Hello there! I'm going to level with you- I have no idea where this story is going. So take it easy on me, and we can go on this journey together. I'm hoping to post a chapter every Wednesday or Thursday until we figure it out, hm?
No copyright intended. Drop me a review and let me know how I'm doing on my first story ever!
Prologue
I can still remember everything about the day she died.
I was getting into my car to head to school, my hair fluttering into my face in the biting winter wind. Snow fell in gentle flakes all around me, blanketing the world in shimmery white and seeming to muffle the sounds of cars going by and children laughing. A yellow school bus was parked at the end of the street, letting on kids from the middle school located only a mile from my house. Despite the fact that it was midwinter, snowing, and only eighteen degrees, the sun shone brightly, bouncing glares off of the windshields, the street poles, and the snow. Two houses down from mine, a lone snowman stood in the middle of a yard.
For some reason, I remember that snowman with perfect clarity. Months later I could still describe it in exact detail, from the red and green stripes on the scarf, to the sixteen gray rocks making up the facial features and the shirt buttons, to the partially peeled carrot nose that looked as if it had been intended for a meal before being sneakily swiped directly from a cutting board. I remember the way the arms were lopsided, the left one stuck into the side of the snowman just two or three inches higher than the right. I remember that the middle ball making up the torso was just slightly too big, causing the bottom snowball to begin collapsing on the sides. I remember how unevenly spaced the rocks making up the mouth were. And I remember the exact pattern a spray of dirty slush from a car tire had made across the left side.
I was looking down, trying to juggle my travel mug of coffee and my school bag, and unlock the car door at the same time. Just when I got the key in the lock, my phone rang, pushing me to hurriedly throw open my door and chuck my bag onto the passenger seat. I fumbled the phone out of my jacket pocket and answered without checking the caller I.D.
"Bells?" I heard on the other line. I recognized the voice immediately as my best friend Angela, but didn't pay much attention to the sniffly quality to it, figuring it was due to the cold.
"You know," I started, slipping ungracefully into the car. I slammed the door behind me and sat back with a huff. "You literally always have the worst timing. You couldn't have called me ten minutes ago when all I was doing was reading the comics? Or twenty minutes ago when I was eating and waiting for the coffee to brew? You just had to call right as my hands were full and I was trying to get into the car." All throughout my teasing, I could hear her trying to cut in, softly saying my nickname again and again, but I just kept talking. "Next time, shoot me a warning text so I don't slip on the ice or something! I could have dropped my coffee and you know how I am-."
"Isabella!" She loudly cut me off, and I immediately went quiet. Angela never used my full name. Not once since we met in first grade and I told her the story behind my nickname. "Isabella," she said again, quieter, and I could feel tension building in my shoulders at the sound of her voice. I was starting to suspect more than just the cold was responsible for her sniffle.
"Angela, are you crying?" I asked, prompting her to let out a little whimper. "Tell me what's wrong."
"It's Tanya." My chest tightened as my heart started pounding. I couldn't imagine what Tanya, the most popular girl and biggest bully in school, had done this time to make Angela so upset. It had to have been really bad. As I sat there, wondering what she'd done and who she'd done it to, Angela dropped a bomb on me, and life as I knew it changed. "She's dead." I stared at that lopsided, haphazard snowman, my eyes for some reason focusing on it through the falling snow and questions swirling in my head. When I didn't speak, Angela sniffled loudly again. All the breath whooshed out of me in one short gust, and I collapsed back against the seat.
"She's dead, Bells."
