Waiting for the Future

Chapter One

You can't change the past, you can only change the future...or at least that's what I've been told. But how can you change the future when it's the past that's all messed up? What do you do when one little mistake, one stupid choice, changes your entire life? What can the future hold when it's the past that has taken everything?

I stood there, starring into that mirror, as a stranger looked back. Black hair, long and combed to one side in an attempt to look half way decent; Blue eyes and pale skin and a black tux. He would have looked good, but the dark blue bruises and still fresh cuts marred his face. His split lip looked brilliant and painful against his pale skin. The splint on his arm was a shocking contrast with the elegant tux that he was fitted in. I held the reflections gaze, and was almost lost in the hollowness those pale blue eyes were able to hold. This hollowness seemed to eat away at him from the inside out.

The splint bit into my wrist painfully and I winced. Like the flash of lightning, the sound of gurney wheels screeching down a hall way and doctors raised voices flooded into my mind. Painfully white lights bleached everything out and stung my eyes. I heard someone's voice call out in pain. Gasping aloud I stumbled forward and grabbed the edge of the mirror. A cold sweat had broken out over my body and a wave of nausea threatened to over com me. I bowed my head as I tried to get control of myself again. After a moment o deep breaths, I stood back up and continued to get dressed, but with even less enthusiasm than when I had begun.

I reach up to tighten the black tie that hung around my neck. Like a noose it circled around my throat as I pulled on the knot. A brief thought fluttered through my numb mind. What if I just kept pulling? Until it all just faded away. I felt my hand tighten on the tie, almost out of my control. Almost. The thin fabric tightened, slow but constant, stretching across the skin of my throat, like a door sliding shut to close out the rest of the world. It was a knock at the door; that brought me back down to earth. Like a car being jumped my heart leapt in shock. I dropped my hand to my side pulling the tie loose again as I went just as the door opened. My mother walked in, a black veil attached to her hat, covered her face, but I could still see the tear tracks as more fell discreetly, landing on her midnight colored dress. The shimmered slightly like specks of stars before disappearing into the dark fabric.

"Jace," she whispered, her voice watery from the sobs that she was still holding back. "It's time." I stared at her blankly. Time? Time seemed to be so irrelevant now. Time lost, time wasted, the good times, the bad times. To me time seemed to be too far gone for me to catch up with. My mother's hand against my cheek managed to bring my attention back to her, making me realize that I wasn't alone. I saw her mouth moving, but I couldn't hear a sound, it was like I was watching a movie with the volume turned all the way down. I fought in my brain to break through the curtain that had fallen. It felt as though I was treading through water and gaining no ground.

"Are you alright sweet heart?" my mother's voice finally reached my ears. Her worried eyes following mine, I continued to stare at her with that blank expression on my face. I managed to nod my head mutely, not trusting myself enough to say the right thing. She must have understood, or maybe she just didn't want to say anything else, because she gave a little nod and gestured towards the door. I forced my legs forward as I made my way towards the open door. I was leaving behind everything that used to be. My entire life, my memories, everything.

We walked down the hall way but it's all just a blur, it's not that I'm moving fast it's just that everything else is moving too slow. Before I know it, I'm sitting in the first of many rows of uncomfortable church pews. Surrounded on all sides by a sea of black, I sat still, between my mother and my little sister. The sounds of sniffling, and the murmur of voices filled the air with an uncomfortable buzz. I try not to look up at the front, I try my hardest to force my eyes in every other direction but to the front of the room. I don't want to see what's waiting for me up there; I don't want to see him. I turn to my left and watch my aunt from across the aisle. She held her purse in her lap tightly in her small boney hands. Her dress was dusty and rumpled, and her hair was unkempt. I tried hard to keep myself from vocalizing my disgust as I watched her lean down towards her purse and pull the top of a straw into her mouth. Can't even stay sober long enough for a time like this? I thought incredulously as my anger bubbled in my throat.