The Secrets of the Dupont Family

Chapter 1

Trigger warning: suicide.
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Present

My mom was dead.

I was standing in the opening of her bedroom doorway and I didn't dare to move closer to check for a pulse. I am no doctor but it was clear as day. She had no color in her face. Her chest wasn't moving and her eyes hadn't blinked once since I came into her room.

Of course what really gave it away was the position she was in. Her neck was embraced by a rope that was attached to the ceiling. 

I was pretty sure that she was already dead for hours. It was eerie to think that she must have been dead here, hanging for hours while I was asleep in my bed.

I had no idea how long I was standing in the doorway, but it seemed hours and seconds at the same time. I just stood there. I couldn't think or move. What was I even supposed to do at this point?

Take her down? Call an ambulance? What were they going to do? She wasn't coming back to life. After a few more moments passed I shook myself out of it and came in action.

I slammed the bedroom door shut and ran out of the apartment, running down a few flights of stairs to create enough distance between me and my mom. I sat down on the stairs and counted to ten. Getting away from that place instantly made me feel better. It was easier to gather my thoughts.

My mom was dead. Which meant that my sole legal guardian couldn't take care of me anymore. I had no other family or friends in the area that could take me in. I lost all of my school friends when I got send away. I do have one friend from boarding school but I had no idea where she lived and I had not spoken to her in over 8 months.

So that left me on my own and as soon as the police and social services came they would figure that out too. Foster care didn't really appeal to me. I had no idea where I would end up and with who.

Of course everything was better than the hell that I was in for the last three years. They couldn't send me back there. They just couldn't. I would rather live on the streets for the rest of my life than go back for another day.

"Are you all right sweetie?"

I was slapped out of my own head and back on the stairs of the apartment building. I looked up and saw an old lady standing a few stairs below with a handful of groceries. Probably a neighbor.

"Do you feel okay? You look kind of pale?" She asked again after I didn't reply to her first question.

I opened my mouth and closed it again, not a word came out. How was I even supposed to say to her that I had found my mom dead? I couldn't get the words out.

So I settled for crying instead.

That's how I ended up at the police station. I managed to get out a few words between sobbing that my mom died to my old neighbor. So now I was sitting in front of a female officer who tried to ask me questions. Some were about my account of what must have happened and others about me and if we had other family.

My answers were short and probably not very helpful. My mind was a mess and I was anxious about where I would go now. I also had a hard time looking her or anyone in the face. So I didn't even notice it when a man came in until he started to talk to me.

"Hello Lyra, my name is Ben." I quickly glanced up and then down to the table again. A man with kind eyes sat down next to the female officer.

"My condolences for your mother. It must be such a shock and I know everything is probably going really fast for you to all comprehend right now." He spoke in a soothing voice that people normally used for kids. I guess he saw me as one. I just nodded at him so he continued.