The Forsaken [Rough Draft]

1 - New Town, New Faces

There comes a time where a teenager must decide upon whether to shun their parents or accept them. For many, it comes in the early stages of their teenage lives. For others, like me, it comes in the later stages of the teenage cycle. It's times like these that you truly know just what type of person you are, whether you're extremely embarrassed by your parents or laugh at every silly thing they do like you're still six years old. At sixteen, I was still deciding.

     Of course, now I couldn't decide if I wanted to shun both parents or just one. That choice had been stripped from me like bark from a tree. I was pretty sure my mother thought moving would solve the ache she'd been feeling ever since Dad and Kels died, but even I knew that wasn't possible. A new house didn't change the furnishings inside of the old one; they stayed the same. And the furnishings were what held the memories like a drowning person clung to a lifeguard.

     Like every teenager whose parent, or parents, decide to move suddenly, I wasn't all too happy with my mother. Sure, Seattle was gloomy and constantly rainy, but that's why I liked it. Traeson Valley was just too bright, like everything in the world was perfect. And maybe the United States could have the luxury of a blissful ignorance, but other countries were all too painfully aware of what was going on in the world. I often wondered if there was to be an apocalypse, would the U.S. be the only one to survive because we were so unaware?

     But, maybe, just maybe, we weren't as ignorant as we wanted others to believe. I was pretty sure that my friends in Seattle were constantly aware of what was going on in each others lives, but chose to stay silent until said friend spoke up about it. Isn't that what the U.S. was doing? Waiting for said friend to ask for help so that they could give it without intruding upon them? Why was I even thinking about the U.S. and the world's problems? It wasn't my job to fix any of it and dwelling upon it wasn't helping anything.

     I shook my head and threw the blue bouncy ball my dad had given me before he'd died into the air, watching it twirl in the air before descending back down to my hand. The bracelet Kaylen had given me for my fourteenth birthday jangled on my wrist as I caught the tiny blue ball. I sighed and moved onto my side on the bed, curling up into the fetal position as I stared out the open window of my new bedroom. Empty boxes and packing paper was stuffed in one corner, creating the illusion that my room was basically clean.

     Through the music blaring in my ears, I could somehow hear the birds singing happily, bathing themselves in the golden rays of the sun. If I hadn't grown up basically knowing the sun for a few moments each day, maybe I could've liked it here in California. But I'd grown up with the watery light of Washington, and so I disliked it here more so than I believed anyone else could. I tried to remember why my mom wanted to move here in the first place, but couldn't dredge up the wonderful idea she had told me about.

     Something hit my back and I yelped in surprise. “Elisandra!” my mother exclaimed, looking extremely annoyed that I hadn't immediately responded to her. How had I heard the birds but not her?

     “Yes, Mother?” I inquired, yanking the ear buds from my ears and wrapping them around my iPod. I smiled innocently at her, but her scowl only deepened further. Who put crap in her cereal this morning and why was she taking it out on me?

     “Leave,” was the only word she uttered before she turned around and slammed the door behind her, leaving the laundry basket she had been carrying behind.

     Leave? I knew that after the death of Dad and Kaylen, she'd gone from best friend mom to extremely depressed mom, but why was she kicking me out? I stared at the white door silently, my eyes wide in fear and shock. My hands were raised halfway as I'd only barely gotten the ear buds wrapped around my iPod. She didn't expect me to pack up everything and go, did she? I was still confused when she came back a few minutes later.