Taking Chances (Rewritten Version)

Chapter Twelve

"Dead"

Brielle

                  

When I was two, my parents took me to a place that was more special than home. It was the place they got married, and the place they made me. It was the home of their marriage and the name "Andrews". It was the home that we could go to besides walls and windows and doors. It was nature, its peaceful world and where it can be taken if left alone.

From then on, we continued to make constant trips. We walked along the edge and occasionally wandered toward the woods a bit farther off. Sometimes we would let our legs dangle and let the wind take them wherever it wanted. And we would sing and dance until we couldn't move anymore.

After I turned eleven, on the nineteenth of November, we wandered back toward the special place, ready to celebrate for the fact that life was returning back to normal. That was our place for normal after all. But that day was too far gone from normal.

I remembered sitting next to my father, our legs hanging over the edge with our socks and shoes sitting back in the car. My mother was beyond occupied with her growing stomach. Of course, none of us could wait; a new baby sister. A girl who I could finally be a girl with. A sibling as innocent as I with a mind of her own. A girl.

But then all of a sudden everything seemed to explode.

"It's nice to know you're all enjoying your time while I'm locked up."

All of us jumped, me almost falling off the edge, and turned with wide eyes. Who on Earth would scare us like that with our position? But when I caught sight of those emotionless, cold eyes, my question was thrown to the dirt.

"Darling," my mother mumbled, most likely trying to calm her ever pounding heart. Since he was taken away, she'd been more paranoid than ever before, and neither my father nor I could change that. "We didn't know if you were coming back."

"So you go to the cliff to waste time? Bring her along with you and laugh? Is that your sorry that you're trying to tell me?"

My heart began beating too rapidly as he pulled an object from behind his back, out of his buckle. My eyes grew wide in seconds and my heart screamed. I froze.

"You really shouldn't mess with someone who has a bad temper," he was saying as he fixed the trigger and the bullets laying inside the pistol. He was going to use it, and that bad feeling I'd been having came to mind instantly. I wanted to drown myself.

"Please," my father begged for the first time since he arrived. "Don't take it out on her. I'm the one who started all of this."

He shook his head, and before I knew what had happened, the sound of a pop! echoed painfully in my ears. I jerked as few drops stuck to me, and my eyes watched in horror as my father's now lifeless body toppled over the edge and plunged to the deep, untamed waves. Then he turned to my mother and aimed at her, knowing full well she was with child.

"It's your fault you married him. Had you thought better, you wouldn't have this problem." He didn't give her time to plead for her innocence or life - he shot her, right in her stomach where the child was supposed to be and sent her plunging to the same seas. I screamed, my muffled cries not even audible in my ears. It was like I couldn't hear anything, nor could I focus.

It wasn't the fact that my parents were dead, killed in front of my eyes that tore me up and haunted me every night in my dreams. It was the fact that he left me. He turned away, not giving me even one look, and left, sparing me. It was as if he had meant for me to live with this for the rest of my life. And so they did: nightmares, replaying the same event over and over every single night. I'd gotten it controlled for awhile, but they would always return, as if laughing and telling me they would always be there to stay.