The due date is fast approaching!

okay I finished this earlier today but I just want to say I JUST FINISHED MY FIRST REAL NOVEL OMK I'M SO HAPPY anyways now for my entry! :)

Short story- The One I Needed

omitting the letter u

The small car Mrs. Deneese is driving me in kicks grey goop that was once snow into the air as we drive around a pretty small-town neighborhood. The tall evergreens are capped with snow, and they remind me of all the small things that made up the season as I used to know it; finding my favorite ornament after digging for so long; the scent of hot chocolate after playing in the snow; the feeling of giddy anticipation as Christmas came ever closer. It makes me ache all over with nostalgia.

“We’re here,” Mrs. Deneese informs me. My tiny, dark brown hands tighten on the handle of the backpack they gave me at foster care, my palms sweating.  

The car slows to a stop outside of a little beige place. I swing open the door, careful to only step on the path that has been cleared of snow. The frost sparkling on my foster parent’s home makes it look like an ice palace, an the clear, crisp snow bordering it is so perfect that I half expect to see a choir of angels in the middle, singing a Christmas hymn. It might have come from a fairy tale.

I expect a happy, artificial couple with little toddlers shrieking with delight at all their tiny cares to live here. Instead, a short lady with greying, mouse-brown hair, hazel eyes, fair skin, and a big old lady smile plastered on her wrinkling face hops out of the front door.

“Hi there, Dawn! I’m Cara Mae Saller, but you can call me Cara!” she chirps. Cara reaches out to put a hand on my arm. I instinctively shrivel away- for the past year, my mother hit me whenever she’s made any contact with my skin.

“Miss Saller is very nice, Dawn,” Mrs. Deneese tells me softly. “Say hello.”

“Hi, Miss Cara,” I whisper. I stare at the soil. The soil is safe, with no eyes like searchlights. The soil can’t whisper behind backs, jabbing at people’s hearts. They’re almost a close friend to me by now. I can still feel Miss Cara’s eyes searching me, landing on the marks my skin bear of the mistreatment I’ve faced for a year.  I know that this woman, this kindly little woman, will pity me. I’ve had lots of pity.

Mrs. Deneese whispers briefly into Miss Cara’s ear. She closes her eyes and nods sadly. Then Mrs. Deneese spins around and walks back to her little car, high heels clicking on the walkway.

“Bye,” I whisper. I close my eyes and remember how it was like to live with a real family, not my broken mother, my brother, my father, who are a million lives, memories, stories, eternities, hearts away.

~

Miss Cara has gotten a pizza especially for me. She even got toppings, like pepperoni, olives, and bacon since ‘I didn’t know what ya liked, of if ya had a favorite’. I take a little bit of each so I didn’t disappoint her, despite the fact that I only like maybe half of them. She tries talking to me. My answers are far from satisfactory. She offers to play a movie, but I tell her I’m  really tired and want to go to bed early. I feel bad that I’m barely talking to her, but I can’t deal with all the nostalgia that comes with living in a home that is a real home. She tells me my room is the first door on the right side of the door to the basement. I run a hand along the wallpaper as I walk to my room, feet heavy as stone. My heart seems to be fidgeting a bit in my chest, as though it’s hesitant or not comfortable yet (and neither am I).

I creak open the door. My new room might be friendly and welcoming if I bother to flip the light switch. I don’t- why pretend it’s all going to be fine if I know my demons hide in my dreams? They come after me every night. Its been over a year since that fateful day. I still wake at midnight drenched in cold sweat, filled with nostalgia and pain and sheer terror. I can feel two ghosts flying over my head, whispering to me as I peel the covers of this new bed back, no even bothering to change into the pajamas residing in my backpack.  

I hold the folds of my sheets more tightly than necessary. I swear I won’t fall asleep, no matter how heavy my eyelids become. I don’t want to wake up Miss Cara when she hears my screams. I gaze at a path of moonlight shining on the wall, black in the night, via the window. I will not fall asleep. I will not fall asleep. I will not… fall asleep…

~~~~~

The dark fades from the edges of my vision and a memory, the worst one, swims in front of me then becomes still. My mom walks away and leaves my brother and I to be driven to school. I can see that there is something wrong with my dad. Whatever it was, I will never know. I slide into the passenger seat with my brother Finn in the backseat. I see my dad’s hands clenching the steering wheel too tight, talking angrily to himself. I feel scared for him. And Finn, who I love, loved, will always love despite the fact that he can never say he loves me back… not anymore…

We drive normally for a few minutes, passing by the same things we did everyday, so normal we never look closer to see the stories, the pasts of those things I will most likely never see again. Now I wish I had said goodbye to some of them, like the local shop with the kind lady who worked there and gave us stickers, or the little playground where I first learned how to play on monkey bars. My cries of delight echo in my ears as the memory/dream proceeds to recall its horrible honesty. I want to close my eyes, hide from what I know will happen, except their already closed, and I know what will happen and so does the memory- the me I am living inside of, recalling, does not, is woefully ignorant to the fate awaiting me.

Dad veers onto a narrow road with only two lanes, more angrier than ever, head bent over the wheel. When he sees another car, he swears.

He screams, making me jump and gasp. He swings the wheel to the left. I can only see the shock and terror etched on every line of the other driver’s face as the hood of their car rams into the side of mine, the side where Dad and Finn are sitting.

I feel the nonexistent pang of my head against my window, and where I remember nothing my evil mind fills it with memories of Finn- Finn, roaming the place with a pair of underwear on his head and a black blanket tied to his neck, claiming he was Batman and we needed to report any crime to him, Finn hiding behind my door and screaming in my face when I opened it, Finn giving me the last Christmas cookie, Finn folding clean clothes as we make funny faces at each other, Finn…

And then I am sitting in a hospital bed and nurses with shiny hair and white smiles are telling me I am very blessed to have walked away from a car accident like that with only a few stitches on my ear and a great big red knob on the side of my head.

They lied. I had a broken heart and a crippled spirit from that too- Dad and perfect little Finn were dead.

~~~~~~~~~~

My eyes fly open. I’m gasping, trying to breathe, not remembering the last time sweet air filled my chest, choking on my own tears. My instinct tells me to calm down, don’t involve anyone else. No one cares- I have to deal with my own problems.

I can’t anymore. No longer can I live with replaying this nightmare that is reality over and over till I break and there will be nothing left of me. Part of me got left behind in that car. I have to keep the rest safe now. And to do that, I need someone else to help me.

“Miss Cara!” I whisper. Only a strange gasping noise escapes my lips. I try again and again, when at last,  she opens the door, bright yellow light spilling in, her shadowy form splayed across the bedspread. She dashes to me so intensely she may as well have been chased by sharks.

“What? What’s wrong, Dawn?” she asks.

“I- I dreamed-  I dreamed of the day-” i whisper, words blocked by lingering terror. She seems to grasp what I’m trying to say. She wraps her arms around me, rocking me gently, telling me it was a dream, that they’re safe now.

“How?” I choke, “How can they possibly be safe?”

She replies, “They’re in Heaven. Simple as that.”

“How can we be sure?” I ask. “And do we know if Dad deserves Heaven?” the terrible words leave a bitter taste in on my lips.

“Seeing is not believing,” She whispers, “Remember that. If we believe, have faith, it will be so.”

I like her words. I like her. Might love her. And I sit there, clinging to Miss Cara Saller like a lifeline, the one I’ve needed all along. I know she will help me with everything, from homework down to my ghosts.

~~~~~

The End

Well, that was rather long and _nedited, b_t OKAY! 

Sorry for not getting this in sooner!

mine will be excluding the letter U. 

Ella glanced to her left, making sure here were noone there. Ella's Grandmere had always told her by the firelight that she, like her mother, had a third eye. Ella didn't know what that meant at the time, but she always knew when  someone was following her. The back of her neck prickles. She turned and dashed into a alleyway. she had been escaping from the law for so long she hardly remembered what for. But shapeshifting was banned in the kingdom by act of parliament. Not that born shapeshifters could help it, the best Ella was able to do was learn to hide her powers. Not tonight, however, she had to escape. Ella could feel her arms tingelling as feathers began to form and she swooped into the night.