Key to Perfection

The New Life

I didn't feel like I was in a dream. I felt like my body was set in stone and my emotions had shut down. The one thing to look forward to was home, as weird as it sounded.
School was awful. Teachers never gave me homework, they never asked me a question. School was now just a place people could stare. I could feel their whispers when I walked past.
The poor girl... her mom died... look at her, she's so sad...
When people passed out papers, they reached my desk and looked at me with eyes full of sympathy. The teachers would look at me with those sad eyes, open their mouth and close it again.
I hated it!
I wanted to be normal, to let it go, to forget. But people gave me those stupid looks and it brought it all back. They were trying to say they were there for me, but what they did only chilled my heart and set myself deeper into the stone body that consumed me.
It wasn't all that bad at home. My dad was there. Before the accident he had been distant, always working and never talking. But now we were on the same page, grieving and trying to rebuild our life.
I was walking home from school after another day, head down and hunched over against the familiar chill of autumn. Leaves fell in arrays of red, orange, and yellow.
I came to a blue house in a small loop, my house. My mouth twitched into an almost smile, probably the one time in the day where I got close to a smile outside the house.
I opened the sky blue door. "I'm home!"

There was no answer.

"DAD!!!" I screamed, running up the stairs to find him. My eyes were filling with tears.

No! Not him too! I burst through the door to his study to find nothing. I heard a door open and close, the front door. That couldn't be good. My dad was always home.

I ran back down the stairs and looked into the front entrance. Dad was standing there, grocery bags under each arm.

"Hey honey! I thought I would grab some stuff to make pizza!" He said as he was taking of his shoes. He looked up and saw my tear streaked face. His face fell into a sad smile.

"What's up?" He asked, setting the groceries down on the floor. He walked over to a chair and I sat down beside him.

Everything flooded back, the crash, school and the panic attack.

"I-I thought you were gone." I stammered through tears.

His eyes took up a sad helpless look. "I would never leave you."

I hugged him close and did my best to stop the sobs that had begun to come. My body shuddered under the crushing thought of dad leaving me too. My dark brown hair settled over my eyes, comforted by dad's arms until the shudders stopped.

"I can't take the memories from you, but I am willing to help you through them until they become just that... Memories, I will help you until they aren't your present anymore and you can leave them in the back of your thoughts."

It was true, the memories. They had scarred me until I wasn't the same person anymore. They had burned themselves into my life to never be forgotten. Etched into my very being.

But it was also true that my dad was there for me, that he would never leave. I almost said to myself, til he's six feet under, but that phrase didn't seem to bring any reassurance. Because the last person who said that was already dead.

                                                                         *****

From that day I was getting better, I knew that the weight I carried on my shoulders would be lighter because my dad was there to take some off. My life seemed easier and lighter. I talked to people in and out of school, I even went to a birthday party, and maybe formed a crush. I was getting back on track. 

There were close calls though. One time a boy came up to me and asked how I think the car crashed, and if I had the slightest insight of how death felt, since I had been so close to it. My friend gave me the sympathy look and I lost it saying that I wasn't a helpless little baby that needed to be coddled. Then Bethany's eyes turned dark and she turned away, frowning.

I then burst into tears. "I'm sorry I-I just need to figure my life out and it's hard right now."

I was finally beginning to feel normal. My dad was there for me all the time, my friends started hanging around me again and the teachers challenged me.

Guess how long that lasted...