Hey guys! I have no idea where this story idea came from, so bide with me.

"But she wasn't around, and that's the thing when your parents die, you feel like instead of going in to every fight with backup, you are going into every fight alone."
― Mitch Albom, For One More day
…

I don't believe.

Not in fantasies anyway, like true love, Santa, the Tooth Fairy. I mean, don't get me wrong they're awesome stories, but that's just it. They're stories.

But maybe so many people believe in them because they offer hope, something everyone seems to be lacking these days. I guess it's nice to see you're whole life mapped out, to know that there is always going to be a happy ending. It seems nice doesn't it?

Everyone wants it, even me. That's why I don't believe. Why? Why, get your hopes up for a happy ending when you'll just be disappointed again, and again.

See? Stories, even if they're tragedies are too perfect on paper. Stuff like that doesn't happen like that in real life. Right?

Right?

Truth is, I don't know. I really don't. I'm lost. I'm scared. The world is a big, huge, incompatible beast if you don't have a place to call your own or a person to lean on.

I've never believed, but that didn't mean I've never hoped. I did hope, and plan out my life to hope it would be live those stories.

I'd go to Syracuse to become a Librarian, get married, have kids and die. Pretty good, huh? See, I don't have a lot of expectations in life. I just want what makes be happy, and I'm pretty sure that having someone to share the world with would make be very happy.

But, that all changed last summer on the side of the road next to my parent's mangled corpses in their SUV. That's when I stopped hoping. When they in turn, each drew their last breath.

That was 5 years ago, but I still remember it as if it happened yesterday.

I was mincing onions for the tacos I was currently burning, when the phone rang.

'Is this Miss Jordan Hensey?'

I affirmed, it was in fact me.

'This is Police Officer Bunick,' pause. 'Uhh… we, I mean I, no we regret to inform you that your parents umm… might, I mean have been in a car crash and are in critical state.'

It was Police Officer Bunick who announced, not so tactfully whatsoever, that my parents are dead. 'Where?' was all I could croak out.

'On I-90 right off exit 45. I really am sorry about your loss ma'am. Well, I guess that's it, uhh… well, goodbye.' Click, the officer ended the call, but I just stood there, in shock listening the the angry wasps buzzing through the telephone headset.

Buzzz, your life's over, buzzz, your parents buzz, are, buzz, dead.

I drove to the scene of the crash in hysterics.

There was smoke coming out of the mangled corpse of my parent's grey Pilot, a red Camry and a black Forester; all crushed up sickly resembling crude versions of tin cans.

There was a lot of emergency personnel activity, but all I could see was my mother's deathly pale face marred with blood and my father's vibrant bruises against his white face.

My life was ruined, but I couldn't give up. My parents would want be to keep going. Fighting through the loneliness and fear and sorrow. I couldn't give up, for them.

I lived, but I gave up. I was a shell of the person I used to be. I went to school, education didn't wait for tragedies, but soon lost all my friends due to my aloofness, but I didn't care. I don't care. It hurts too much to care.

I followed through on the first part if my plan and when to Syracuse to become a librarian. But, I was adamant that I was just to skip life goals 2 and 3 and go right to dying. I wasn't suicidal, at least not anymore, but I didn't want to live without my parents. I planed on being a crazy, but lonely cat lady.

I was afraid, to be happy because the last time I was happy, truly happy was before my parents died. So loneliness seemed the best way for an person with an empty soul as well as an empty heart. After all, who could love someone with too much pain, too much loss, so much hate, so much loneliness, so much guilt, too much guilt, so much darkness, too much darkness,

someone like, well, me?

No one. That's who. It was just as well, I guess. I don't know if I was capable of positive feelings anymore, let alone love.

There was a quote I found reading from a book Kristin O'Donnell Tubb wrote, not for fun, not anymore, but for mandatory reading and it went something like this:

"Whoever said that loss gets easier with time was a liar. Here's what really happens: The spaces between the times you miss them grow longer. Then, when you do remember to miss them again, it's still with a stabbing pain to the heart. And you have guilt. Guilt because it's been too long since you missed them last."

I cut it out, directly from the book and taped it on my fridge, and even after 2 years of living by myself, it's still the only thing up there on the fridge.

It's the only decoration in my apartment, actually. I don't see the purpose of putting color in my life when the grey bleakness of my heart will wash it all out.

I don't believe in anything anymore. I have nothing to believe in, nothing at all, except my broken heart and sleep, too numb the ever-present black hole of sorrow and guilt and pain in my chest.