Adjusting the Aperture ON HOLD

Processing the Negatives

Author's Note: This story is going to be a really long one taking place over a relatively short period in time.  Also, I don't really follow the idea that a romance should be only comprised scenes where the romance develops.  I'm all about fully developing my characters and story cerebrally through the narrator's perspective.  Besides, this isn't just a romance novel.  It's Meredith's coming-of-age tale.  In order for me to tell her story properly, I need to create a world where you can vividly see her before and after by the end of the book.  So buckle in- this is going to be one heck of a rollercoaster! I promise you won't be disappointed in the end. :)

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Negative: An image on film that has been exposed and developed on which the light and dark values are reversed. 

            Darkness consumed me as I crossed through our front door.  It seemed odd for our house to be dark at 5:30 in the afternoon.  Light usually shone throughout.  But the house was pitch-black.  I looked around to find out why, surprised to see the shades drawn over the windows.  The shades were never drawn. 

            As I advanced down the dim hallway, an unnerving feeling washed over me.  Something was wrong.  I just knew it.  Where was my mother?  Where was Mikey?  The house was hushed and black, and my family was nowhere in sight.  Fear erupted across my skin, my hairs standing on edge. 

            “Mom,” I called out.

            No answer.

            “Mom, are you here?”

            I knocked on her bedroom door, but there was still no answer.  Entering, my eyes scanned her room.  She wasn’t there.  Panic rose within me, my hands beginning to shake and my stomach flopping.  Her car was in the parking lot.  I knew I had seen it parked earlier. 

            When I began to pull her door closed, my ears detected the faintest of sounds resonating from within her room.  Edging myself back in, I tried desperately to shake the doomed feeling that continued to rise in the pit of my stomach.  I walked past her bed, towards her bathroom.  The closer I got, the louder the sound became.  Dripping- the noise sounded like dripping.  I reached my hand around the bathroom door frame, and flicked on the light.  A moment passed before I fully registered the dark scene illuminated before my eyes. 

            Knife. 

            Blood. 

            Mom. 

            My heart plummeted at the sight of the blood-filled tub consuming my mother’s lifeless body.  One of her sliced wrists dangled over the edge, the knife a few inches away on the floor. 

            Frozen, I felt nothing.  Her cold, empty eyes seemed to be looking straight at me, yet I still felt nothing.  I looked at her face.  She wore a smile.  It was as though she was happy with herself for what she did.  And for that, I hated her.  But another feeling began to course through me.  Relief.  I was relieved it was finally over.  And for that, I hated myself.

            “Meredith!”

            I looked up in horror to see my mother’s dead face screaming at me.

            “Meredith,” she screamed.

            My body shook.