After his parents' sudden death, Chester Covington leaves everything behind and moves in with his aunt.
But nobody knows what is going on behind the facadé of a traumatized boy who has watched his parents die that he puts up ever single day of his...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"Want a sandwich? I made some for Chloe, but she said she'd get something from the diner with her friends," my aunt asks, nodding at the pile of toasts with ham and salad in between, which are sitting on one of the kitchen counters.
I nod at her, while throwing on on my sweat jacket. It's Friday afternoon. I just finished my homework and decided to take a walk and go to one of the parks in town to have some time for myself. Also, I would love to take some pictures again. I haven't done it for quite some time, now.
She packs up three of the sandwiches in a small brown bag and hands it to me. I thank her and stuff it into my backpack, before I give her a peck on the cheek and walk out the door.
I inhale the warm summer breeze, which will probably be one of the last ones that I'll get this summer. It's a comfortable warmth accompanied by cold breezes of wind, here and then.
At night it's quite cold, though.
The sun is at its highest point, slowly going on its journey back into its hiding place, where no-one can see it. The sky is as clear as ever, no clouds obscuring the sight of its breathtaking beauty. I sigh, the corners of my lips lifting up a bit, but not reaching my eyes.
I wonder if they ever will again. A smile reaching my eyes; it sounds so easy, yet it's so far from that - from being easy. The last time I had full-on smiled, with my teeth sticking out in between my lips, the corners of my lips so high up, that it almost looked like it reached my cheekbones, and with happiness glistening in my eyes, was too long ago to even remember.
It was when I had still thought of the world as a wonderland with rainbows and cookies waiting for me at every corner. A fantasy that reality - my reality - couldn't be farther away from.
I shake my head and walk further into the direction of the town, out of the woods, the crunching of branches and leaves underneath my sneakers filling my ears.
When a bird suddenly chimes above my head, I jump and stumble over my own legs. I feel my feet lose contact to the ground, giving in to gravity. I pull my hands up to my chest in an attempt to make the impact of my body connecting with the ground less painful.
It didn't help, though.
I land on the floor, hands first, knees following. I squeeze my eyes shut, my heart bumping loudly in my chest. A stinging pain erupts in the palms of my hands, an itchy one in my knees and an agonizing one in my shoulder. Great, my shoulder had just recovered from the bruises.
I groan in what I guess is exhaustion mixed with pain and frustration. I carefully roll over, so that my ass is on the ground. I bend my knees and dust off the leaves that got stuck on my pants, before I do the same with my palms. On the fabric that is covering my knees, has formed a stain of dirt and blood. I try to pull up my pants, wanting to see how bad it is.
