When All Else is Gone

•Chapter Eight• New Beginnings...

Her eyes shot wide open as she found herself falling. Her body went rigid and she was shocked as the floor came up to greet her all too soon. Heather hit the ground. Hard. She hadn't been ready to catch herself. She laid sprawled across the bus floor. She stood slowly and dusted herself off. She could hear the faint snickers and when she glanced back she saw the boy who had tripped her trying to act all innocent. "Oh so we are tripping people now? ...Real mature."
She wasn't as frustrated as she would've been. She wasn't depressed like she was a few days...or moments ago. She looked out the window at the neighborhood she had grown up in. It was the same but somehow different. Her gaze drifted to the yellow regular old box that she called a home. She didn't look at it with dread as she had the last few months. "Sit down girly we don't have all day." The bus driver ordered. Heather ignored him and walked back to the front of the bus. "Let me off, I'm not going to school today." She said matter of factly. She could certainly afford it and it was time to make things right. Who knew maybe she would forget her dream at any moment. She had a new outlook on life and she meant to use it to turn her life around.

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Heather knew she wasn't in a book. Things weren't magically fixed when she got back to her house. There was no happy ending, but that's only because there was no ending at all. It took time to heal the family's wounds. It was never a fairytale but Heather took the ups with the downs.
Her family was just as before. They hadn't shared the adventure of her mind.
She played with Abigail everyday until their sisterly bond was undeniable. Sometimes instead of studying she watched some cartoons with Pete. She and her mother had a good cry when she told her mom that she was sorry for hating her and wanted them to be closer. Every moment with them she cherished more. The only thing that was almost like a fairytale was Brian. He was as great as he seemed and even though she had a hard time trusting a weird boy from a dream it turned out that he really did like her. Everyday she tried to live like the hero of her story. She gave without complaint; and though she was never perfect she always worked to be better.

The dream stayed with her always and whenever Abigail was particularly annoying, or Pete frustratingly lazy, whenever dad put too much on her plate or mom didn't take her side, she would remember what it was like when all else was gone; and when she did she remembered that even the worst of them was better than no them at all.

'Cherish, don't take for granted what you could lose in a blink.'