Unhappily ever after

Chapter 7 - Walking in the darkness

People talked to me, I saw their mouths move and their eyes pierce into mine but I never heard a word they were saying. I felt people hug me and hold me but I couldn't feel their comfort, I didn't feel or hear their sympathy. I was numb. Inside and out.

My dad was dead. After everything, I thought he'd left me and mum. There was no note. Nothing. His clothes packed. His stuff was gone, so I just assumed. I now know better to not assume things anymore. There were plenty of surprises. Especially in Rosewood.

I knew I got home somehow and I woke up in my bed the next day, with my mother cradling me like a baby, sobbing into my ball dress. I heard the police outside chatting about him. About my dad. My mum fell asleep, too tired to cry anymore and I walked over to my bedroom window and listened to what the police were saying.

"It can't be a coincidence. Two deaths in Rosewood, two weeks apart. There must be some kind of connection." One police officer said.

"That poor family."

"I heard the daughter found him."

"She must feel guilty."

"Why?"

"First her best friend, then her father. She couldn't stop either of them from dying."

"If I was her, I would be terrified. Clearly someone's out to get her. Killing the people closest to her."

"Maybe it has nothing to do with her."

"Come on its Rosewood, there's always a connection."

"Just got an update from Detective Wilden. The guy was buried alive."

I shut my window immediately, and my body felt weak with despair. I fell to the floor and stared at absolutely nothing. I knew I needed to be strong for my mum, to get her through this. But how was I going to get myself through it. When I was struggling to breathe.

There I was, lost in time. The days passed and the nights followed. People from all over town left meals at our doorstep so we didn't have to cook, that didn't stop mum from hiding in her bedroom. She held herself up in there for days on end. A week went by. And two weeks passed. And she finally came out.

Yes her eyes were a little red from crying but she almost looked normal. Like her normal self. It scared me to see her this way. She wasn't sad, she looked angry. She told me she was going to the police station to get answers and she hurried off in her car.

It was a Monday morning and I managed to finally force myself out of bed to get ready for school. I promised myself and my mum that I would go today. I was nervous. I don't know why. But I was. I didn't want the sympathy and I didn't want questions. I just wanted to know what happened to him. I wanted to know if he really came back for us, or maybe he never left, maybe he died the night we came home to nothing.

I can't help but see his still body whenever I close my eyes. It haunts my dreams, hearing what the police said. I could've stopped it. Stopped both of them from dying. But I didn't. And I'll regret that for the rest of my life.

I pulled on my black knee high socks as there was still a chill in the air. I slipped on my boots and stared at myself in the mirror, remembering the last time I did this was the night of the ball. The worst night of my life and I seemed so happy when I left to go there. My white dress was ruined of course, it was covered in dirt and leaves by the time we left the woods. My hair was a mess and my mascara was running. Not that I noticed. I didn't notice anything after the woods.

I was wearing something comfy today, a long sleeved tartan dress with knee high socks and big boots, to keep my feet warm. I wrapped my cardigan around me and I grabbed my bag from my room. I headed downstairs and left the house to go to school.