Where Your Heart Leads You

By: Maddie Mercer

Prologue

It was crazy how fast life could change in the blink of an eye. So many memories flashed through my mind like one of those old movies your great grandma made you watch. I was four years old, sitting on the ground holding my scraped up knee as I looked up at my older foster brother who was sneering at me. He had pushed me down the slide and called me a wimp. He hated me, he had since I came to live with him and his parents. The Whitlock's were nice people save for their son who at the time, had behavior issues. He was used to being the baby, the only child, the center of our mother and father's attention. Then I came in and Mrs. Whitlock was overjoyed. As much as she loved Connor, she has always wanted her own daughter. But there had been complications during Connor's birth and she had found out she had ovarian cancer. She lost one of her ovaries as a result and she found it harder to have children. I loved my foster mother, she had a beautiful smile and eyes as blue as the bluest ocean. She had long blonde hair that fell in loose curls just past her shoulders. I remember spending hours playing with her hair, it was my favorite thing to do. I loved to cuddle with her, I still remember how she smelled like lavender and honey. Mr. Whitlock used to be in the army before Connor was born and his wife fell ill. He was a strict but loving and devoted father to us kids. I used to love our summer strolls, me on his shoulders with a cotton candy in one hand while the other held his hand tightly. He would always take me to the local grocery store and get me cotton candy and then take me to the park to play and we would just walk for hours. He had brown hair like Connor's and these deep green eyes that seemed to hold so much wisdom and honesty with a subtle youth. He always smelled like old spice cologne and cigars. I think I loved the way he smelled more than his wife. They were the one family that I felt had truly loved me, even Connor who changed over time. I was with them for two years, the longest a family ever kept me. And in that time, I must have thawed Connor's heart because soon after I turned 5, he started to let me tag along with his friends and if his friends picked on me, he would tell them off. I grew to love Connor and he grew to love me. We would soon spend hours in his room in our makeshift fort, reading books and playing games. Our parents would come in late at night to find us fast asleep. I was in heaven and I think the Whitlock's could have been a permanent family. If it weren't for the ovarian cancer. The doctors had been so confident that they had gotten it all but then my mom fell sick again. The cancer was back and this time had spread to different parts of her body. It was hard to see at six years old, hard to understand. I watched my mom go from this radiantly beautiful woman to this sick and haggard woman. Her beautiful hair began to fall out from the chemo treatments. When it was clear that her cancer was terminal, she slowly became depressed. She had always been so adamant that she could beat this cancer and she fought so hard for so long. But I guess at some point, her body just couldn't fight anymore. It rained the day of her funeral, almost as if the sky were weeping for her loss. Our father began drinking after that and he slowly changed too. I guess losing the love of your life does that to you. Changes you, makes you bitter and careless, and consumes you until you're just a shell of your former self. I have no ill feeling towards my father for the car accident that stole Connor's young life. That day plays so vividly in my mind like some horror movie. Dad was obviously drunk when he picked us up from school and Connor told him he could call a friend. Dad had unleashed a string of swear words and insults on Connor that left me in tears. In the end, Connor strapped me into my seat and kept my attention focused on him as much as he could while our father weaved in and out of traffic. It was starting to get dark as it did in December, we had just passed a house where I admired the beautiful colored lights strung throughout the front yard. I turned to look at Connor and saw the bright head lights of the big truck that barreled into us at a high speed. I lost consciousness at some point in the accident that left our car looking like a train had hit it. When I woke up in the hospital, there were machines and doctors around me and my case worker, Mrs. Rachel, was there crying over me and thanking god I was ok. I asked for the brother I had come to love so dearly and knew as soon as Rachel looked at the doctor with sorrow that nothing good would be said. My brother died instantly that night, in his haste to make me safe, he had forgotten to buckle his own seatbelt. He was sitting in the middle seat trying to distract me, between being T-boned and rear ended, Connor was thrown from the car. My dad was taken to jail once his own injuries were taken care of. I looked sadly back at the house I had become so used to in the last two years. The treehouse with the slide and swing sat as fading reminders of the good times I had had with my brother and even the bad times.