Hey guys. I wrote this story in school last year in eigth grade. My old ELA teacher, Mrs.K, loved it and I hope you do too!
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Rain. It was all she heard. Rolling over she saw the time was 2:27 AM. Too early.
Fall asleep already!
She couldn’t. Tossing and turning was all she did for the past three hours. She has been sent to bed far too early.
∙∙∙
“Katie!” her father shouted. “Get down here!”
Slowly, she had left her room. Her father never yelled, but she knew why he was.
“Yeah?” she asked in a monotone voice.
“Your teacher tells me you haven’t been in school, all week!” her father hollered.
Here we go again. No way out, keep the answers short, he’ll give up soon. He always does.
“Okay,” she said, trying to stand taller, which caused her back to crack.
“Okay?!” yelled her father. His usually pale skin was a bright crimson red. His hands had been clenched tight, his knuckles were white.
“Yeah,” she said, trying to not let her voice quiver. He intimidated her alright, and right now all she wanted was to cry.
“Katie,” stated her father after taking a deep breath. The concern in his voice broke Katie’s heart. “School should not be taken and abused. In four more years you will be an adult. Don’t waste your life like your mother did.”
She came closer to her father, but he put his hand up.
“Please Katie, go to your room and think about what I said.”
As she was walking up the stairs, something clicked in her mind.
Don’t waste your life, like your mother did.
But she couldn’t put her finger on it.
Like your mother.
∙∙∙
3:26 am. Sighing, Katie rolled on her back.
Nice going Katie. Now you’re never going to get some sleep.
The evening just kept replaying in her head, like a movie that just wouldn’t stop. It felt so surreal. The only other time her father had ever yelled at her was when she dropped a plate, but he wasn’t mad for long.
Out of pure boredom, and to get her mind off of the incident, she began to count the wood panels on the ceiling of her room.
“Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen,” she whispered. Her voice became hoarse. “Twenty, twenty one, twenty two-”
Like your mother.
She cut off abruptly. The thought had come to her so fast, so hard, like a train. Something clicked in her head, just those three words.
Like your mother.
The thought, it was there she just couldn’t find it. It was too far. Out of her grasp.
