cloud in sight. It was such a peculiar day, so atypical. And God had chosen that day to take from her the very thing she tried so hard to hold on to: her life.
I cried when she left me. What else could I have done? She was something more than a mother to me. She was my best friend. I had no real friends; my life situation didn't allow me to have that.
It was a cruel thing, life. I knew it was mocking me as I sunk into my depression. Screw you, life. Screw you.
There were only a handful of people at the funeral. I could literally count how many people that had come on one hand. One of them was me. The other was the minister. The other three? Our 80-year old neighbor, a fellow secretary from the bank, and the 25-year old man that had developed all of Mom's pictures.
My father? No, he didn't come. Why would he? I didn't even think he knew she was ill. And even if he did, he obviously didn't care. So much for love, right?
I prayed to the divine source in Heaven that I would be able to stay on the down low until I turned 18 and could live by myself. But God was never on my side. The government found out that I had no guardian and shipped me off to my father's place in the countryside.
And now, I was going to attend his dreaded, exclusive boarding school: Trinity High.
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A/N: There's the prologue to this one!
I know the Trinity is something holy in Christianity. It's going to mean something different in this story, though, which will be explained later on as the story progresses. As I said before, this story is about witches, although that hasn't come up yet. I wanted to take a venture into the realm of fantasy fiction, just for the hell of it. But I'm not interested in vampires and werewolves; they're much too overdone. Witches, however, are intriguing.
Sooo, yeah. Let me know how you like it. And then tell me which one you want me to write first--this one or Learning to Fall.
Leave me a comment. And don't forget to VOTE!!!
XOXO