Cross-Checking My Heart

Prologue

I had always loved the smell of this town. The smell of the saltwater from the ocean mixed with the coffee shops on every corner and the sweet smell of fresh pastries that came from Bernie's Bakery, it just relaxed me. That was before everything changed.

It was a normal Friday night, my brother, Jack, had just showed us the house he had bought for my parents and I. We had planned to move down there just before my junior year of high school, which would coincidentally also be my first year in a school since I had been home schooled from first grade.

We had just finished eating dinner at Jack's favorite place in town, a little seafood place right off the coast. On the way back we stopped at the store to puck some groceries up for the weekend, but Jack and his girlfriend, Sarah, went on home.

On the way home we noticed flashing lights passing us and as we got closed to the house, we saw that they were at our house. There were five cop cars and two ambulances in the driveway.

Sarah's ex boyfriend had been drunk and when he saw us all at dinner he decide to follow them home and try to win her back. When she tried to tell him no he hit her and that is when Jack stepped in trying to protect Sarah. Nobody had known that he was carrying a loaded gun.

Jack was shot in the chest twice. The first responders said that he was already dead when they arrived. The guy revieved a sentence of four years in jail without possibility of parole.

Now it just all seems wrong to be here without him. We were going to stay in Columbus until we read Jack's will. In it he asked us to stay with Sarah through thick and thin and to always love his child. Knowing that he didn't have any children we went to talk to Sarah.

"I'm so sorry that I didn't tell you sooner, but Jack and I were going to tell you next Thursday after we found out the gender of the baby," Sarah explained. You could tell from the lookin her eyes and by the sound of her voice that she was genuinely sorry, but she shouldn't be.

"Sarah, there is no need for you to appolagize. You had a plan to tell us and that was your decision. We are not mad, just surprised! Oh but what a wonderful surpris," my mother exclaimed.

"Oh thank goodness, I was afraid that you would be upset with us, Alexis."

"Honey, things happening and this is a blessing!"

You could see Sarah visibly relax. Once we talked it through, we decide to continue with the move but we would wait until after she had the baby, so we planned to move in fifteen months, the August of my senior year.