The Widows

Chapter 1: "Goodbye"

"Kacee!! Come down here! You're going to be late for school!"

"Coming mother!"

Kacee Lovebe was an ordinary teenage girl. She was 5 foot 2 inches, she had long brown hair that constantly dangled in her eyes. Her bright green eyes burned blue when she cried, and her pale skin was decorated with freckles, marking the spots that were once touched by the sun. Her mother, like most, did not understand her. Fifteen year old, Kacee spent most of her days shut up in her room painting, reading, writing stories, or sometimes just playing with her own thoughts. She was content as a teenage girl could be. Kacee had many friends at her school in Richmond. Though she hardly ever had them over at the house, she liked them. They all understood her. Now she has to move to some rich school in a small town in the middle of nowhere. Today was her last day in Richmond. She wasn't about to make a big deal about it, though. Her clothes, books, art supplies were all packed and ready waiting for return home after the last long day at her small, poor school.

Kacee bounced down each step to the kitchen as she always had done ever sense she was young. Although you may suspect there to be a smile on her face there was nothing. She didn't even frown. "I'm ready whenever you are mom."

The last day did go by slowly, with all the time and patience in the world. Kacee needed that. But as she walked down the hallway for the last time she saw a familiar face peek around the corner. "Tom!" she said as tears burst into her eyes. She started to run twards him, but quickly skidded to a stop when she saw his face. Not even a frown. A blank expression plastered itself onto his freckeled face. "What is it, Tom?" she questioned, slowly inching twards him.

"I'm breaking up with you." he declared in monotone.

"Tom, I dont understand. We were doing so well." she said in a deeper tone, but so small and hushed that it barely came out in a whisper.

"I dont do long distance relationships. They never work out. Goodbye, Kacee." he said this he turned and walked away.

"Goodbye, Tom." she said quietly. He was too far to hear her if she screamed it; Damn you, Tom!; she wanted to be sure.

Kacee walked home that day. She could not bear to see Tom in the last seat on the back of the bus, his crooked smile and deep blue eyes that would surely kill her. She usually sat alone anyway, but she dicided that it would save her pain to just walk. So that is what she did. Slowly. As she drudged down her street for the last time she noticed and appreaciated things that she had never even had thought about before, the way the lilac bushes were untrimmed to where they stuck out into the sidewalk so you could walk through them and smell the sweet smell in the breeze, or the fact that there was an abandoned house that had one single red tulip growning in the lawn. "It's these damned little things," she sighed, " that I will miss the most."

She walked up her driveway. She took in everything. Sight, sound, smell. It was all important. This was her goodbye, after all. She walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge, grabbed a green apple, stuck it in her mouth, grabbed the peanut butter and continued up to her room to sort boxes. On her way up the stairs she saw her mother on the top step looking down at her laughing to herself. "You are my daughter allright." Kacee took the apple out of her mouth.

"Well, I would hope so!" She mused. Then they both gave each other a crooked smile and started laughing. They played this game a lot. Especially when she was little. She would say something, and Kacee would turn it into a joke and they would both smile. That didn't happen much now a days. Mom used to be quite the looker. Or so my aunt keeps telling me. But now, after four surgeries and time's wicked touch, she looked tired. Mom used to smile all the time but now I'm lucky to see a flicker of amusement. Her long auburn hair was always carefully tended to, her green eyes sparkled the sun, and with her long delicate fingers she would play beautiful viola.But everything changed sense then. She doesn't smile as much anymore, her long hair has been chopped short and her green eyes have faded to a shade of grey. She stopped playing years ago. " The U -haul will be here in an hour. In the meantime, can you bring all the boxes from mine and your room downstairs to the patio?"

"Yes. Of course." Kacee said without hesitation, and she continued to make her way up the stairs past her mom, and into her room. Thirty minutes later, all of the boxes were down stairs ready to be loaded onto the U-Haul that had yet to come. She walked into the living room, tired from all the effort she just made carrying those boxes down the stairs and drenched with sweat. She sat on the couch and drifted into an unpleasant sleep.