A week and a half ago, my brother was murdered. He and his friends first drove to the local market to pick up the Cool Ranch flavored Doritos; well, that is at least what his friends told the cops. They didn’t believe them. They assumed they were there to pick up alcohol to spike the drinks at Homecoming, or to commit a deed within those lines. They said it took a while to find the chips as they were going through the store’s aisles getting all the free samples they could get. My brother must’ve gotten the miniature bites of carrot cake enclosed in the white crinkled wrappers a dozen times before they left. It was his favorite dessert, at least, that is what he used to tell me.Max drove his car up to the mountains to catch the sun’s last goodbye for the day. He and his friends were doing what they could to make their last year of high school their finest. It had been about an hour since they left our house. They were throwing rocks at each other’s Doc shoes, and swore that they planned to leave right after they had all climbed the biggest tree they could find. They said that they really did want to go to the dance, but never got to.The climbing became a competitive thing quickly, and each one was trying to climb a pine higher than the other. Their clothes got dirty, the leaves were sticking to their elbows, and the dirt to their knees. This only helped them stick out more, and they knew it would. The last glimpse of the sun’s hands touched their faces as it went to rest behind our valley’s sandy red mountains. They ran through the tall trunks and fallen burnt leaves that summer left behind with no fear, and no thoughts, acting as if they were kids. My brother’s faded soul turning to ash with all the other adults, becoming a toyed robot to the playmakers in this world. One of them was missing. They began calling his name, and when the light of day disappeared, they called our home. Max was probably gone by then. His neck slit, and pieces of hair missing. His outfit drenched in blood, but too difficult to see through the black under the crescent of a moon. The darkness of the fallen stars had eaten the iron infested gore dripping from his pale skin. He died towards the beginning of the woods with dirt stuck in his claws. He must have been dragging his dying body to safety. It was easy for the surrounding bicyclists to see his lifeless body lying so close to the start of their gravel covered trails. The cops had no problems telling us all the sweet details, and his friends knew nothing more. My father begged them for some kind of closure, or for a reason to this madness. The cops denied knowing of anything more, shadowing the situation. “We’ll let you know if anything comes up, but we’re thinking it’s a love hate crime, especially with the high number of stab wounds found on him,” says the chief with no sense of humanity left in him at all. “You and your daughter will be under close watch you know, we’ll be coming around to your house in the next couple of days.” He smirks, trying to be sincere and then giving me a pat on the back like a coach would when you are playing horrible at one of the Sunday softball games. I never got the feeling before, I merely saw the other girl wearing it an awful lot.

The funeral was hard. People kept crying, but I didn’t know why. When our own mother left, no one helped us. My father was left alone to raise us with the little money he had. Where were these people then? It would have been nice if they had at least stopped by once, just to check in on us… Just to know that we were loved.It was a closed casket. No one wanted to see a dead boy, but I would have done anything to see his deep grey eyes one more time. We prayed our heavenly goodbyes, and then it was just father and me. We lived next to the church, so we were used to the graveyard. I wasn’t scared of the beyond or spirits, and I loved those scary movies where no one was alive in the end but a quiet little girl who was left to the worst life of all; living dead with her mind still working, but her heart long gone.We return home, my dad sits on the porch staring at my brother’s blue Honda Accord, and I go to my room. The great big forest of our little town danced right beyond our backyard and right in front of my two windows. I looked at it all the time. I wondered what it would be like to be a bird, and travel the unknown into your own blue horizon.My room was nothing more than a bed, a table, and a chair. If I had a mother, this cell would be a room, and our house would be a home. My four walls were a creamy brown, and we had popcorn ceilings. I hated this little chamber where my life had started. No good had ever happened.I lay on my bed looking at the ceiling. I smell burning charcoal from the train station a mile away. I remember waking up, terrified in the middle of the night only to go running to my brother’s room when I was younger. “Give me five reasons why you should sleep in here,” he would say. He had his back leaned against his door which he closed making sure I wouldn’t sneak in. I would tell him because I’m scared for the first four, and for the last one, I’d say because I loved him. I made that cute face I always did when I wanted something at that age, and he’d always let me in at the end. He would get the pillows from my bed and throw them on the floor next to his, and lay a blanket on top of me. I don’t know why I thought sleeping on Max’s dirty wooden floor was better than sleeping in my Hello Kitty covers, but then again I also liked to eat straight sand from the lake’s surrounding coast at the summer camp we used to attend. The dark green trees of the forest reminded me of all the world’s mysteries, and all of the people swallowed whole. My door was pounded upon three times with a quick striking motion. I’ve always thought that the way someone knocked described the person, and I couldn’t be more right. He opened my door, peeking his head through first, and then letting the rest of his body in.“Go away, please.” I say in a whisper loud enough for him to hear. “I don’t want to see you right now. Please.” I have sadness in my voice. I’ve told father so many times to knock before coming in. I don’t know why he doesn’t give me any privacy. I gave him privacy whenever he needed it, but he couldn’t give the same to me. I wanted to live in isolation for a while as if he didn’t know that it was hard to lose one of the few people you loved in the place. “We have to talk about this. I read this book about parenting and teenage girls, and we should probably talk about what’s going on because you’re changi-” he tells me this as if Max didn’t die only a week and a half ago. The man who raised me either hides his emotions so well that he blocks them out as a whole, or he doesn’t even have them to begin with. I wish that he could just sit here and grieve with me, but I know that is not the person that he is. He likes to keep moving, leaving everything in the past as he always did. Does he not see me in pain? “The only thing changing around here is you.” I dislike him trying to act like he knows me so well. He thinks that just because he read a book and told me, that now I am going to know he really cares. He works so much that I barely get to see him. I didn’t used to complain until I was walking home once, and saw him coming out of a bar at 2:00 pm. He didn’t get home until 8:00 like usual, and when I asked him how his day was, he looked me straight in the eyes and told me to not worry about my old man’s business. “That’s it. That’s it! Give me your phone. Now! We are going to go into Max’s room. We need to start cleaning up the place, and start getting rid of his-” “No. Nooooooooooooooooo!” I scream loud enough that even the neighbors could hear.” There is no way that I am cleaning his room and getting rid of his stuff. I open my drawer, and grab the keys and a jean jacket. I had the key to everything in this prison of a house. I swept under his arm and closed the door on him before he can say another word or try to catch me. I run to Max’s room, and lock it while sliding the key under his door. No one gets in, and no one gets out. I run down the stairs. I hear my father yelling, and I maybe closed the door on his fingers. Just because Max was gone, it didn’t mean that he wasn’t here anymore, right?I run out of the house, and down the street. The sky is cloudy, and looks like it will rain. I feel the pebbles of the gravel below by high top black on black converse. My gray leggings are clean, but my blue shirt with white stripes on the sleeves smelt like a soggy pickle. My bike is right where I left it, locked to the fence of Ace’s house, my best friend since second grade. I unlock the passcode using the year I was born. I breathe in a short panting sound, yet I feel my heart going slow. I swing my left leg over my bike seat, and I go from zero to rocket real quick. No one is out. The sun seems giving today. I probably have another four hours. I know deep down that I am never coming home as that same naive girl he thinks I am. I take three left turns, and then a right. The world is a communist place. Every house is different in the same way. Their grass is all cut to a trim, and the bushes are squares. The mailboxes are black, and the driveways are paved new. The houses are different colors, but they are all the same inside.

I keep on moving forward until I reached the church with the windows made of the expensive glass that anyone with half a brain would find beauty in. The pictures of the baby the world seemed to praise followed me with its painted brown eyes that eat my soul to a pulp. Each step makes a noise that echoes through the place. I walk through the rows of benches that run to the main scene of the church, that one area where the priest talks for hours about the stories we all know. He talks with his hands, and his robes drag on the ground. He reads Jesus’s life straight from his own memory, not making a single mistake. He devotes his entire life to praise a man who he has never met, but only heard of. I wonder if he wishes for a wife or a family. I wonder if he is scared of the dead that live in the backyard of this holy sanctuary. I reach the steps where he stands during a mass. No one is here on Monday’s, and I should probably be at school.I wish I can speak and everyone would listen. The candles are still lit. They melt away to nothingness only living for one day. I blow a couple out, not being able to control the maturity I possess of a five year old. I love the flame that they hold, it reminds me of peace. I hold my hands together, and I pray silently.My mom was a good woman, well that is at least what Max had told me. She left a couple weeks short of me turning one. I have her box of things full of pictures of my brother, her, and me. It holds an old polaroid camera, but I would never use it. I like to keep everything the same as when she last saw it, of when she last touched it. I always feel like she is around, and I think that she comes to our town every so often to check in on me. I bet she is the lunch lady who smiles at me while I’m in line, or maybe she is the lady on the bus who always wears a jade scarf around her waist, or maybe she is the lady who walks her dog on the sidewalks and gives me a wink and laughs when she sees my face. I know she loves me, and I know she left because of him. My father didn’t know how to love anyone. I see his smiling pictures, and I only feel blue, a dark Sapphire blue. He never talks about her, and he thinks I don’t either. I wish I could run away to find her, and I would never come back. I had dreams like that when I was younger. I would be on a swing at a park in the city, and her gentle hands would push me back and forth. I can hear a voice, but I never see her face. I only see her red nailpolish and mood ring placed on her pinky.When I was real little, all I wanted was a barbie house where my one doll could live. I asked to have it for months, and eventually my birthday came around. On the kitchen counter was a big red box with a bow on top when I woke up that morning. I felt so happy. My father picked me up and sat me atop the table. Even my brother was smiling hysterically, and my dad brought out three large plates of bacon and eggs for us. I opened my present to find an American Racer action figure with a car. “Now we have something you can both play with,” father said, seeming to forget all about the barbie I longed for. I wasn’t able to touch it once before max took it into his room to play with. No wonder he smiled.“Max’s younger sister.” A man says while placing his hands on my shoulders a little too much. I can’t see his face as he stood behind me. I shudder, and my breathing grows hard. I turn around to see one of the new priest in training. I saw him standing behind Father Moser at the funeral. I try to move away from him as calmly as I can. I’m trapped in a corner. He doesn’t say anything, but his eyes follow my every move. “My father will be coming any minute. He is outside gathering the flowers we bought for Max’s grave.” I lie causing my jaw to grow sore like when I’d chew gum for hours straight until it turned too hard to keep at it anymore.“I didn’t see any cars out there a minute ago.” He takes another step closer to me. “Jason, come here,” Father Moser says as he enters through a back door. The priest in training stumbles over to Father Moser. I am shaking, but I don’t think they notice. Father Moser places three red candles unlike the others on his altar.“I hope you will be able to make it tomorrow…”“What do you mean?” I ask. I am worried at this very moment that I won’t. Both men have no facial expressions. I begin walking backwards towards the door. Father Moser moves his neck from side to side, making his neck crack and my spine shiver. “I hope so too.” I leave with that. I open the door, and smile to Father Moser.

I run to my bike that I hid behind a trashcan in an alley leading to another dozen passageways. I jump on it quickly, getting bike oil across my right jean leg. I ride slowly and quietly. I don’t want to go home, but I have nowhere else to go. I pass the graveyard, and I wonder how my brother is doing.“Hey.” A familiar voice whispers into my ear. His auburn hair falls onto his brown eyes, and his bike bumps into mine. “How’ve you been?” He asks. “I’ve been better.” I pause and giggle. I almost forget about Max for a moment, and I decide to not tell him about what just happened. I don’t need any more problems.Ace had always been there for me. He helped me when I couldn’t get up. He helped me when I couldn’t get down from the rope in gym last year. He would dart little rocks at my two windows where the forest lived from beyond, and it would make my dimples come through and cheeks scrunch up every time.It was second grade, and I had just gotten home from school. It was a few days before Mother’s Day, and everyone’s mom had come in. I couldn’t help but to want the same unconditional love that everyone else had. I wished that I could have a mom like that, I wished that I could have a mom at all. I longed for her to brush my hair at night, and let me mix the ingredients to the best chocolate chip cookies in the world. I don’t know how she could have left me, I don’t know how she could have left us.I saw my daddy making my brother and I a swing set from leftover nails and wooden planks from the junkyard, and from neighbors whom I only ever heard of. He was sweating through his shirt, and three drops were racing down his forehead to meet at his eyebrow sheltering his squinting eyes. I went up to him with the glitter covered lavender card we had made in class. It read inside, “You are the best mother I could ever have. Daddy, Max, and I miss you a lot. I wish you were here to tuck me in at night.” My father ripped it into 8 equal pieces using the fold and tear style. “She left us! Don’t you get it?”My eyes filled like a pool would on a summer afternoon when the hose would pour just enough water to allow the kids to swim in. A tear fell from my eye leading down to my chin where it went off my face and was caught in my hand, where I saved it from its deadly attempt to leave me too.“Your mother is worthless,” he said. “And so are you if you think anything more of her!” His eyes also became pools, but they didn’t have enough water to overflow. His pupils enlarged to the size of his entire eye. The black dots stared me down, looking right past my outer skin into my innocent soul. I don’t know what came over me to even think about talking to him about her. I climbed over a fence that distinguished our backyard from the one next door. He grabbed my leg before I hopped over, giving me splinters throughout my right calf. The blood coming through the cuts was minimal, and it didn’t hurt nearly as much as my father’s words did. I ran to the park where I would lay in the leaves during autumn, but now it was spring and bright red petals infested the ground.“Are you okay?” I heard the words of the quiet little boy whom I was yet to meet through the inside of the slide that was only a few steps away from me. It sounded like an echo as his question bounced off the walls of the tunnel that I hadn’t gone in for a couple weeks. “My father told me that I am worthless if I love my mother.” I said this while wiping the under area of my eye to make sure another tear wouldn’t escape my eye. It was easier for me to let go of my feelings back then.He looked at me and replied, “If you’re worthless, than diamonds must have no value at all.” He smiled, and then I did. We sat there at the playground for the rest of the day as he pulled out every splinter and putting a bandaid over the wound every time he did so.

Both of us get on our bikes and head to the park where we first met seven years ago. We sit atop the slide that has grown green and wise. He is holding up a piece of grass, “Sometimes I think that the world is against me,” he rips the piece of grass in two, “But then I know that we are fighting through the same battle.” He gave me one piece of the dead plant, and he took the other. “Never lose this…” he says. I know he is not joking, and I promise as I always did. He did this an awful lot. He gave me a care bear sticker once in which he found on the side of the street from our walk home together. Another time he gave me his used sweatshirt covered in dried blood from his skateboarding incident. He made me promise that I would keep his little gifts forever. And I promise I did. “I would rather have the red striped box filled with everything Ace gave me than a diamond,” I would tell Max when he saw me putting another little present in it. He didn’t understand my word choice there, but I didn’t care for him to.Max treated Ace like a brother as I did. Max was even teaching him how to play football before what happened. They used to hang out all the time, but recently they had drifted further, and further apart. I missed them together, and I could feel his emotions eating right through him. He looked different in the same way the houses and the people in this town always did. He stood up, and he pulled me up with him. “Do you ever dream of a better life?” I ask, not sure of what he’ll say back.“I think everybody is given the life they deserve,” he pats my back and bumps me in the shoulder with his own.“I tell my brother how I want our family back together, and how I want to leave this place to go somewhere better.” Ace wasn’t spiritual, but he didn’t ever question me when I said things like that.“Like where?” He says. I could see his personality die down for a second. His hand reaches for mine, and he brushes his shoulder against my own like how he knew Max used to do.“I don’t know… Like South Africa or something. And I want you to come with me.” I slowly lie on the ground and look up at the sun saying its last goodbye for the day.He laughs, “I’ll get you to that better place.”I look at him, “You’re the best card in the deck.” “Hardy, hardy, har.” Ace mocks my joke as he usually does. We pedal back home as the dark sky surrounding us fades to black. I lock my bike up onto the side of his house like I always did. He gave me a hug, and we parted ways to get home for dinner. I dreaded seeing Father again. I unlock our newly hinged door with the paint already peeling off. I walk inside, but I don’t see him waiting for me in the kitchen or family room. I go toward the refrigerator smothered in magnets from I don’t know where. I drink milk straight from the carton, and wipe my upper lip with my sleeve. I assume he is not here, and I rip a dying leaf off one of the many flower bouquets we received. I start up the steps knowing that I have to immerse myself back into reality, and complete my homework for school tomorrow. I don’t know if I will be able to handle all those people tomorrow.I walk past Max’s door and knock four times as I usually did to let him know that I was home from whatever adventure I was on. A loud screech echoes from the walls of the house. I feel cold drops of sweat forming on the sides of my face making my side curls reappear.

I head towards the Basement as I walk swiftly down the two flights of stairs I need to take to get there. I can feel my gut turning inside me. It’s like in those movies, when the protagonist gets stabbed in the back, and the killer twists it inside only to make everything worse. I open the door which leads to the underground museum of antique family items we no longer use, and that I haven’t visited for months. I find multi-colored party streamers, a beat-up vacuum, and christmas decorations. We hadn’t put up holiday decoration since I can remember. My father instead puts up a tiny dancing Santa on the wooden breakfast table in the kitchen. He places our presents around it which is pretty easy to do since the presents for one another are relatively small. I keep on searching through the many miscellaneous items that seem to have nothing in common with the family we are today. One of the vents are shaking, and the blue-cotton sheet that insulates it is now brown and moldy. I search through the boxes close to the door for another vent to replace the old one, and a miniature ladder for me to stand upon. I hear a faucet running through a faint whisper. It reminds me of the sprinklers Max and I would run through in our bathing suits when the pool wasn’t open, but we were sweating like crazy. I turn a corner to see my dad cleaning off bloody knives. I feel my legs begin to shake, and then this incredible weight being forced upon me. It is hard for me to stand any longer, and I think I might pass out. The red comes off the blade so cleanly. My father wasn’t a hunter, or a fisher. He told me that he didn’t believe in killing anything with a soul. It couldn’t have been a cut of his own hand because the weapon was drenched with the vital fluid, and it looked as if the blood was dried on. I peak only enough to see him, but he can’t see me through the darkness of the background I spy through. I remember my brother and him fighting often before his life came to a tragic end. I remember my dad’s easy temper. I back up slowly keeping my breath slow, and my eyes peered. The box holding my mother’s things that I had kept in my room for all this time is piled on three boxes behind me. It is on the tip of falling, and I carefully try to slide it back into a balance. Everything tips over, and I see the polaroid shatter. The pictures fly everywhere getting lost in the pile of ripped books that fall atop of them. I hear my father’s knife drop into the sink, and his feet march toward where I stand in the open.

I bolt straight for the door. I trip on the way out causing a tear on my sleeve that leaves a long loop of string flowing from my right arm. I slam the door, and run towards the backyard as it is beginning to pour, and the dark clouds are closing in from a mile away. The drops from the sky still haven’t reached us, and I try to think for a place to hide from my father.I unhinge the fence, and it swings wide open with a gust of air that had the force of a tornado. How could my father do this? There is no way. I cannot even begin to imagine it. I keep blacking out. I keep staring down at my feet being careful not to trip. I go towards the forest, and I look up at my two windows where my life had always been before I dove into the wall of trees before me. I catch a glimpse of my father coming after me. I wish that I had my bike, and I think of going to Ace’s house to get it. I am never coming back to that house. I miss Max, I try not to cry and to stay focused. I hear the branches behind me breaking, and the leaves shuffling around. I hear the distant cries of birds to one another. I smell the harsh wet aroma the trees emit when the air is hot, and the rain is cold. I hear the trees moving as the rain starts to pour harder, and harder. “Come back, please. It’s not what it looks like,” he screams with all his lungs. “I love you more than anything. I can keep you safe.” The pools in my eyes transform into lakes. I am so scared. My hands and legs are shaking. I turn left and wrap around in order to head back to the park. My father keeps heading straight, but I am not sure if he knows where I plan to go. I keep going and going. The rain makes my hair turn soggy, and moist. I shiver. I trip over a tree that seems to be the biggest I had ever seen in the forest. I land in a hole which I cannot climb out of because the sides around are muddy and slippery from the rain. The hole is filling quickly, and is already above my knees with water. I look up to the sky. I beg for another chance, I promise to live a better life. I pray for my daddy not to find me here, and I pray for Max to save me.I hear the leaves move. I know I have been found. I only look at my shoes trying to not see him, but I can’t help it. I want to see my daddy one last time before he kills his own daughter in the woods behind our house as he did to Max. I wipe the water from my eyes, and squint up to seize one last glimpse.“Hey.” I hear a voice say.“Ace.” I say silently. My head tilts to see him smiling down, but with dismay on his face. “Please, get me out.” He looks around, and I hope that he doesn’t see my dad coming.“I’ll help you. I’ll help you get to that better place.” My lips try to smile to give him reassurance. I know that we are leaving this place for good. I reach my hand out, and he puts his hand in mine. He pulls me up, and I feel a sharp pain in my side. The hole that I fell in is swallowing itself as well as the sharp branches near it. I sit next to him, “I would’ve died in there.” I say seriously and intensely. “That’s funny,” he replies back with the same laugh he had done a thousand times. “You’re brother died at that tree right next to it.” I look to where his finger points at the flat side of a tree. I don’t question how he knows that, and I try to stand up. All my strength had left me, and I felt weaker that I ever have.I look to my side where I felt so bad, and I see blood gushing away. I pull my shirt up enough to see the stab wound that will soon kill me. I look to Ace, “Why?” I say. I look to his right hand, and I sneak a mere glimpse of a large folding blade. I see my dad’s figure coming from the area behind us. I know that this might be the last time I ever see the forest dancing to the sweet sound of the heavy north winds.“To get you to that better place, Scarlet. Your brother didn’t deserve anything he had, and you should get everything you wish for.” I meet my brother’s and my own murderer right before my eyes. I keep blacking out and waking up for the next couple of minutes.

I feel my dad’s hands holding me in his arms. “I love you, honey,” he says with his soft voice that I should have been more grateful for. I keep getting flashes of little moments throughout my life, and each moment had him. He was the one who taught me how to pedal, and how to see the world from another view. He was the one who had bled the love that I was unable to see all my life. I lift my head up only enough to see Ace’s body knocked out, and bruised to the side of mine. I don’t know how my dad will be without us, and I hope he will be just fine. I put my hand to my side to feel the wound again, and he grasps my hand in his own. It gets harder and harder for me to breathe, and I close my eyes for the very last time. “Don’t worry,” he says and kisses me on the forehead. “Red is the color of flowers.”