I was in a room, it was brightly lit, but not natural light, the fake fluorescent kind. I feel a hand on my shoulder and turn back to meet eyes with a dark skinned man who appeared to be a police officer. He looked down at me, eyes filled with sympathy. It was like a scene in one of those movies where the police man says "sorry to inform you but...". What had happened?. My pulse started to speed up. scenarios starting to flip through my mind. The man keeps his head bowed in silence. Why wasn't i getting answers?. I took one look back at the police officer and reached for the door in front of me. Did I know what to expect? kind of, I mean when your parents don't come home from picking your big sister up from a party thats only fifteen minutes away, you jump to the worst conclusion. The door opened to what I would describe it as hell. I dropped to the ground and the uncontrollable emotions burst from inside, like a pin to a water balloon. I Then feel hands on my shoulders, they were shaking me.
"Autumn?". The hands kept shaking me "Autumn!". The voice, I knew it, it was my big sisters. "Autumn, wake up your dreaming". I open my eyes, they fall on the face leaning over me, her long hair was grazing my face, her brows were furrowed with concern. My big sister, Elena was the one who was shaking me, the one calling my name, trying to wake me up from the same dream. Was the dream ever going to go away?. "That dream again huh?" Elena was always the one to rescue me when the dream resurfaced. "yeah" I replied, still hazy and half asleep. "Well" Elena said shaking off her concern from two minutes ago. "I hope you got some good sleep, because today is the first day of school remember" Elena added, giddily whilst skipping her way to the window to open the curtains and unleash the light of the morning into my dark room. I groaned and search for the nearest pillow on my bed to cover my eyes with from the blinding light. "ahh, come on Autumn" Elena said sitting on the edge of my bed, "new school year, new beginnings". Optimistic as always, the opposite of me. Elena sighed "look I know it still hurts okay, but nobody is going to keep feeling sorry for us Autumn, they died last summer, everyone else has moved on. don't you think we should do the same?".
It had been a summer since I opened the hospital door to see my dead parents under white sheets. I never really bounced back as well as Elena did, I mean yeah she was devastated but she got over it. I never did. I had spent all summer inside my room, reading, listening to Elliott Smith and writing in my journal. I guess you could say I was depressed, but I haven't actually gotten properly diagnosed or something, I'm just going off what my Aunt Jenna says.
I stared down at my hands and picked at the black nail polish. I let out a defeated sigh and looked up at Elena. Her eyes were pleading with me. "I know Elena. Give me fifteen minutes to get ready, okay". Elena let out a happy sigh of relief and skipped back into her bedroom. I groaned as soon as Elena was out of the room. I rolled myself out of bed and let myself fall on the carpet. I lied in the same position of the floor for ten minutes out of those fifteen minutes. I finally found the motivation to pull myself up and quickly get ready. I slugged over to the mirror and took a look in my dresser mirror. A tired girl with drowned out olive skin and a tangled mess of long mousey brown hair stared back at me. Do I have time for a shower? of course, it's not like I'm one of those girls who spend an hour on their makeup or hair. I quickly had a shower and washed my hair, hoping the big dollop of conditioner would untangle my hair magically. I had spent too long in the shower dreading school that I didn't have time to dry my hair so I quickly pulled my wet hair to one side into a plait and chucked on a big cozy sweater with some leggings and put on my ankle boots while rushing out the door. I took one last look at myself a took a deep breath, just one day at a time I thought as I closed my front door.