Dying is Not an Option

Chapter 1, Dying is Not an Option***

Dying Is Not An Option, Chapter 1

Today is my 14th birthday and I just got to the cemetery in a taxicab, after checking myself out of the hospital and I had to lie to them and say my stepmom has signed the discharge papers and gone to the gift shop to get a Louis Vuitton designer handbag.

They wouldn't have believed me if I said anything else because, they are knew that the bitch had only been their once in the month that I was hospitalized. Then she told me that, she was only there to tell me that my father was dead. Plus, she had him cremated instead of buried beside Mom and. Oh yeah, she used the rest of the funeral insurance and life insurance to buy herself a new Mercedes and a mink fur coat.

She didn't stay long because after she told me, I started screaming and the doctor finally had to give me a shot and make her leave. I still have nightmares about it, she was laughing like a witch the whole time she was telling me and the only way she would leave was when the security guards forced her from the room.

Really, who wears fur anymore?

I'm just trying not to feel the awful searing pain that my father was dead but everything is reminding me of it. I forgot that the cab has to drive right by the place of our car accident. And even a month, later the large wound on the oak tree was still visible from where our car hit it. It was garish, a vivid spot in the gray brown bark with brown stains from our blood in it, and the tears in the bark from the metal in the car.

I fought the grayness in my vision as the memories flooded into my mind, we were laughing, Dad had actually told a joke for the first time in 3 years, he and Tamera had started fighting just after they got married but it wasn't really bad until I turned 13 and became a woman.

She hated me, she called me "Fat", "Ugly" and lots of other names but not when Dad was around and she always denied it when I told him. And she is a great actress, but Dad came home early one day and he heard her screaming at me.

He didn't say anything, just slammed the door on his way out but when he got home, they had a huge fight, and after that he told me we were going out. And we went to Moms favorite restaurant, a little Italian place named Razoli's, and he told me that she had made her last mistake that he was fed up and was getting a divorce.

He said he told her that we were staying the night in a hotel and she had until 5:00 pm the next day, Wednesday, to take her stuff and be gone.

We were on our way home, Wednesday evening, approaching the intersection, just before the cemetery, and a big Hummer ran the red light, slammed into Dads side of the car, and smashed us into the tree. The police said, they don't know how I survived because that the car was bent around the tree and I heard this young cop say that they had to use the jaws of life not only on our car to get me and Dad out but to take the car from around the tree.

The guy that hit us just left the scene, I was almost unconscious, when I saw this guy come over and look at Dad and I. But everything was so fuzzy; I couldn't give the police a description of him, other than he was white, younger than Dad and dark hair.

"Miss, Miss are you ok?" I realized the taxi driver must have been talking to me, for a while, as I looked at him and saw his concerned face. "Yes, I think so, can you wait a few minutes? I have some money to pay you, but I'm too weak to walk home from here."

"Well, ok", he said. "But not long, my dispatcher will have a fit otherwise."

I clumsily walked over to Moms grave and sank to the bench; tear welling up in my eyes. "Mom, I'm sure Dad's with you but I'm so alone and I'm scared! She doesn't like me and she's been so mean whenever Dad wasn't around. I'm afraid of what it's going to be like now." I sat there crying for a couple of minutes and the cab driver walked over and told me; "Miss I'm sorry but I need to go, so if you want to go on to where you live, we've got to leave now."

I wiped my cheeks clear of my tears and gathered my crutches and, with his assistance I stood, "Ok, I guess," I sighed, giving him the address

He laughed when I told him it was Number: 804 Loving bird Way and then whistled, "Boy, that the rich section. You don't act rich", "I'm not'" I said, "I don't know what Dad had and now that he's gone, I don't know what's going to happen." I actually know what should happen but we'll see. Tamera has a real surprise coming.

He pulled up into the circular driveway and came around to help me out, as I got out the front door opened. There stood Tamera, she squinted her eyes at me, but as the taxi driver turned around she put a smile on her face and came forward saying "Oh Elizabeth, why didn't you call me, I would have come and got you, you didn't need to take a taxi!" I knew from the way she was glaring at me, behind his back, and the way she said my name, that I would really hear about it when he left. Everyone else calls me Lisette, but she " Always" calls me Elizabeth, because she knows that I hate it.

She took some money out of her purse and gave it to the driver and he thanked her enthusiastically, so I knew she tipped him, really good, and he drove away but as I turned towards the house, she slapped me hard on the face and told me, "This is my house now!" "And you only live here on my charity, you only come in the servants entrance, from now on." She walked into the house and slammed the door in my face.

Sighing, I dragged my bag towards the back of the house, not an easy task on crutches. I made it to the back door and was reaching for the handle when she flung it open, hitting me with it and I staggered back almost falling.

"You clumsy stupid bitch" she screeched, "get in here, you have work to do. You are the new maid and cook, that's how you will earn your keep here from now on."

I forced my legs to keep me up and asked her what she wanted for dinner, she told me that tonight she would be easy on me; but tomorrow, I would start making hot meals; and I wasn't allowed to eat, until she told me I could. I didn't say anything but thought to myself, boy isn't you stupid, how do you expect to keep the cook from eating.

She ordered me, to make her, Boston Clam Chowder Soup and a large Garden salad, with creamy Greek Dressing and cucumbers made with feta cheese and Greek yogurt and fresh herbs.

After I served her dinner, she took a small bowl and saucer and spooned a little clam chowder and cucumbers on them and told me that that was my meal. Oh, and yeah, to not steal any of her food because she would know if I did.

I cleaned up, after her, put the table linens that she had thrown, onto her dirty dishes, into the washer. Then I started upstairs, to my room, when she screamed at me "Where do you think you're doing?"

"To my room." I replied.

"That's not your room anymore, she said as she grabbed me and dragged me into a small storage room off the kitchen where a twin mattress and blanket were thrown. She told me "That's where you live from now on and your clothes are right there", pointing at this pile of clothes, she threw me against the wall and when I was able to get back up, She had slammed the door behind me and I choked when I heard her turn a key in the lock and realized that she had locked me in.

I ran (limped) to the door pounding on it with my fists until they were bruised but there was no answer and after a while I realized I was just hurting myself more. I forced myself over to the clothes and started sorting them out.

She must have chosen my worst clothes; they were worn and would just hang on me because I lost so much weight in the hospital. I was getting dizzy and I dragged the mattress as far from the door as I could and laid back against the wall on it.

The light had faded from the window and when I turned on the light switch, I realized that the light bulb was burnt out also. So I lay back down on the mattress and pulled the blanket over me and tried to sleep, I started crying, wanting my Mom and Dad but I was so tired I fell asleep while crying.