Prologue

Prologue

I'd been staying with my best friend, Tara, for the past week. My parents decided to go to Niagara Falls for the week of spring break to celebrate their anniversary. I thought that was really romantic, so I was just fine with them leaving me behind. I was pretty excited to spend the week at Tara's house, anyway. It was really fun to be able to stay with her for that long, with all of the staying up late watching movies, eating popcorn, and just having fun in general. Spring break had to be the best time of the year, with my parents gone.

The night before I was supposed to come back home, Tara and I were playing a little game of poker, while her mother watched the news. We weren't allowed to bet real money, so we bet skittles instead. Since I held the majority of the sugary candies, we decided to be done after that hand. We didn't feel like going to bed yet, but didn't know what else to do. Lucy, Tara's mom, said we should head off to bed anyway, so we'd get back into our old sleeping habits when school started again. We whined, complained, and thought of excuse after excuse to stay up later. She allowed us to stay up for another half hour, but only on the condition that we'd watch the news with her. We hated the news,but since that was the only thing allowing us to stay up for 30 more minutes, we decided to watch, or at least pretend to.

We didn't really watch the news; we just sat there talking about whatever came to our minds. We spoke of anything from boys to the English essay assigned over spring break by Ms. Marshall, the teacher that no one likes. Every once in a while, we would glance up and see what the news anchor was talking about, but nothing interesting-- robberies, marijuana sales, and even a plane that crashed in the middle of the ocean. We didn't particularly think about any of those things, since we were too tired to care.

When we finally ran out of things to talk about, we trudged off to bed. Tara's bedroom had bunk beds, since she and her older sister who had moved out recently used to share a bedroom. I stayed in the top bunk, while she stayed in the bottom. Once we were in bed, we didn't talk much, since we were too tired to open our mouths. We fell to sleep almost immediately after our heads hit the pillows, which is good, since we had lost a tremendous amount of sleep throughout the week.

The next morning, I woke up around 7 in the morning, even though I had stayed up until around 1. I was so excited that my parents would be coming back from their anniversary vacation that I couldn't imagine sleeping in, even with the complete lack of sleep in recent nights. By 9 in the morning, Lucy, and a terribly tired Tara, were driving me through the neighborhoods to my own home. I wanted to be there before my parents arrived, so when they got there, I could give them the biggest welcoming hug.

My parents told me they'd arrive home right around noon. Their flight actually landed the day before, but they planned in advance to stay in a hotel that night, naturally assuming that it would be a very long day for them. They were driving in from Dallas, which is about a five hour drive all the way to San Antonio. I was too excited to even wait for their arrival, so I tried desperately to distract myself from the situation by watching TV. That didn't help at all. My stomach was churning at the thought of seeing my parents for the first time in a week.

By 12 o'clock in the afternoon, I was totally anxious. Any minute, I thought. They'll be home any minute. I continued to think it would be any minute for another hour and a half. When I looked up at the clock and it said 1:30, I figured that their flight must have landed late. Another half hour went by, and they weren't anywhere to be seen. Their luggage got lost, maybe? 2 more excruciatingly long hours, and they still hadn't arrived home. It had to be traffic. What else could it be? They were driving from Dallas, which is a fairly busy town, especially at the end of spring break, when everyone was coming back from their vacations. They probably didn't take into account all the traffic on the highways and at the airport when they gave me a time estimate. Soon, though, they'd be home, and I'd be happy.

At 5 in the afternoon, it finally occurred to me that maybe they had told me they would stay in hotels two nights after they arrived back in Texas, rather than one. I assumed I must've misheard them when they were telling me everything. At this point, I stopped waiting for them, now thinking they'd be home the next afternoon. I didn't mind one bit, since it meant I got to have the house to myself for a day.

I went into the kitchen to find the grocery money jar. We kept it in case there was an urgent need for groceries or food of some sort, when there was none in the house. It's a good thing, too. I took out a twenty dollar bill, and ordered a pizza. My mother would never approve of the use of the money if she were here, but she couldn't really stop me, either. When I called the pizzeria, I already had my exact order in mind: a medium cheese and olive pizza with stuffed crust. That's what I got every single time. It's the only kind of pizza I could stand at all. The person taking my order had repeated it back to me to confirm it, and told me the it would be here in 15 minutes.

After waiting for my pizza for only 10 minutes, there was a knock at the front door. I jumped off the couch, and took the cash out of my pocket as I opened the door. Ready to pay, I said “So how much will that be?” I looked up, gasping at my mistake. I saw a glum looking police officer standing where the pizza delivery boy should've been. He looked up to me, and said nothing.

After the uniformed man stood there in silence for about a minute, he said, “Are you Michelle MacDonald?” I was confused by what he had said to me. Why was he looking for me? I hadn't broken a single law in my life. I was nervous, thinking maybe someone had stolen my identity or something and framed me for a law-breaking act.

“Uh... depends.... Why are you asking?” I spoke slowly and cautiously. For all I knew, he could've been a stalker or something who had stolen an officer's uniform. I knew how to be safe, even with cops.

“There was a flight that went down in the ocean yesterday afternoon.” He paused, not knowing how to word what he had to say next. He cringed as he spoke again. “Your parents were on that flight. Their bodies were just found and identified...” He trailed off. The officer gave me a sympathetic look, while I just stared at him. I hadn't really processed what he just said to me. It took me a minute before I even realized that he just told me my parents were dead. At first I was shocked. I couldn't think of anything at all, and didn't know what to say. Then it all came at me; the tears, the mental images, the scariness of being alone.

“Your mother was found dead, but your father was still alive when he was found... He actually still is. He's in the hospital, in a coma. He doesn't seem to have more than a few hours, since he was in the middle of the ocean for so long. We honestly don't know how he survived. Would you like to go see him while you still have the chance?” I nodded as I continued to let out loud sobs. Neighbors came out of their houses to see what all the commotion was, and they were left confused as I got into the front seat of the police car and was driven to the hospital.

I was immediately directed to my father's hospital room. As I stood outside the door, I was afraid of what I might see, and pondered what my life would be like once he was gone.. I took in a deep breathe, and walked in. He was hooked up to all sorts of machines and what I could only assume was a life supporter. He was basically a vegetable, and probably wouldn't even hear any of what I was about to tell him, but it was worth a try to have last words to him anyway.

“Dad... You can't leave me here,” I whispered through a quiet wail. I held one of his hands, and laid my head on his chest. “Don't leave me here!” I was screaming now, afraid to be all alone. I had just lost my mother, and I had essentially lost my father, too. It was the scariest, saddest thing that anyone could go through, and I, an already troubled teenager, had to go through this. It was just too much for me to handle.

I collapsed half on the ground, half on top of my father's nearly lifeless body, barely able to control myself. I was kicking and screaming like a 4 year old at this point. I was gasping for air through the long, terrifying cries coming from me. Nurses came to my side, helped me up, and tried to comfort me. They had to be idiots if they thought ANYTHING could comfort me at this time. I was too tired from the screaming to push them away, even though they weren't helping at all.

Crying into a nurses arm is the last thing I could remember about that night. The worst night of my life. The next morning, I woke up to find myself in my father's room, but my father wasn't there anymore. He must've been transferred sometime in the night... to the morgue.

He's really gone. I remembered all the events of the previous day, and let out a quiet whimper. I was hoping it had all just been a bad dream, but when I closed my eyes and reopened them, the hospital was still around me, and the aura of death could still be sensed.

I walked out of the empty hospital room, and saw my grandpa sitting in the waiting room. He didn't look remotely sad, which upset me terribly. His daughter and son-in-law just died, and he didn't seem to care one bit. I walked to him, and he looked up when I was standing right in front of him.

“I'm so sorry for your loss,” he said calmly. He looked back down at the magazine he had been staring at moments before. I was angry.

“Your loss? How can you say that?” My teeth were gritted in an angry rage when I spoke. “You just lost your daughter and son-in-law, and it's my loss? Just how little did you care about them?” I was screaming and bringing attention to myself once again. I seemed to be doing that a lot lately. “How on earth can you just sit there reading your stupid magazine when my parents, your daughter and her husband just died? This isn't my loss, this is our loss, and you need to realize this.” I was crying once again, unable to control it at all.

I didn't care at all who saw me cry, because after going through what I just had to deal with, I had every right to cry about it. My grandpa didn't try to stop me from crying, or tell me that I was drawing attention to us. He just sat there reading an article on male baldness, while I was breaking down on the waiting room floor, bawling. At that moment, I hated that man more than I'd ever hated anyone in my life.