Sweet Dreams

Chapter One

Chapter One:

*5 years later*

"Scarlett, it's been five years, talk to me. Please," my dad begged as we sat around the oval dining table for breakfast.

I shrugged, picking up some toast from the plate in the middle of the table.

Dad pushed the butter and knife towards me and I shook my head; I've never liked butter. . .

It was easy to see that after my mother's death, the relationship between my dad and I had been broken. I don't know what it was that drove us apart; maybe it was how he locked himself in his room for several months and left me to look after myself while he moarned, or maybe it was how I refused to talk three months into my dad's isolation.

I loved talking up until my mother died. But after, every word I spoke seemed pointless. 

The medical examiners found a huge proportion of pure heroin in my mother's veins, along with an external head injury. The police searched my house, day  in and day out, looking for clues as to where my mother's death was, in fact, a murder.

After finding no evidence to support it, they classed it as a suicide; that she injected the heroin into her veins and banged her head against a corner of something when she was making her way towards the bed.

However, there was no suicide note that came with it.

I was sure, with my heart, that my mum was murdered. Suicide didn't make sense, she was so happy. 

I tried to express my thoughts, yet despite all the evidence I could gather, the police ignored me. They said they could understand my reluctance to believe my mother was mentally unstable and depressed, and how I want to believe that she was murdered. They smiled, patted me on the shoulder, and dismissed it.

So that was when I decided to become mute. 

My dad wasn't talking to me, nobody was listening to my allegations, all I was getting was a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. 

What's the point in talking if nobody wants to hear what you have to say?

"Scarlett, are you listening?" my dad placed his hand lightly on mine, but I moved it instantly. I never forgave my dad for abandoning me all those months when I needed him most. I would even go as far to say I despised him.

Well, it was his own fault, right? He's the one who made me cook, clean, get the groceries, and every other chore imaginable, on top of my homework. 

Of course, that wasn't his intention, he didn't force me to do anything like the evil step-mother forced Cinderella. Yet, I had to. We couldn't starve and live in an unclean home, and I knew dad wouldn't have done it himself. It was up to me to do everything.

Even when he came out of his room, he'd just sit and watch TV, or go through their wedding albums, ignoring me all the same. All in all, it was about a year after when he finally started to speak to me.

He didn't even apologise when he started talking to me again. He just looked up at me from the album and muttered "you alright?" I just nodded, and he continued flipping through the pages, completely oblivious.

"I was just saying," dad sighed, "that now that you've got your license, I've insured you to my car so we can both share it. I know you hate the bus and it's too far for you to walk to college."

I never took the bus, dad, I thought to myself and looked down.

It wasn't as if I wasn't grateful. I know it was a pain for my dad to explain to the driving instructor that I never talked; he didn't understand, nor did the instructor.