Miss Personality

How to Be Devastated

There's something that I don't tell most people

I have an older brother. I have a sister-in-law. My brother, Jack, and his wife, Chantal, live about five hours away from me and my parents. They live in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, while we live in Detroit, Michigan.

You might be wondering how both parts of my family ended up where we are.

My brother works at a company called Frisboom. Their headquarters is in Pittsburgh. Jack is moving up very quickly through the ranks at his job, and it's very possible that he might one day become the CEO or at least a very high position in the company.

As for my parents, they grew up in Michigan and met there. They moved to Los Angeles for five years. I was born after they had been there for two years, and soon after I turned three, we moved back to Michigan.

I later would ask them why we moved. They simply said, "We needed to get back to our roots. We needed to escape the chaos."

I never questioned their answer.

The next day came, and I was extremely busy working on everything for the ball.

I ran around the school, talking to everyone, checking my schedule for the day, stopping to see if anyone had signed up for the book club.

I had decided not to put my name on it. Enough people had already signed up for it to make some sort of difference.

Students told me what they were thinking of for the ball, and I did my best to incorporate most things into my preparations.

When Quincy dropped me off at my house that day, I was elated. The day had gone better than I had even imagined.

I was elated until I walked in the door of my house ad saw my parents hugging and crying.

My mom stood up as soon as she saw me and hugged me.

"Mags, Jack was in a car accident this afternoon. Chantal just told us that he was driving hole from work, and he was going around a bend, and a truck came around the corner and hit the back of his car. The impact didn't immediately kill him, for which he is extremely fortunate. But it did knock his car over with such force that it flipped. The car was partially crushed and the windshield broke from the pressure on it, and some of the glass cut your brother. He should be alright, but it's still a difficult journey ahead of us."

Fortunate.

The word didn't fit in that explanation.

He wasn't fortunate.

Most other humans on the planet were fortunate because their car hasn't been demolished by a truck.

But Jack's was.

I went upstairs to pack. I didn't need to wait for my parents to tell me that they already had their bags packed and in the car. I knew them.

I threw in some essentials, including a lot of makeup to make me look awake, since I knew I wouldn't be sleeping much the next few days.

I was done in ten minutes.

Five minutes later, our car was pulling out of the driveway, and beginning its journey to Pittsburgh.

 Sometimes, big things happen in your life, and you don't cry the entire day that they are happening. But at night, as you try to fall asleep, you unravel, and end up bawling your eyes out.

That happens to me all the time, but not today.

I was crying the whole way to Pittsburgh.

This wasn't like me, but my brother was my closest friend. It was horrible when he went to college. I knew I could still text him and Skype him and call him, but it wasn't the same. Everything in our house reminded me of him, but he wasn't there.