Fade

Chapter 1

It was cold that night.

I was taking a shower, trying to warm up, when I heard mom scream, then start to sob. She had just gotten home from work, and was in her bedroom connected to the bathroom.

I was out of the shower and dressed in my pajamas in thirty seconds flat. I found her kneeling in her closet, clutching something to her chest. A note.

Something seemed amiss.

All of dad's clothes were gone. All of his things- his suitcase, his old computer that was up on the shelf, his box of comics- gone. His whole side of the closet was bare.

"He left us," whimpered mom.

The room started to spin.

"What?"

"He's gone! He just..." She broke off into sobs.

I remember thinking back to the fighting, to the yelling, to the little arguments and the tense breakfasts spent in silence. But I'd never have thought... It hadn't seemed that bad to eleven-year-old me, until that moment. That was the moment that I realized that relationships are tricky things to keep.

Mom was never the same.

She kept providing for us, of course, but when she thought we couldn't hear, she cried. Her hands shook. She went through boyfriend after boyfriend. Five months later, she was pregnant, and nine months after that, we had a new baby brother, Henry.

A month after that, her boyfriend at the time left her.

For two years, mom has been struggling to keep me, my eight-year-old brother Toby, and Henry (who recently celebrated his second birthday) happy, healthy, and safe, with the help of my sixteen year old sister, Jasmine. It's been tough, but she's managing.

There's always eggs, always bread, always cheese and milk and yogurt and casserole or noodles or meatloaf in the fridge, there's always water and electricity and wifi, always clothes and shoes and shampoo, even if she buys it on sale.

And there's always another man hanging around.

Right now, it's a guy named Caleb. He's nice enough, and smells like mint and always has candy for us. I know he drinks sometimes, but it's not a problem. It doesn't bother me, and it doesn't seem to bother mom.

Right now, it's six thirty AM on a school morning, and that means chaos for our family.

Mom is running around with Henry on her hip, trying to get ready for work. Toby is still sleeping- he'll get up and get himself to the elementary school bus on time. Jasmine is disappearing out the door to drive herself to school.

"What time?" asks Henry, as mom sits him on the counter and helps him into his jacket.

"Five minutes, baby. We can't let you be late to daycare today, so no dawdling."

"Yes mama."

I rush past, throwing together a sandwich for my lunch. A juice box and a cookie are waiting in the fridge- I prepared them last night.

"Momo!" cries Henry as I dash past, shoving things into my backpack. That's what he calls me- my name is Molly. "What color?" He points at his blue coat. People have been asking him simple questions for so long that he's started asking them back.

"Blue," I answer.

"What color?" he points at the red plastic plate on the counter.

"Is it... yellow?" I ask.

He shakes his head and giggles. "Red!"

Then I'm running out the door, up the hill to the bus stop. My best friend Sylvie waits for me there, shifting her weight from foot to foot in the cold breeze.

Her dark hair flutters out behind her, and for a moment, her long, thin fingers, in their shimmery pink gloves, tap out a little rhythm on her leg. Her eyes look blindly over the frosty trees. She's beautiful.

"Hey," I say. She looks out into the distance and takes her time answering.

"Yeah." Why is she acting so weird? I've known her since first grade, I know her expressions, and she's mad. I can tell. My stomach drops. Did she find out?

"Is everything okay?"

"No." Her voice is cold. I look down, feeling the color rise in my cheeks.

"What's up?"

"What's up? What's up?" Her shrill voice shatters the early morning silence. "All these months you didn't tell me, that's what's up."

My chest hurts. My stomach feels like it's falling. No. I protected my secret so well, and now...

"Sylvie, I-"

"What? You what? What could you possibly have to say to even try to make up for a thing like this?"

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah. Sure. Like sorry'll cut it."

"I didn't know how to tell you."

"Uh huh." She turns away. The bus is coming up the hill, around the corner. I grab her hand. Tears burn the backs of my eyes.

"Sylvie, listen. I promise I didn't hide it from you to hurt you. I was scared."

"And I'm scared now. And yet, here we are." The bus doors open and she yanks her hand from mine. Her glove comes off in my hand, and I'm left holding it. After a few seconds hesitation, I run after her up the bus steps.

She's sitting in the second seat from the front on the right, where we always sit. I move to sit next to her, but she shakes her head a little. Her eyes say don't bother.

Swallowing back the lump in my throat, I move to sit at the back of the half-empty bus.

We've been fighting for a long time now, weeks, months, and I don't think this will break us. I hope it won't. I couldn't bear it.

We've been going back and forth between friends and enemies forever. But not like this. Never like this. I'm crazy about her. I couldn't bear it.

I've said some awful stuff to her, and she's said some awful stuff to me, but I don't think I'm the one at fault for our arguing. I get angry, but I apologize, unlike her, and at least I don't mean half the stuff I say.

It always goes the same way.

We'll be talking, I'll say something small and unimportant and she'll explode over it, and then I'll get angry and she'll get angry and then she'll decide she doesn't want to be my friend anymore and ignore me for a few days, but she's never kept me from sitting by her on the bus. It's a vicious cycle, but she'll apologize and come up with all these new rules for our friendship she's going to follow, and I'll let her back because I can't resist her.

I press my face to the window, trying not to cry. The jostling of the bus rattles my head, and I half sit up, slouching against it. I'm miserable. It feels my world has shattered.

Looking down at the glove in my hand, I wonder what I did to deserve this. Why me?

Waves of pain and confusion and hurt wash over me. Wave after wave after wave. I'm upset. I'm angry. I'm cold, I'm hungry, I'm not in the mood to deal with this. My stomach is falling again. This is the lowest I've ever felt.

Man up, I think to myself. Be stronger.

I'll smile harder, I'll laugh louder, I'll bounce back faster. I won't let her see me upset. I may have lost the battle, but I want to win the war.

And, I realize, that's what this is. War.