Paint The Sky

Chapter 1

 I unload the dishwasher and whistle a merry little melody.

My dad walks in, wearing his typical cowboy hat over his rusty red hair. "You seem happy."

Happy.

A foreign word to use in the same sentence as Coral. Unless you were to say, "Coral can't be happy anymore." Because that would be true.

I can't be happy. Not anymore. Not since Brandon died.

He died to save me. And I can never be happy without feeling guilty.

I flash back to the horrible day when I lost the love of my life.

I'm walking hand in hand with Brandon, headed for the barn where I spend most of my time riding Storm.

We pass an old country road that the government build on my family's land because apparently there's some sort of law that lets them do that. It was built so long ago, and is used to infrequently, that hardly anyone looks both ways before crossing.

But Brandon does.

He screams at me to look out. I turn to my right, panicked. There's nothing there. Is this a practical joke?

I turn back toward Brandon impatiently, but he's running toward me so fast, I don't know what's happening. He pushes me out of the way, into the shrubbery of the other side.

I feel blood trickle down my arm where I got scraped along the road.

I turn toward Brandon and watch my everything get run over by a truck.

He died immediately. I feel somewhat grateful for that. He didn't suffer long.

I stop whistling quickly and my father's grin fades. He looks at me sadly for just a moment, and then walks out, all expression gone from his rugged face.