That One Night

Chapter 1

I walked across the empty alley, scared to my wits end. I walk along  until light shines too bright in face , and I then collapse.  I wake up, my head pounding, palms sweating. I've had that nightmare so often but I still don't know what it means. I recover from the scare and glace at my clock. 7:48!!! I take a deep breath and think how I will get to school on time. I plop on some clothes, I didn't look to see if they were backwards or not, and headed out the door.

Ever since my dad died of lung cancer, my mom never wakes up until 1:00 in the afternoon. I know she's sad, but I am sad too and she needs to get a grip! As I finally get to the bus stop, it's empty. Figures. Let's leave to good old insecure Iris to have a bad day again. I think it's just God's way of giving me payback for literally killing my dad. I never told him to stop smoking, while I know I could of anytime. I was just worried about the reaction he would have to his own daughter telling him what to do.

I never used to be insecure. If you want to know how I did, let's roll back to 3 weeks ago.

 Me, standing awkwardly in my dad's drab hospital room. "Dad I just want you to know I love you, I love you, I love you. You will live, I'm sure of it," I say, not sure what I said was true.

My dads frail voice comes out in a tired, scared  whisper. " Promise? Promise I will get to see you grow up?"

"I promise."

That night we got a call from the hospital. My dad had died in his sleep.

Ever since that had happened I couldn't bear my self anymore. I told my mom this  and she kept saying it wasn't my fault. But, in her eyes she believed it was. I couldn't show my face ever again in a happy light.  After my dad died I missed 1 week of school. My mom never realized this of course. She was so sad she basically never got up out of bed unless she literally had too. I called up the school and said that Iris couldn't come to school based on personal matters. I figured my mom had already called the school to tell them about my dad.

But when I finally came back to school something else happened. It played out like this.

" Hey, Iris, how come you didn't come to school for 1 whole week. What, were you sick or something?"

Almost everyone I knew asked me that. Had my mom even called the school to tell them about our loss? No! So basically every person thought that I was fine, not changed in anyway. But, I had a plan. I told my English teacher, Mrs. Fitz, about my dad. I don't know how but soon enough that news  spread like wildfire past the teachers. Than after they heard about it soon enough the whole student body knew. I thought they would be sympathetic, but no, they just thought I was a freakazoid.