Wingless, book 1 of Wingless Series

Usual

Note from author: You guys, please understand that this is my first work. There will be many errors and what I like to call "newbie writing". But I enjoy sharing all of my work with readers. The good, the bad and the very very new. So enjoy, my first!

I'm at the cemetery. I need to visit him. If I was dead a visitor would be a blessing. Nobody knows what happens when we die.

I love him with such a passion that leaving him alone in the cemetery scares me most days. So when I make bad choices—like getting drunk in the woods, I visit him.

I spend a lot of time with, Vanessa, she's my best friend but he was the best.

I kick the cemetery gate with my foot, hurrying to make it in. It's getting dark. I left Vanessa in the woods by my house—the usual spot we hang out.

It's always the same thing—sadness, when I think about him. And sadness when I drank, I know I should stay away from drinking. Maybe I enjoy the torture.

This is me, Eve, the reckless girl from a small town. I come from a successful family. My dad owns his own business and my mom is a lawyer.

Gray, my older brother, played football in high school and does even more impressive things in college. My sister has what most say is the best husband in the world, with two perfect children to match.

I'm the baby in my family, on a road leading to nowhere. I don't know what I want to do with my life.

I'm used to success coming from every direction but mine. I want to live, not stress about how or why. That's what my family does, they stress until they make it and stress some more afterwards as they struggle to keep things perfect.

I'm not like that. My mom calls me her wingless wonder. I don't understand what the nickname even means. So I make up my own idea. Like, if I had wings that would be all it took to fly away from this shitty life.

School is about to end. And I have plans, plans that involve having a good time before I have to deal with school all over again. I'm passing, but the only reason I'm going is to avoid hearing my parents complain. Not to mention I don't want to explain at family gatherings why I'm going nowhere fast.

I need to escape. And escaping to me means getting drunk. Anything that can take the past and push it far away, I don't want to feel. I never want to again after what happened.

And that is why I walk in the rain to the cemetery.

I'm soaked; my clothes cling to my skin as I stumble around looking for his name.

His name was Marcus Cardwell. He's my brother. He died when he was twenty. He barely had a chance to live. It's pathetic and sad.

It makes me hate the world.

I'm empty.

You don't understand death until it takes away somebody you love. When it does, you shake death's hand.

Death slapped me back into reality. And along with misery I am trying to cope. I know deep down that I can survive. I have to. But, so far I am losing the battle.

Hell, maybe I'll win the war.

I hurry to my brother's gravestone, dropping to my knees to get more comfortable. I sprawl out in the grass sighing, and shut my eyes.

The cemetery is the one place in the world you can be alone. And for a little while I can be with Marcus. It feels like he is here with me. And that is what I want more than anything else in the world.

It was summer when he died. I remember how hot and bored I was. Marcus had to work and missed our hike. We always hiked together. But not that day.

He made sure to kiss me on the cheek and pull my hair before he left. It was his way of making me feel better.

Our parents were forcing him to be a more responsible adult.

I blame our mom, she pushed him away. They were doing well, he didn't need a job.

Marcus didn't want to be tied down and told what to do so working was his escape. My mother despised his carryout job, but she said at least he was focusing on more than hikes and writing all the time.

I can't understand why she wanted to change him. He was amazing. He enjoyed life the way we all should. He enjoyed nature, poetry and writing. He was simple, and it didn't take much to make him happy. But it didn't matter because all my mom cared about was Marcus being anything other than who he was.

The day he died I got on my bike and rode through our small town in Jersey to the carryout.

I tossed my bike on the ground near a dumpster and headed inside Q-mart. Marcus was always glad to see me, and even if he was busy, he never let on. He always leaned over the counter with his goofy smile and talked to me.

He told me he would wake me up when he got home. Unless he decided to take a walk, then he would apologize later.

A small part of me was angry with him for saying that. I asked him why he wouldn't keep his promise, he never broke promises. But he shrugged, and slid a hand through his mess of brown curls. He told me to go before Mom called asking where I was. He told me he was sorry, that if he could have it his way he would let me work right beside him.

So I headed home, bumping into two teenagers on the way out. One of them snapped at me for running into him.

But I ignored them and hopped on my bike anyways. I took the long way because I knew it would annoy my mom.

It was the day the world crumbled all around me, the day I would never feel okay again.

I will never heal. I'll just bleed out until I'm dead too.

I remember lying in my bed waiting to hear Marcus' truck. But I never heard it and I was angry at him for breaking his promise.

Covering my head with my pillow did nothing to drown out my mom's screams.

My heart crashed in my chest, and no matter how many times I swallowed my mouth was dry. I listened from my room, afraid to move a muscle. I knew if I did I would become part of the nightmare.

"He's been shot!" is all she could get out--making it more real every time the words escaped.

I walked past the killer. I knew this before anyone even told me. I knew he was dead before Gray forced me from my room and made me drive with them to the hospital.

The next week was a total blur, my life was ruined. Marcus was gone and I swore I wouldn't let him fade away. I would hold onto him because losing him meant losing myself.

After losing Marcus I learned that people do shape who you are.

People change you, they are bonds that can be broken. I'm Eve, but my brother will never be Marcus again.

I stand ready to go home-- the visit is over.

Tomorrow isthe last day of school and then I can breathe for a few weeks.