Stand U by the Sea

Chapter 1

Fala stared out the window, rain pelting against it. She reached up to her throat to feel the seashell charm necklace. Today was the day Travis had been killed. She still remembered the funeral. It hadn't been much.

It could hardly be called ceremonial. There were barely fifteen people there, and all it was, was his body being put in the ground. Nothing fancy, nothing special. He had only been buried at Lone Fir Cemetery. It had been foggy that day, almost no sunshine, and it had been as cold as ice.

A miserable day, fitting for the funeral. She remembered so well how she wasn't popular for being poor, but now she was infamous at her school for being both poor and having a criminal brother. Then the wave where everyone thought she was a gang member, and rumors had been shared around on how she had been the one to kill Travis, that she had been in and out of juvie, and how it had been debated if she could be the first child to go to federal prison. Everywhere she went, those rumors followed her, haunting her, never going to let her forget. Forget the images, forget the pain, forget the sense of betrayal of the one person who had assisted her and led her on.

Don't do what I do. Just don't, OK?

She could not, she would not forget his last words to her. Before he was murdered by the same thing that he had been warning her against. But that he was taking part in. It had all made sense then. Where all the money was coming from.

What he was doing to get it. He had been right. She had only seen a sliver of what was really going on.

Could it have been prevented?

Fala didn't know. A year later, and she still had no idea. If she hadn't listened to Travis's pleas and let Mama and Pappa know, would they have stopped him? Would they have even listened to her? They sure weren't now.

The finalization of the divorce was coming. It would only be less than a week now. Fala was tired of it all. She knew of kids who had their parents divorced, and the question that came with it.

You need to make a choice. Who will you stay with, and who will you leave?

This wasn't going to be a separation, where they would stay in touch and she could just spend some days of the week with Mama and the others with Pappa. They were splitting for good. Fala slumped back on her bed. All the happy memories she had of her family were all from so long ago. When things were good.

But in the past few years, things had taken a turn for the worse. Now she was caught up in the middle of it. She opened the worn notebook that sat on her pillow. When Travis and she were younger, they each had a copy of it, almost a scrapbook of all the promises they made to each other, when certain things happened, and filled with pictures from the good times. Fala had found Travis's right before they had left to go to his funeral.

Her parents didn't know, but when she had gone to put her flowers in his coffin, she had slipped his notebook among them. It was now buried with him. She was glad he still had it, though, after the discovery of him and the gang, she wasn't sure how much he had followed what they had written. Turning to the page she was looking for, she stared at the words, written in Travis's handwriting, the rule, the promise he had wanted them to make.

If our parents ever get into a divorce, we will know then that our life with them has nothing more but pain. If this happens, we will leave and find happiness for ourselves.

A tear fell from Fala's eye. She didn't want this divorce. She wanted her family to stay whole and good, but with her brother gone, she didn't know if that could happen. She flipped through random pages, finding pictures of them at the coast, at a park, in the Portland Art Museum, of her standing next to her favorite painting there, one of an old-fashioned ship sailing on the sea on a dark and stormy night. There was a selfie of them at an ice cream shop, of Travis at his high school, and one of when they took lessons at a local barn nearby.

Fala came across her certificate when she made the honor roll with the highest percentage at her middle school, a braided bracelet from a pattern that Travis had taught her, and a letter he had written her when he had gone to a summer camp. All these things, mementos of the good that was once in the family. Before Pappa got fired. Before they had to move to the crummy townhouse they lived in now.

Before money was a thing that they were always short of. Before Travis tried to help and was killed. Before life can come in and messed everything up. Before her parents decided they couldn't live with each other and decided a divorce was the best thing. Fala shut the notebook.

She heard Mama say something sharply to Pappa and Pappa yelled something back.

If this happens, we will leave and find happiness for ourselves.

Travis's words echoed in her head. Fala didn't know what to do now, her brother's words were the only thing she knew to follow. She shut the notebook, but a picture slipped out before the cover was closed completely. Travis and her, standing with a mountain behind them, the sunrise casting a glow over the scenery. Taken only a few months before his life had been taken.

When joy could be found, but it was rare, something much like finding a four-leaf clover in tall grass. But it was possible. Now the four-leaf clovers of her life were gone, replaced by fakes, ones that looked like it, but when investigated, it was found that it was only three. She put back the photo, trying to keep from crying, swallowing her tears, feeling them drip down her throat. Everything was so unhappy now.

Fala didn't know how she could bring her peace back. It was impossible now. She couldn't even find it. She glanced back out her window, the sky a stormy gray, no sun. Her watch told her it was almost 9:00 p.m.

Tomorrow was Monday. She had school. Fala got off her bed and put the notebook into her open closet, practically empty, despite having all her shirts and old toys in it.

The price of being poor.

There wasn't a school bus stop close to where she lived, and the bad weather that night would carry on to tomorrow's evening, Fala knew. She would have to take the public bus. Her shoulders slumped. That meant she couldn't pay for her lunch. She thought of all the other kids she knew, who never had to worry about stuff like that.

Those whose parents weren't fighting, could get jobs, had money, and only knew joy. Stuff that she had once, things she had taken for granted, and what she had lost. Even if it wasn't her fault.

It doesn't matter how good you are, Fala thought. It doesn't make any difference when life turns cruel.