There was more to the story, but whatever, it wasn’t that good at all.
I sat on the floor in front of my bed with Mom’s newest note in my hand.
Fly, baby, fly…
I looked to the window and shook my head.
Jumping out of my window would be stupid. And dangerous.
I couldn’t fly. I wasn’t some character in a story. I couldn’t fly above the clouds. Or see the stars in the daytime. Or any of that other crap Mom wrote about.
But what I could do was keep writing. And get really good at it. So I could make money at it. Then buy my own house. Then I could do whatever I wanted to and be happy.
I heard the shattering of glass and looked to my right.
Mr. Monkey sat there, lifeless as he was designed to be. Two years ago, I heard him talk and saw him move. But now I was older, wiser and stuffed animals didn’t move. Or talk. Ever. Even when Mom said to use my imagination, it didn’t matter.
“Well, looks like another crazy night,” I whispered to the stuffed animal.
Across from me was Mary. She was once a white unicorn that was now dirty from time and me carrying her around for so long. That was before I realized unicorns were kind of babyish. Or maybe because Sarah at school called me a diaper wearing freak-head and told me to put the unicorn’s horn up my butt. Everyone laughed. I blushed. And that night I had to let Mary know she was going to stay home from then on.
We both cried.
Well, at least I did.
Mary didn’t cry. She was a stuffed unicorn, remember?
Mary was in between Jeffrey, a black and white penguin, and Steven, a leatherback turtle that I got from an aquarium. That was the last true family trip I could remember. In all reality, I should have thrown Steven out because the memory attached to him was one that made me want to cry, but he had huge, marble-like eyes that forever stared at me.
Plus, Steven was the one I held tight the one night when things went way too far. The night Mom fell down the steps. The night my father left for a week. He came back when he was out of money, in tears, saying that what happened on the steps would never happen again. I figured that meant he was going to fix them so Mom wouldn’t fall again, but they were never fixed.
And come to think of it, I never remembered her falling down the steps at all.
What I did remember…
I shivered and looked at Steven.
“Can you talk, dammit?” I growled.
The stuffed turtle stared at me.
I missed being younger. I missed everything from before the age of six. That’s when life really was worth living.
Now…
I looked at the door and heard the noise.
More glass shattering.
More pounding.
The yelling was just background noise at that point.
I reached up to my bed and found my favorite notebook.
I had been working on a new story. One that was going to change everything. The story that wasn’t about talking animals. Well, that was a lie. There were talking animals in my story, but the main character was a woman. A strong woman. Who drank a lot of coffee. Who smiled a lot. Who wasn’t afraid to fight back and win. Who had to face the kind of stuff my Mom did - like the broken stairs that maybe weren’t exactly broken at all - and who would kick some butt.
She could talk to animals and they could talk back to her.
It was magical.
The story was magical.
And Mom was going to be the first one to read it.
I heard the thudding up the stairs and I looked at Steven. Then Jeffrey. Then Mary. And finally, Mr. Monkey.
“You’re up,” I said.
I grabbed Mr. Monkey and threw him at the door.
It didn’t do a thing though.
The door opened a few seconds later and in came my father.
Showing his teeth like an evil hyena in a cartoon movie.
He kicked Mr. Monkey, sending him sailing through the air.
“Get back here!” Mom’s voice yelled. “She has nothing to do with this!”
“She has everything to do with it,” my father said.
Quiet. Calm.
Which was the scariest of all.
The louder he was, the more likely it was that he was going to break something.
But the quieter he was… the more likely it was that he was going to break someone.
My father stopped inches from me. His work boots were filthy, cut and frayed. His jeans were dirty too. He smelled weird.
“What the fuck is that?” he asked me, pointing to my bright pink notebook.
I hated myself for choosing such a color for such an important story. I should have gone basic, so nobody would notice it.
“Nothing,” I said in a brave voice.
“Liar,” he said. “Just like your mother.”
He crouched and reached for the notebook.
I had nowhere near the strength of him as he ripped it out of my hand. The top of the metal ring caught the inside of my thumb. I yelled as I felt the stinging pain.
“Serves you right,” my father said.
He tore open the notebook and ripped out a page.
“No!” I cried out.
“Shut up,” he growled at me. “This is the garbage that got us here.”
“Please. Daddy… please…”
He looked down at me. “You think that’s going to work on me? I know how much you hate me. And trust me, it’s for your own good.”
My father reached into his back pocket.
I cringed and feared the worst.
I wasn’t even sure what the worst was.
He took out a metal lighter and flicked the lid open with his thumb. He sparked the lighter and a bright flame gently swayed left to right. He put that flame to the corner of the notebook and grinned as I watched it catch on fire.
My bottom lip quivered and I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry. I wanted to get up and attack him. But I knew better. He was bigger. Stronger. He was meaner. He was a jerk. He was an asshole.
And I didn’t care if he was my father.
“There, that’s better,” he said.
He dropped the notebook to the floor as it continued to burn.
“Save yourself the trouble, Amelia. You can’t fly. You can’t do anything she tells you. You’re both useless. What a fucking waste.”
The second he turned to leave, I dove at the notebook.
It was fully engulfed.
The heat hitting my face as tears filled my eyes.
I reached for Steven and slammed him down on the notebook.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered to the stuffed turtle.
The feeling of fire must have hurt, but I had no choice. It was either burn Steven or burn down the house.
“I’m so, so, so, sorry,” I said as tears fell from my eyes and hit Steven’s plush shell.
That’s when I heard a loud scream.
I thought it was Steven.
But I knew better.
It was coming from downstairs.
Chapter 1
Words Not Yours
IN A LITTLE BIT
(Amelia)
I shouldn’t have been there.
I shouldn’t have put myself into this position.
I wasn’t chasing down some hardened criminal.
I wasn’t chasing down the biggest story of the decade.
Hell, it wasn’t even the biggest story of the night. I was sure of that.