What We Lost In The Winter

Chapter 1

Once upon a time, I was five years old. I was a hopeful, innocent, naive, and stupid five year old. I was so dumb that I thought Alaina was my sister. I would always go knock on her door. “Lainie? Will you play with me?” I would ask. That was back when I called her Lainie.

“Rebecca, I don’t want to. Go play with Lilliana,” Alaina always responded the same way. Go play with Lilliana. I should’ve realized by then that although we were related by blood, we weren’t really sisters. She was the only person in the whole wide world that called me Rebecca, and called Lily by her real name. We’ve always been Becca and Lily, never Rebecca and Lilliana.

“I don’t want to play with Lily!” I pouted. Lily was only three at the time, and all she wanted to do was watch Dora the Explorer or Cinderella or whatever other show she was into.

“She’s your sister, you should play with her,” Alaina shooed me away.

“But you’re my sister too!” I remember sitting crossed-legged in front of her closed door. Waiting for her to come out and invite me to play. She never opened that door, and it made my little heart feel sad. I guessed that was typical of an older sister. I knew that I didn’t want to be that way to Lily. I wouldn’t be the typical big sister.

Mom would call me and my sisters to dinner. I would run and wash my hands and sit at the table and waited for everyone else to sit down. Mom would lift Lily into a highchair and then yell for Alaina to come join us. My big sister, who was only nine, but that seemed really old to a little girl like me, would groan as she walked down the stairs. She sat at the end of the table and ate quickly every night. She would leave to be excused as soon as she possibly could.

“I have a lot of homework,” was always her excuse. One day, I noticed that almost all her food was still on her plate. I thought she wasn’t hungry. I hadn’t realized that she never ate all her food.

 

***

 

By the time I was eight years old, making Alaina twelve, and Lily five, I could tell that something was weird with my relationship with “Lanie”. My best friend, Annie, had three older sisters and they were all nice to her, and played with her, and helped her with her homework. My neighbor, Joey, had an older brother who was a good brother to him too. So did some of my other classmates. Nobody had an older sister who closed them off.

I still went to school when I was eight. I was in third grade. One day, my teacher, Mrs Vericaus, was teaching us about adjectives and verbs. She was a hard teacher, strict with a whole lot of rules, but she wasn’t mean. Suddenly, the door opened, and three mean looking men dressed in blue came into our classroom. They made all of us go to a different teacher’s room. It was a first grade classroom, but they were having storytime so we wouldn’t be a big distraction. My entire class sat together. We were so confused because it was obvious that those men were police officers.

About ten minutes later, our school principal paged our entire class down to the office. We said goodbye to the first graders, and went to the office. The principal told us that our parents were coming to pick us up early, and not to be afraid. We packed up our backpacks, and waited in the office’s cushion-y chairs. My mom was the fifth parent to get there. I climbed into the car, noticing how her face was pale like she’d seen a ghost.

“Rebecca, are you okay?” she asked frantically.

“Of course, why wouldn’t I be?” I smiled. I was just happy to leave school early.

“Oh, no reason,” she sighed.

“Mommy, what’s going on?” I asked. It didn’t matter that I was only eight, I could tell something was up. I had no idea what it was, but I knew that there was something strange happening. I wasn’t a stupid five year-old anymore.

“Nothing. We have to go pick up Alaina,” Mom said. That shut me up. I was going to go to the middle school to pick up my sister! I loved going inside her school. It was so big, much bigger than my elementary school. We drove for fifteen minutes. “Wait in the car.”

Mom walked into the school, and I sat in the backseat of our brown Honda and pouted. I wanted to go into Alaina’s school. Not because I wanted to see Alaina, she didn’t even love me, but I just wanted to feel like a big girl. Mom and Lainie walked out of the school, and into the car.

“Are we picking up Lily?” I asked Mom. She nodded. We drove to Lily’s pre-school and picked her up too. Then we drove to our small little house. I ran straight to my bedroom. I’m not sure why.

Mom opened my pink wooden door, “Hey Becca? Do you still want to know what happened?”

“Yes! Please!” I jumped off my princess bed.

She took a deep breath. “Okay. Well, your teacher, Mrs. Veracaus, had a gun in her desk. They don’t know why she had it, but I’m just glad nobody got hurt,” Mom said slowly.

I gasped. “Mrs. Veracaus wouldn’t bring a gun! Wait, is that true?”

“It’s true, Becca. Are you okay?” she put her arm around my shoulder. Being only eight, I don’t think I knew how dangerous a gun could be. Or how scary that is. I didn’t feel at all fazed by this news.

That was the last day I went to school. Mom decided that Alaina, Lily, and I would all be homeschooled. Dad agreed as soon as he found out. They were so scared. I didn’t understand why. I didn’t realize how close I was to possibly dying.

Every day since then, and that was over four years ago, Mom has homeschooled us. She forces Alaina to come downstairs and learn with Lily and I. It’s not like that would help Alaina connect with her sisters, but whatever. She just sits at the edge of the dining room table alone, hiding herself behind books.

I don’t think I want to go back to a public school, or any school for that matter. I’ve never really thought about it. To me, school was never really an option. Staying home with Mom and my sisters, getting to help teach Lily how to read and other academic subjects, it’s just a typical part of my life. I don’t find it weird, I find it completely normal.

A/N 

Hey guys, so I'm writitng a realistic fiction novel before I begin the sequel to UnChosen. The other things I was working on (Elements and Beneath) are not going to be continued. I hope you enjoy this one!