Hiding

Chapter 1

Kathleen

August 26, 1:26 p.m.

Fire was everywhere.

Screaming resonated through my mind.

A voice yelling, "Help! Help u-"

"Wake up! Kathy, wake up now! We're here," I heard as I awoke to my best friend, Clara, shaking me awake from my deep slumber.

As she sees me wake up she just smiles lovingly and says, "We're here."

As I continued to come to, I noticed how I had been asleep and my newly numbed arm.

It seems I was somehow, able to curl myself into a fetal position against the door with my arm underneath my head being the only cushioning.

Talk about uncomfortable.

I chuckled at this thought, as does Clara almost at the same time, she must have thought of something like I did.

I shake out my numb arm, then look up to see our new... "home", but before my eyes can focus on the white building I just see her parents as they look back at us; they sadly smiled at the small hint of joy we hadn't expressed in so long. Or more pointedly, I haven't expressed in so long.

I'm not smiling, I think to myself, I'm dreading this awful, forced change to my life. My frown deepens as I recall the dream or memory, I should say.

I zone back into the faltering smiles around me and fake a small one of my own, but without practicing I don't know how convincing it is.

I still try, despite how unconvincing I know it is.

I know they're faking theirs, so why can't I too? I ask myself.

I refocus my eyes back on the house, becoming lost in my thoughts about how this was where I am meant to start a new life.

And how the heck I'm meant to do that.

Away from the old one in Quebec, so far away from this small Maine town.

It looks like any regular, run-of-the-mill family house. Not too big, not too small. White with a grey roof and brick chimney; there are three sections with windows facing into rooms and two windows on either side of the door facing into two rooms. The door perfectly centered with steps leading up to it. A small garage is also handing off the left side of the house with the, pretty, steep driveway leading up to it.

The large bushes are high enough to reach the bottom of the downstairs windows and some ivy crawling up the side of the house. There's also a pretty large tree on the right side of the house. All the plants look intentional, like they were placed there for a reason.

It's too... normal.

It's like just being here is me trying to act like everything is okay.

When everything is just sh*t.

And my home is where my family is.

That is certainly not here.

Except...

Mateo then says, "Kathy, sweetheart, why don't you go around and let Louis out of his carrier?" I brighten up, or try to, and nod at the suggestion; I love my gorgeous dog Louis with his silky, white fur containing blotches and speckles of black. His lively barking. His playfulness.

Ever since the accident, I feel like I can't give my heart to anyone anymore.

Except Louis, of course.