Be Careful What You Wish For

The Mystery Man-Chapter Two

All I pictured in my head for weeks was my dad laying there on the ground slowly dying with 8 bullets to his body. I wondered who could ever do this to someone and why would they do it? To a wonderful man who had 4 kids that he still had to finish raising. I lived with the regret of being so rotten to my father, of always taking him for granted, when all he was ever trying to do was take care of me and my younger siblings. I didn’t want to talk to anyone for weeks, my boyfriend kept trying to convince me everything would be okay, but I never thought it would be.

            “Sweetie, are you sure you don’t want to come to England with us? I know you need to go to school and I don’t have much space in my 3 bedroom apartment. But you can take off a year and we can make room you can share a room with your sister and-“

“Mom its fine, really, I’ll be okay. You all just go. I need to go to school now or I’ll never do it.”

“Well alright… I love you sweetheart.”

“I love you too mom. Now you better get before you all miss your flight.”

“Of course.”  My mother leaned in for a hug and I wrapped my arms around my mother and hugged her like I had never wanted to let go, but I knew I had to. “Good luck with everything Crystal , I hope all your dreams come true.” My mom kissed me on the forehead and headed for the door.

“Thanks mom, bye. Have a safe trip.” I waved goodbye to my mother; brothers and sister, and as soon as the door shut all I could do was cry.

            I was so upset. My whole family had been separated, even my baby sister Courtney went to live with my grandma in Charleston. Since my dad passed away, my mom had went back to England and all my siblings had been taken away to other places, I felt so alone and felt like nothing was right.

            Eventually my sister Aubree and I had started to get really close and talked every night on IM or video chat. One night when we were chatting Aubree told me something that was a complete surprise and it made me absolutely sick to my stomach. 

            “Hey Crys!”

            “Hey Aubs!”

            “What’s up?”

            “Sitting here trying to get some homework done, you?”

            “Uhm nothing and oh I’m sorry sis, am I bothering you?”

            “Oh no, no worries.”

            “Okay good, well I need to talk to you about something, I just found out today.”

            “Oh my, this doesn’t sound good. What is it?”

            “…Mom’s married...”

            “WHAT? SHE’S WHAT?!?!?”

            “Married…”

            “I can’t believe this, why wouldn’t she ever tell us? I mean how in the world did you find out?”

            “Well… I went in her room to find my sweater and I saw a picture of her in this dude and it said “forever in love” on it. Then I saw on her calendar, marked September 17th, “wedding anniversary”. I just don’t get it.”

            “Maybe you’re reading into it too much…”

            “Crystal, please… She has to be, but my question is, is where in the world is her husband? And when was she planning to tell us this?”

            “Who knows… Well I need to finish this work… I’ll talk to you tomorrow, love you.”

            “Love you too, bye.”

            I didn’t really work on anything, I just laid in my bed thinking, and asking why in the world my mother would hide something so big from all of us. And like my sister had said, if she was married then why wasn’t her husband there? I stayed up asking these things over and over again for hours.

        The door bell rang as soon as I closed my eyes. It was 11:30 AM. I struggled to get out of bed but I knew it was time to get the day started.

            “Hey Crys! I didn’t think you were still actually here.” Stated Tre.

            “Yeah I am, I am packing up the rest of my things and getting out of this house and moving into my dorm. But if you didn’t think I would be here then why did you come here?”

            “Oh well I thought I would see if you were here, ya know?”

            “Yeah I know, but really you should go I have a lot on my mind, sorry.”

            “So... you’re kicking me out? Crystal we haven’t seen each other in weeks.”

            “Tre, my dad is dead okay? I am here alone, my family is all gone. Give me some time and stop being so pushy all the time.”

            “Fine, maybe if you can’t get over your dad’s death we shouldn’t be together.” Tre yelled as he slammed the door behind him.

            I couldn’t believe I had wasted all that time on Tre, when in the end he just turned out to be a loser that never really cared about me. I loved him, and he threw me away when I needed him most. I liked to say it was his loss, but I always thought it was also mine in some ways. I had been so caught up dealing with my father's death I had ignored the people who cared about me most.