Why Do January's Have To Be So Cold?

Chapter 2

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All of a sudden, I'm in a room. My bedroom. The bedroom I had as a child.

   "We're in the memory, but they cannot see us because we are watching it in the future." Celine says to me as I stare in confusion at the sight of little me crying in the corner of my bedroom.

   My mother runs into the room and over to little me, taking him into her arms.

   "I'm so sorry Roscoe. I'm so sorry. Don't cry baby, it'll be okay. Come here to momma okay? I'm here." I listen as my mother consoles younger me, watching her cradle him in her arms.

   I remember that day so vividly. The first time I watched my father beat my mother.

   Her eye was bruised, blackening as the seconds went by. Her cheek was bleeding. Her hands were shaking.

   My poor mom, she did not deserve what that man did to her. Not a single thing.

   "I want to leave, Celine. Get me out of here right now!" I say in anger, forcing my eyes away from the memory scene.

   "I cannot. I'm sorry Roscoe. It's almost over, okay?" Celine says in reply, but I block it out. I wanted out now.

   "Rose! Get back here you bitch!" I hear my father's piercing voice.

   This feels so real. But it wasn't. It wasn't real. Not real. Not real. Not real.

   I had to convince myself, and I wasn't doing a very good job at it either.

   My mother unwraps her arms from little me, and she uses her thumb to wipe the tears off of his face. He was shaking, too.

   "I will be right back my love, okay? I love you. I love you so much Roscoe." She says to him, but I knew she was lying. I knew how the outcome of that day played out.

   Finally, everything goes black around me. I could not even see Celine, but I could hear her angelic voice around me.

   "You're transitioning into a new flashback, but I will not be able to be with you during this one. This one you have to go through on your own." Celine says.

   The darkness surrounding me starts to come back to life, and I'm placed into my next memory.

   I quickly look over to see myself as a teenager now, dressed in all black with my long hair tied up in a bun.

   I remember this day like the back of my hand.

   "Roscoe, please. Don't do this son. You don't know what you are doing. You aren't in the right mi..." says my father, begging on his knees in front of me.

   Teenage me interrupts him, "Shut up. I don't want to hear a goddamn word come out of your sick mouth, you bastard."

   I was holding a gun, my finger on the trigger. I had trained myself for this moment in the previous years. I knew what I had to do, but I didn't know if I had the guts to do it. Even today, I'll never know if I really had the guts.

   "You won't pull the trigger and you know it. You would never kill your own father. You're just a quitter. A pussy... just like your mother was." He says with a sinister laugh.

   This was my final straw.

  "This is for killing my mother, you sick piece of shit." Says seventeen year old Roscoe, right before pulling the trigger of the gun he was holding.

   The bullet flies through the man's brain so quickly, no one on the scene has any time to react. Just like that, the man was erased.

   "Good job Roscoe. I knew you could do it." Says the voice of my boss behind me.

   What he didn't know, is that I didn't kill my father for him. I killed my father for me. I killed my father for my mother.

   That was the day I was killed for the first time. That was the day I became a murderer. And I never touched a gun after that day.

   Just as before, everything around me fades and becomes darkness again. Except this time, I feel a warm embrace around my body. Celine.

   "I'm here Roscoe. I'm here now." She says, cooing.

   "How many more?" I ask.

   "Just three. They are all good though, I promise you. And I wouldn't break a promise." I trusted her. Somehow, I trusted her.

   "Now for these last ones, you won't be viewing them from a third-person prescriptive. You'll almost be reliving them again. With that said, are you ready to move on to the next one?" She asks me.
   Yes. Yes, I'm ready.

   Suddenly I'm standing in front of a ginormous bookshelf. I knew exactly where I was. In the library down the street from my work.

   I graze my eyes across the spines of each book, and my eyes meet with a pair of chocolate brown ones. They were from the other side, but they met mine. Their eyes were mysterious.

   I carefully pick a book out and walk over to the other side of the shelf. I'm greeted with the prettiest individual I have ever seen. She had big beautiful brown eyes, which I had seen previously, and dark-brown curls hanging down to her shoulders. Her skin was the color of honey, and the sunlight shone on it from the enormous window next to the aisle we were standing in. Her skin looked so soft, too. She was skinny, but her body had an athletic tone to it. Maybe she played sports? I had never seen her before.

   "I know I'm pretty, but you're staring at me and it's starting to creep me out. Just a little." She says to me, breaking my gaze on her features.

   Shit. That's one way to fumble the bag.

   "I'm sorry. I'm Roscoe. Roscoe Takashi. What's your name?" I ask her, trying to make up for the awkward first impression beforehand.

   "I don't really tell people my name. You could be, like, a serial killer or a kidnapper or something. You never know these days." She says, giggling afterwards. I give her an eyebrow raise.

   "I'm kidding. My name is Lila." She says as she tucks a strand of her hair behind her ear.

   "A beautiful name for a beautiful girl." I say. Jesus that sounded so lame for me to say.

She giggles. She giggles.

   "Well thank you. I see you're a John Green fan, huh?" She asks, pointing down to the book in my hand.

   "Oh, I just picked this up. I don't really read his books usually. I'd consider myself more of a Shakespeare type of guy, you know what I'm sayin'?" I ask. That was definitely not a way to flirt with an extremely pretty girl.

   "Okay, I see. So you're a classical kind of guy. Edgar Allen Poe? Charles Dickens?" She smiles at me.

   I shake my head and laugh, "No, no. I actually, uh, read more romance novels and stuff. The Notebook is probably my favorite, with Pride and Prejudice being a very close second," I pause and look at her face. "God, I probably sound like some romance nerd right now."

   "No, no. I think that's cute. Romance novels are cute. And, I think you are cute too. How about we continue this later, hm? Maybe chat over some coffee. Porters, down the road, 3pm?"

   I'm shocked by her offer. Definitely was not expecting that one. But god, was she beautiful. And straightforward too. How could I reject that?

   "Porters at 3? Sounds amazing. I'll see you there, Lila." I say with a smile.

   "Good, it was nice meeting you Roscoe."

   "You too."

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I hope you're enjoying my story so far! I made this chapter a little longer, and the next will be longer too.

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