Jesse

I served myself a glass of water and proceeded to wait for her. She was taking so long! I knew she was stalling. I knew this isn't what she wanted and even though I couldn't blame her, there was no other choice.

Ever since the divorce, she had been out of the house as much as possible. She said it was to spend more quality" time with her friends but we both knew that was a lie. She was doing it because she was genuinely hurt of everything that had happened. I guess I was supposed to set a better example as well but I really stopped caring when the fighting started.

Day after day, mornings and evening, a fight over breakfast, over the laundry, over who would drop off Jay at soccer practice, even over the damn dog. They always found something to fight over. Then one day Dad uttered the dredded yet expected word, Divorce. All hell broke loose.

I went left, Charlie went right. In truth, there was nothing right about the way she was headed but I was in no place to judge. She was so young at the time. She didn't understand. I didn't expect any fourteen year old to understand. She was so confused but that innocence that she carried with such gracefulness, disappeared overnight. That was five years ago. Charlie had since changed immensely. Gone was her bright smile and lively eyes. In their place sat a practically permanent scowl and a look that made you think twice about saying the wrong thing to her face. In the end, the divorce was messy and all we could do was pray that as collateral damage, we wouldn't be damaged beyond repair. Maybe we didn't pray enough.

I was roughly shaken out of my thoughts by an ear-splitting scream. Who was screaming? I ran outside and saw glass everywhere. What had happened? Quickly I looked around and noticed the screams were coming from a woman in a car. As curiosity got ahold of me, I walked closer to see if I could catch a glimpse of something that could explain her screaming her head off.

As I got closer I began to get a knot in my stomach as I noticed the blood. It was on her face, her hands, her clothes, everywhere. The scene around her vehicle was filled broken glass and smeared with blood. It almost seemed like a car accident scene...

but her car was intact.