Second Chances

Author note: This is my first story ever on Wattpad so I hope you'll have patience with me :D Also want to give a great big thanks to _ChasingCars for the awesome cover. 

Chapter One

Every time that I dream about my father’s death, I imagine that it’s dark outside. That’s how I remember most of my nightmares-black and red, vividly played out in my head. Which doesn’t make much sense since my father didn’t die during the night. It was daytime when my father had been shot and killed while buying cigarettes. The store clerk had been shot also but he had lived, even though he spent a few days in critical care.

     56 dollars. That’s how much the guy that had killed my father had made off with. It seemed like such a small amount of money to place on my father’s life. Not much, could barely even fill a car tank all the way with gasoline for that little money. He had never been caught either, a fact that burned at me every time I thought about it.

     I lay on my bed with my arms crossed behind my head, staring at the ceiling and thinking once again about my father and his death. I wished that I could get past it. It had been over a year since his death. I wanted to get over it-not just that he was dead-but the way that he had died.

     I freaked out after he was killed, starting acting out at school. Nothing serious, just showing up late, mouthing off to teachers, not turning in schoolwork. The most serious thing that I did was pulling a fire alarm. That had ended with me getting a five day suspension from school and a stint in counseling. I got to spend some quality time with Mr. Green while my mom sat out in the waiting room.

     I’m not even sure why I pulled the fire alarm really. It was one of those impulse things that seem like a good idea at the time but later, when everything has gone to hell, you stand back and wonder what you had been thinking in the first place. I had arrived late to school-again-and was standing outside of my first period class (Biology with Mr. Kellerman, who was a real tool) and wondering if it was worth all the hassle to walk into class when my eyes had come across the little fire alarm lever. I was idly wondering if the alarm would sound if I pulled it (‘cause honestly, everyone has wondered that at some point) when I found my hand reaching out. Yeah, it had worked.

     Counseling hadn’t really been that bad. I’m not that keen on talking about my feelings but I eventually opened up about a few things. Not about my father’s death. I couldn’t seem to do that even with the person that I wanted to talk about it with the most. My mom would shut me down when I started to talk about anything remotely close to the subject of my father.

     I hadn’t pushed the discussion with my mom though; partly because she looked so sad when I tried to bring it up but mostly because I was afraid of what might have come out of her mouth. Things hadn’t been great in their marriage before his death and the thought lurked in the back of my mind that they might have gotten a divorce eventually if he had lived. I didn’t know if I could handle hearing about that so I left it alone.

      A knock sounded at my door and I closed my eyes. I knew that it would be too much to hope that Bob hadn’t noticed how distracted I had been at dinner. He would want to come in and talk about it because that was what a good counselor would do. Yeah, Bob was my counselor or former counselor since he had married my mother. I had been so distracted with everything else going on in my life that I hadn’t noticed that my mother was spending an awful amount of time after my counseling sessions talking with Bob in his office. I just figured that they were discussing me, even though Bob had gone out of his way to assure me that he couldn’t discuss anything that we talked about outside of our sessions without my permission.

     “Chris?” Bob knocked again.

     There was no other way around it. “Come in,” I called out half-heartedly, not bothering to sit up when he walked in.