I stared at the ground before me. Dark red seeping into deep wooded floors. The color drip, drip, dripping down uneven and cracked steps beside me. A tear fell from my face as it mingled with the red liquid only to disappear within. I gripped the unkempt counter, my knuckles whitening. I looked up. As the smoke dissipated, my father’s features came into view. His face was contorted and angry with deep wrinkles starting to show age. How could he? Why did he do this? Why? Why? Why? 

“Why?” I felt herself saying out loud. As he put the gun in the pocket at the back of his pants, my father looked up, his face scrunching into a snarl. “Get over it.”

My heart stopped. I felt my blood boiling, replacing the icy stillness when my world froze. My anger launched at him, screaming and clawing, determined to try to give him the pain he caused me. He peeled my flailing arms off of him, reached for his gun, and dropped me. As my feet touched the ground, I took off hearing a curse behind me. Running up the steep stairs, I skipped a few, not daring to look back. I ran down the hall, past my parent’s somber room, and slammed into my shut bedroom door, struggling to get the handle open. It popped open with a start as I quickly shut the door behind me. 

Finding my phone, I called the police and in a shaky voice said, “P-please help me,” I sobbed through tears, “My mom is dead. He killed her. Killed her..” I curled up into a ball, hugging my knees matted with my hair and tangled with my tears as I waited and waited until the safety of the sirens and flashing lights let me slip into restless unconsciousness. 

~

That was 6 years ago. An ugly scar in my memory that I buried in the back of my mind over the years, silently begging for anyone to take it away. 

On this particular day, I was sitting on a bus like I do every week on this exact day. With my teammates chattering like monkeys behind me, I looked out the window at the vast landscape of farmland and crops that had been turned golden brown from the sun. A beautiful harvest season. It certainly was the best time of the year in my opinion. When the scorching waves of heat became cool breezes that floated through my brown hair and when my slightly tanned skin became pale again as layers of clothing would be put over it, shutting out the sunlight.

I took out my phone and switched the camera to face me. I then took out a hair tie, olive green (my favorite color), and rolled it onto my wrist. Gathering my hair into a bunch to make a ponytail, I had a hard time flattening out the bumps of hair that stuck up off my head. I quickly shuffled through my bag to find my brown hair brush that had little leaves and vines carved into the wood but I couldn’t find it. Instead, my fingers caught around a piece of string, small and delicate. I hooked my finger around it as I pulled it upwards, letting it breathe in the light, as bright but faded colors entered my vision. Green and blue encircled each other as memories flooded my mind. Moments of laughing, playing, and holding hands with her, the sun-colored hair and bright smile of a girl I knew, her face much younger. Amelia. I shoved my hand back into my bag and let go of the string, lost again in the sea of items.

“Here Syd,” said a peppy voice from behind me as I quickly yanked my hand back out. I turned and saw that it was Piper and smiled. 

“Thanks, Piper,” I responded as I took the ocean-blue brush from her kind hands and gently pulled the brush through my long and tangled hair. When I finished and had gotten my hair bundled into three loops of my hair tie, I handed back the brush and kindly said, “Thanks for letting me borrow that, Piper. You’re a lifesaver.” 

“No problem! You really have to get your hair tied back with this wind that’s coming in today.” 

I nodded and turned around to face the front of the bus. Just as I turned around, another face in the crowded bus turned away from me. Jeaslousy etched into every wrinkle. Why was she looking at me? The recognizable bright blonde and swishy hair that was stuffed into a high ponytail could only be one person. Amelia Harpor. I grimaced. No doubt when I got off this bus Amelia would start berating me with insults about my running. I rolled my eyes as I remembered that she did this every week like clockwork. Bringing me down just to bring herself up and try to pretend that she was even slightly faster than me. She was not. Every race she would always go out so fast and not have enough energy to finish strong. Every race she wanted to be first even at the start of it. And every race I would pass her in the middle of the course even as Amelia threw a scowl over her shoulder at me. But I would always ignore her. 

The bus slammed to a screeching halt as I gathered my things. I stood up as I grabbed my bag which I slung over one shoulder as I looked up to see Amelia’s smirky grin. I sighed through my nose preparing for another session of insults. 

“You know I’ve been training extra hard just to beat you, bootlicker,” Amelia said adding my given nickname at the end. It had been appointed to me one day in middle school when I was trying to get a particularly tricky piece of dirt off of my running shoes, which I wore on a hike with my family the day before, and had licked my finger and started rubbing it against the dirt. Amelia happened to see this with a sly grin and blurted out to the entire class, “Bootlicker! Bootlicker! Sydney is a bootlicker!”

The class laughed and that was the day the bullying and teasing started.

“Amelia,” I said annoyed, “Go bother someone else.” I grabbed my second bag in my arms and pushed past her fuming shoulder. 

I dropped down from the last step of the bus and breathed in the cool Autumn breeze trying to calm the fire in my veins. A perfect day for running.

At the start line, I was taking deep breaths as I readied myself for the start of the race. I dug down into the ground and dirt with my shoes as I came into a ready stance before the gunshot. BANG! Ear shatteringly close, the noise rocked through my bones as my feet pushed off the grass. I was set and ready for the race… but something in my mind echoed back at the sound. BANG! The sound reverberated in my mind as I remembered. BANG! My mom falling to the ground as smoke encircled the gun– BANG! My dad’s face twisted and angry and my vision blurry as I snapped back to the present. The wind wiped a tear off my face as I continued running. At that moment in time, I promised three things. I would run for her. I would make her proud. And finally, I would do it and remember her not for that day, but maybe for all the love and kindness she showed. Her life was wiped away in a second. Anger filled my heart as I ran ever more determined and ever closer to the finish line.

Heaving and dizzy, I crossed the black padded sensors at the finish line. I slowly walked to the edge of the crowd looking up at the sky, wishing to see my mom’s face again. Tears instantly fell as I struggled to wipe them quickly away. As I slowly started to walk back to congratulate my teammates, a hand clamped down on my shoulder. Cold and light, I turned to see it was Amelia’s. A ghost of that bright smile appeared on Amelia’s lips before she saw the tears sliding down my face.
“Good job.” 

“Thank you.”

A pause. “Syd…”

“Yeah?”

“She would be proud.”