The new year. God, we need a new year, I thought to myself as I sat, staring out my bedroom window into the murky blackness.
I’d thought things would be different now that some time had passed. It felt like this year would be better. I would be better. I’d make Mom and Dad proud.
But everything had changed, and when families across the country were ringing in a new year, I sat in my room, alone, wondering if anything would be okay again.
I’d tried so hard to be good today. I’d made dinner for Mom and Dad. Mom refused to come out of her room, even when I’d gently knocked.
‘Get the hell out,’ she’d bellowed through snotty tears. Dad had stormed down the hallway like a bulldog, shooing me from the room.
‘You little bitch, get moving. Get away. Are you a moron? Leave her alone. You’ve done enough.’
I’d rushed to my room, the meatloaf I’d carefully made rotting away on the kitchen table, just like everything else.
I deserve this, I thought. It is my fault. It’s all my fault. My arms wrapped around myself, I stared out the bedroom window, looking at the starry sky, wondering how everything got so messed up, trying to sort it all out.
My chest hurt. Maybe it was guilt. Maybe it was grief. Maybe it was fear.
I didn’t know at the time. It was too complicated.
She shouldn’t have treated me like that, I thought, the words dancing in my mind. I tried to shove them away, but they kept pounding against my brain. She should have been nicer. She always pushed things.
I really hadn’t meant for it to happen, the shove going a little too far. It hadn’t been on purpose, just like I’d said.
But still, I’d done it. There was no denying it. I’d changed our lives forever.
Sitting, staring out the window, though, one thought developed. One ugly, sinister thought: it’s just me now. There’s no one else to compete with.