Imagine

Imagine a beautiful day in a town where everyone knows each other and gets along just fine. Don't forget to imagine a High School filled with typical teenagers and a beautiful campus where every student has passed through the annual misfit initiation. Just to be clear, I'm not a big fan of the initiation because mine was a complete disaster but that's a whole different story.

I am Rose, one of the typical popular high school students with a "perfect life". I do have an amazing boyfriend, good grades, an amazing athletic career and extraordinary friends. Even though these things make my life seem perfect, not everything is pink and sunshine. To start off, my parents are always fighting but aren't getting a divorce just yet. My little sister, who is 14 years old, tried to kill herself last summer on my birthday because of my parents. And for my luck, that was only the beginning of everything.

Part one

The beginning of everything was on January 7th, 2005. This day my father found out that my mother was having an affair with Derek, one of their many childhood friends. Honestly, I disliked my mom for several days because my dad was depressed, and he looked like the life had been sucked out of him. My parent's barley talked to each other for almost a month, but eventually went back to talking when my mother discovered my dad's affair with one of his colleagues. After we found out about the affairs, I had no clue who my parents were. The only thing that I did know was that I disliked my parents very much, so much so that it became hatred. The comedic part is that I hated them for staying together, not for the affairs. I hated them for the countless fights that ended with me in the hospital due to anxiety attacks, for making my sister want to end her life so she wouldn't have to be the one receiving all their negativity. It wasn't fair. I tried to understand my parents and tried so hard not to hate them, but I just couldn't let them off the hook so easily. The only good thing that came out of this was the bond my sister and I had with each other. We became much closer that even though she was three years younger than me; we went everywhere together.

My backstory or my story in general might be a little sad but there is always a little good in everything. Here comes that good, hopefully...

Part two

Four months after my parents discovered their affairs, a lifelong friend whom I trust with my life, wanted to be more than friends and it was pure love from both sides. The person who later became my boyfriend helped me when I started getting the anxiety attacks and even today takes my sister to her shrink when my mother forgets to take her. He is the perfect smile type that compliments you even though you look awful and gives bouquets of flowers every time he can. He is just amazing in every way. Once he took me to McDonalds in the middle of the night just because I was hungry. The point is that he has been very supportive since day one.

A year after that, my parents and sister went on a trip to Los Angeles. I had the house all to myself for seven days. The first three days of the week, my best friend, Edward, brought me dinner while we watched movies. He really outdid himself; every meal was delicious.

On Thursday, I went shopping with Emily, a great friend. Everything was fine until we realized that a tall, handsome guy, wearing a black jacket was following us. We went into several stores and tried to lose him, but we couldn't for a while. It got even weirder when he saw that we were watching him. We got to a point where both of us were standing still, looking at him. I still get the sensation of something crawling on my skin when I remember that day.

Part three

A frightened look was on our faces that moment. When he started to walk towards us everything went in slow motion, I would feel my heartbeat going faster and faster. Every step he took made us fear a little more. Five, six, seven steps and we were frozen in the crowd, barely breathing. In the blink of an eye Emily grabbed me and ran without caring about hurting me with her tight grip. We ran without looking behind our shoulder until we couldn't any more. We stud in the crowd looking at each other without knowing where to go when suddenly I saw a coffee shop and rushed Emily inside. Both of us ran to the back of the coffee shop and sat down at a table that wasn't visible to anyone outside. Emily and I just sat there looking at each other for several minutes while our heart beats slowed down. We got interrupted be a waiter that asked if we wanted or needed anything. We suddenly rushed back into reality, noticing that the coffee shop wasn't quite empty and that everyone inside watched how we ran to the back desperately.

With tea in our cups and an hour to calm down we began to see how our friends and Emily's boyfriend came in the door and just as we started to stand up to say hi, a guy with a black jacket came in. He went directly with our friends and as he sat down, he glanced over his shoulder to look at us. We stud frozen, with our hands shaking and our minds yelling at us to run. We wouldn't move, not until he stopped looking.

Emily and I went to my house, but we were still very freaked out. We decided to call our boyfriends, Tom and Edward. The rest of the day we watched movies until everyone fell asleep, everyone but me. I couldn't stop thinking about that guy in the black jacket, about why we didn't tell our boyfriends, about the sensation of my body when he looked at us. There was something about him that intrigued me, but there was also something deeply wrong about him, I could feel it. What really kept me up all night was thinking that we ran and panicked without a reason. He didn't really threaten us, so why did we really run?

Part four

The next two years were kind of a blur for me.

On my last year of high school, I decided to host a sleepover with four of my friends, Emily included. Through a strict governmental democracy that ruled over my sleepover, it was decided days before that we would go see a movie at the theater, then have dinner with some friends and finally go back to my house. Dinner was amazing, we always had an amazing time together. Our friends always made terrible jokes, but they always found a way to make us laugh and that was the beauty of our friendship. The girls and I went back to my place to continue with our sleepover plan, but we were all very tired so in the end, we improvised and slept on the couches in my living room.

I woke up at 3 in the morning hearing weird noises that scared me at first but then I remembered that Emily snored quite a lot. I couldn't fall asleep after that.

Emily woke up minutes after to go to the bathroom, that meant no more ugly snoring from her for a while. She stayed in the bathroom for way to long. I left my improvised bed and stuck my ear to the bathroom door while I asked her if she was ok. A vomiting sound was interrupted with a "Yeah, I'll be out in a minute". Ems my best friend but she made really bad decisions. My head started spinning on whether or not she had an eating disorder or if she got pregnant.

When she came out of the bathroom we went to the kitchen for a glass of water and I started asking too many questions, according to her. She told me not to worry about her and continued trying to fool me but I interrupted her when I started hearing the same sound that woke me up. The sound became louder and louder. We were going to see if the other girls where making the sounds when Emily looked out the window and dropped her glass. Her eyes popped out. She completely froze and soon after, so did I. The same jacket that followed us years before was staring directly at us. Seconds after we called the police.

The next day I told Tom about everything, from the day at the mall to the guy not being there when the police came. We all got freaked out for a couple of weeks but we still didn't think it was bad enough to tell our parents.

Part five

My sister started to get very sick. The thought of the man faded to oblivion. To understand my sister's problem better we need to go to the start. Her first attempt to end her life was not very planed out and it was almost successful. She abandoned the idea of killing herself but she started to develop anemia. The anemia was controlled for a few months but developed into anorexia soon after. It was an endless cycle of recovering, being good for a while and then relapsing. This time the doctors warned us that it had to be the last time she relapsed or she might never get better again. When we took her home, she looked hopeful although I never understood why. Every day after school it was the same routine. I made her lunch, we listened to our parents fight while we watched TV, I made dinner, we talked, we went to bed. I really don't blame her for what she did. If I didn't have her, I would have done the same thing. Everything started to go to hell soon after. My sister started making comments about what our family would be like without her. I told my parents after the first comment but they started to fight endlessly about whose fault it was. I thought that going to therapy would help both of us so we started going almost daily. One day I took a little longer to get home; I stopped at the store to get a cereal bar my sister asked for but when I got home my parents where outside fighting about something. My mom had a letter in her hand and was seconds away from crying. Inside the house everything was dead silent, something very unusual for us. I grabbed the cereal bars and ran upstairs to my sisters' room. She was laying on the ground with her wrists bleeding. I called 911. She didn't have a pulse. Her body wasn't warm. My sister killed herself and left me crying by her bedside while they took her body away. Her funeral came days after.

A month after she passed, I started to question if living was really worth it.

A letter to the grave

From: A heartbroken sister

To: The Sky

How is one supposed to deal with the death of a loved one? How do we cope with that? When you lose the person that inspired you to be better, that was the reason everyone laughed and gathered at Christmas, you lose a part of yourself. Time passes and you begin to think that your fine but when the diseased is mentioned you can't talk. When you think of the person for a moment your eyes start to water. How are we supposed to feel better?

I'm stuck on earth crying and thinking about you while you're up there in peace. I don't envy you nor do I feel resentment towards you, as I am well aware of the pain you suffered down here. You deserve to be at peace.

In the end one truly never understands the loss of a loved one. Whether they lost the same person or not, everyone faces death differently and there is no true way of getting over it. You just get used to it. Each day becomes a little easier than the last until it doesn't hurt as much and you can finally think of them without crying. As someone who hyperventilated while crying when faced with the casket of my sister, I can assure you that death isn't wished upon anyone and that the only way of getting over it is asking yourself what they would think of you for crying each time you think about them. The only true way of honoring them is smiling and pushing to be happy, just like they would have wanted it.

Part six

Going for a walk became a daily routine. My mind stopped. Every thought became blank. My brain focused on getting one foot in front of the other, nothing more. The wind blew through my hair moving it like a peaceful wave. My skin grew cold and my mind came back to reality. Huge houses where to my left and a small forest to my right. Where was I? For how long did I walk? How did I not notice where I was going? Suddenly, a car parked next to me. Tom got out of the car and started asking me questions as to why I was alone. I could see fear in his eyes. He calmed down after a few minutes and began to tell me that everything was going to be fine but that I needed to get inside the car. He opened the car door but he was shaking. As I put a foot inside the car, screams came rushing through the wind. A middle-aged man appeared from the forest yelling at us to stop. He looked like he was about to faint. Tall with gray sweat pants and a blue shirt that had a hole on the bottom. He was wounded and bleeding but continued to scream at us. Tom got close to him and asked if he needed help, the man replied by screaming at him to leave me alone. A knife came out of his pocket as he told us that she was alive. A "he's crazy. Common let's go before he does something else" rushed out of Toms mouth as if it was rehearsed.

"Who's alive?" I asked the madman.

"He's crazy. Don't talk to him. Get in the car now." Tom said.

The man looked confused and worried when Tom grabbed my arm to push me into the car.

He screamed at Tom to stop hurting me. The man became more and more desperate as the seconds passed. In the middle of his chaos he screamed "LILYS ALIVE. SHE IS ALVE."

My world froze as I pushed Tom out of the way and ran to the man.

"Your sisters alive. Find her." he continued to say.

A gunshot broke the pandemonium. The blue shirt instantly became black and the yelling stopped. As he fell on the sidewalk his head bounced and his horror filled eyes continued to look straight at us. Seconds after, drowning screams infested the air but they were mine this time. Tom rushed me to the car and drove away as if nothing had happened. I was shaking, screaming and crying. Hitting the window, screaming at Tom to stop became my only activity. Nothing happened. He didn't stop the car. He told me to trust him, to calm down one time after another.

The words "calm down and I'll explain everything. That man was going to kill us." replayed in my head.