Drinking a mug of hot chocolate in your favorite oversized sweater and staring outside the window is what one normally does when it rains right? Well, not Grey.
“Clear!” shouted the doctor as he tried to revive a 5 year old boy who was at the brink of death. With pale, quivering lips and shaking hands, Grey tried to calm herself down. But of course she couldn’t. It was Michael, her beloved brother whose life is at stake.
“Dad, I didn’t mean to. I’m sor-“Grey was cut off by her father before she could even apologize.
“You had the chance to save him. You had that one chance. You could’ve saved him. But you didn’t.” Her father said with venom lacing his voice as he stared at his dying son. He couldn’t bear to look at his daughter without remembering how his little boy’s life was taken away on the exact day of Christmas.
Grey was still crying when she heard the words that she never wanted to hear.
“Time of death, 11:54 PM.”
Every time it rains, she’d look at his pictures with hope that he will come back and make everything alright.
Tears fell from Grey’s hazel eyes as a little boy in a dirty soccer jersey, with a trophy in his hands, smiled at her. Bittersweet memories started to invade her mind as she started to miss his smile; a smile that could solve world hunger and end wars.
She didn’t even had the chance to tell him how much she loves him on the day he died. She saw his death with her own two eyes. She knew that the car was going to collide with Michael’s frail body, but she just stood there, paralyzed with shock and fear instead of saving him.
And that’s now her biggest regret in her life.
Suddenly, three loud knocks were heard at the door. She opened it and found her father, Damon, glaring at her.
“Buy some pastries at the bakery downtown, you worthless girl.” He spat as he threw a few dollars in her direction and left. She picked the money up and started going to the bakery. Sadness and guilt was all she felt as she walked.
Her father used to be kind and loving. He was the perfect father anyone could ever ask for. But when Michael died, everything changed. She couldn’t talk to him without him, shouting at her and telling her that it’s all her fault.
Grey lost her mother when she was three, and her brother at the age of fourteen. And because of that one tragic event, she lost him too.
Her face lit up when she saw her friends, Luke and Skye, who were both workers at the bakery.
“Two bagels and a croissant please.” She said.
Skye tried to reach the box of bagels at the top of the shelf but she couldn’t reach it. Luke stopped strumming his favorite six-stringed instrument and reached for the box instead. Skye gave the pastries to Grey, then bid each other goodbye.
On the 25th of July, Grey went to the bakery where her two friends greeted her a happy birthday and gave her a cupcake. When she got back, she saw her father giving her a menacing look.
“Where have you been?!” He indignantly asked.
Before she could even reply, he snatched the cupcake out of her hands.
“You went out just for this cupcake?” He said with anger and disbelief in his voice.
“It’s my birthday.” Was her reply in a soft, quiet voice.
“Well, I don’t care!” He yelled as he threw the cupcake on the floor and furiously stepped on it.
Two weeks after, she went to her father’s room and gave him his birthday gift; a scrapbook filled with the photos of the three of them.
“This is what you call a gift?” He rhetorically asked as he started tearing off the pages.
For the first time in three years, he finally looked straight in her eyes.
“The best gift you can give me is to die.” He said, then exited the room.
Grey followed him outside. Deja vu struck her as she saw a car heading towards him.
“I can’t let this happen, not again. I can’t let history repeat itself.” She thought to herself as she ran towards him and pushed him to the end of the road.
She was lying on the cold gravel in the blink of an eye. Blood was oozing out of her head. The car continued moving like nothing happened.
“I’m sorry. Please don’t go. Don’t leave me please. I love you! No!” Her father kept saying as tears blurred his vision.
“You said that the best gift I could give you is to die, Papa. Happy birthday.”
