Chapter One
It happened ten years, maybe it was predestined or maybe it was random. Either way, I managed to, in one day, destroy my family and kill both my brother and sister. Before their deaths my family was close, some would even go so far as to say perfect. I had a loving father and mother, along with a protective older brother and a nagging older sister. However, after what unfolded that day, I was left with a mother and father on the brink of divorce, along with two dead siblings. Even though it happened ten years ago, I’ve always felt like it was right behind me, chasing me in my thoughts and dreams. My sister Amanda and her best friend Ginny were eighteen years old at the time, and I was eight. They picked me up that day from school. I had always loved riding in Amanda’s red mini. It smelled liked new car, my parents gave it to her on her sixteenth birthday and she treated it better than she treated me. Ginny and Amanda were going on and on about some strange guy at their school who they swore was always stalking Amanda. We stopped at a red light and an ice cream truck pulled up next to us, and of course I had to have some. I remember arguing with my sister as she drove the back roads home.
“Manda I want ice cream!”
“Oh of course you do” Amanda always spoke to me in sarcastic tones. Although looking back now, I miss her sarcasm, that and Ginny’s sense of needing to be the mediator all the time.
“Manda its just ice cream. We could just stop at Fred’s and get her a push pop, it’s on the way”
“That’s so not the point Ginny! The brat is spoiled and she needs to know that she can’t get everything she wants just because she’s cute!” Amanda had started making faces at me in the rearview mirror, so I made a few as well. Ginny turned around in her seat to look at me, which was the first mistake.
“Anabelle-“
“Don’t call me that!”
“I’m sorry, Ana. How about when we get back to your place I put your hair in those pretty French braids you love so much. I’m spending the night tonight, so I will even have time to put some bows in as well.”
“Really?!”
“Yep, pinkies promise?” Ginny and I locked pinkies.
I use to love the way Ginny did my hair when she spent the night. Ever since I was old enough to remember, Ginny French braided my hair whenever she came over. However, my sister hated that her best friend treated me so nicely, so she always provoked me. Amanda looked in the rearview mirror and stuck her tongue out at me, the second mistake. I remember how angry I was, and the last thing I said before the crash “AMANDA I HATE YOU!” which was the last mistake, and then it happened.
Amanda had been looking in the rearview mirror, Ginny had been facing me in the back seat, and I had been too busy screaming the words I regret so much to see the other car. The impact was intense and quick, almost too quick. The entire front half of the car was destroyed, the steering wheel was practically touching the passengers’ door. The police report says that an eighteen wheeler hit us and kept going. However, I know that it wasn’t a vehicle that hit us, I’m not sure what it was, but what I do know was that as I lie in the back seat of the car there was an odd emerald glow that disappeared as quickly as it came. When the ambulance arrived I was unconscious still buckled in the backseat, but when I eye opened my eyes I was in a St. Mary’s hospital room. My mom and dad were sleeping by my side. I looked at the clock, it was 10:23 pm and I will never that time either, because it was at 10:23 when a doctor walked in to tell us that my brother was dead. I will never forget the expressionless look on my father’s face or my mother’s scream. My brother Greg was twenty two; he ironically enough had an internship at St. Mary’s on the fourth floor, I was on the first. His friend Ethan was working on the first floor that night and saw me when I had been brought in. Apparently, my parents hadn’t told Greg anything, so when Ethan told him after his shift he rushed to the first floor. In all the rush, he forgot to pay attention. When the elevator doors opened he didn’t realize that there was no floor, he fell down the shaft. The doctors immediately stopped the elevator and pulled him out. The doctor said they operated for two hours, but in the end they couldn’t do anything to save him. None of it mattered though, it could have been a meteor that hit us, but regardless it was still my fault. If I hadn’t been such a brat that day everyone would still be alive. After my brother and sister’s death my Mom, Dad, and I moved from the United States to Italy. It was a dramatic move, but dramatic does not even begin to describe my mother. It was my mother’s idea to get me a therapist immediately after the crash, even though the doctors assured her I was going through post traumatic shock and I would be fine in no time. However, after my first visit there were other terms to describe what was wrong with me. The words depression and hallucinogenic were thrown around quite a bit. The mention of the emerald glow at the accident was what sparked the hallucinogenic diagnosis, which was far off because I never saw hallucinations. The depression on the other hand I was not sure about. I didn’t necessarily feel sad, just disconnected with everything. I didn’t get close to people, I didn’t make too many “friends”, and I definitely didn’t go out frequently, but I don’t think that made me depressed, just different. My mother argued otherwise and had me on several medications from day one, along with her famous catch phrase: “This is the one Ana, you will be back to normal”. As if she would know what normal was for me, I wasn’t even sure what normal was, sometimes I’m not even sure of the person I am, but that had never stopped her, not even today on my graduation from high school.
