The Mysterious Case of Luna Summers

Chapter 5

He can't go. I thought as I re-read the text message over and over again. I have to face Bryce's father alone. I have to go to school. Damnit Dom. 

I quickly sent Dom a text saying that I'd be waiting for him and that there were no hard feelings. This wasn't the end of the world. Why were my hands beginning to shake again? He replied with a 'K', but I forgave him instantly since he added some sort of emoticon this time. I sat, a little dazed, on the edge of the mattress. My plan was almost be put to action, but the first thing to think about was what Bryce's father was like. Did Bryce run from him often? What did he do to make himself such an ass? I was chewing my lip again, when the phone buzzed. Puzzled, I lifted it up. It was Dom. 

Don't let what he says get into your head.

-D 

I pondered whether or not I should ask Dom what he meant. There had to be a inconspicuous way to ask about Bryce's father without appearing too suspicious. My mind brought back to light what Bryce's mother had said earlier, when I had asked about where we lived again. She asked if the medication was messing with my memory. I sent a message back to Dom: 

What happened again? This medication is getting to my head. 

I waited again for a reply as restlessly wrung my hands. When the phone buzzed, I flipped it open with hope.

Medication makes you forget? Damn. What are you on, bro? Anyway, it happened when you were like 8 or 9. You started drawing and your dad disagreed with your hobby. Disagreed with you completely to be real.

He called you names and mistreated you, don't you remember any of that? You even showed up at my house after school with a bruised eye after he hit you, but you didn't want your mom to know. After you got that scar on your back from the knife, your parents divorced. He tries to visit you and your mom, but the way you guys dodge him continues to impress me. 

Anyways, good Luck 

P.S Is anything else going on? You sound a little strange? 

Bryce. Was I crying? Inside I was that's for sure. He'd gone through a living hell, and at such a young age. All because of his talents? My eyes peeked at the drawings that I had arranged on the desk as I set the phone down face first into the quilt. They were amazing. They were works of art I could never imagine being able to do myself. He was born with something great, and his father had tried to rip it away from him. Why would someone be so cruel to do such a thing? 

I tried to imagine my father doing the same. My father who was bound to a wheelchair for the rest of his life because of me. The thoughts in my head were clouding together, and I wanted to shout with desperation. He had stayed home with me that day. I was sick in bed, and he chose not to go to work. I wondered that if maybe he had gone to work, I would've died at the early age of 4 along with my mother. Would I not be in the situation I was now? Would I have followed my mother's footsteps up to Heaven as I held her hand? 

I didn't know, but the only thing those flames swallowed that day was my mother and my father's mobility. I was vaguely there, the smoke and fever were overwhelming in the burning house. My father had lifted me up in his arms, and had run with me to find his wife. Claire was at a friend's house, she was about 12 at the time, and she had been oblivious to what was going on. 

I was too young to remember anything vividly. My father's terrified screams for my mother, and his eyes were wide and helpless when he looked at me in his arms. The orange blaze behind him looked like a painted picture with all of it's hues. My father began to cry, and through the door where my mother was trapped, the two said their goodbyes. The smoke was too much to bear and I was squeezing my eyes shut after each passing second, but I could hear my mother. 

She wanted him to leave and have me grow up, than to have all three of us die and leave Claire to fend for herself in the world. I wasn't sure if my eyes were watering under my lids, or if they were crying when I said my raspy goodbye. I don't even remember what she looked like anymore. My father had charged down the hallway, pushed himself through more and more flames, and on his way out of the house a wooden beam had fell on top of him. He collapsed in the front lawn and I came bouncing out of his arms. 

They didn't find my mother's body in the ashes of our house. She had jumped out of the window, and initially was still alive. Claire kept me close, and stayed strong as they wheeled our parents into the ambulance. Her face was solid, but behind it I could sense the anxiety and sadness. I already knew what would happen. We stayed with an officer who drove us to the hospital so I could be examined, and the only thing I remember from that time in a hospital bed was dreaming about tea cups. 

My mother died in the hospital, and my father was paralyzed. He was emotionally bruised for the rest of his life, and not to mention immobile from the waist down. A nurse named Tilly had taken care of him until Claire had gotten her own degree as a nurse. She took over the job, and got paid to help her own father live until the day he died. He never forgot about our mother, but he hadn't sunk into depression either because that day he had saved something. 

And that was me, Luna, but the guilt never stopped clawing at my heart. 

"Bryce!" 

I murmured a coming, and drowning from old memories I hated to uncover, I stumbled back to the kitchen.