Fake Brat: Part V
“Jacobe Moorse and Cassandra Moorse instantly dead in a car accident seconds after their exit from the Royal Hotel.” The reporter’s voice played like a broken record in my head, as though it was taunting me. It couldn’t be real; none of this was real. Death couldn’t just tear my parents away from me. There was just so much we still had to figure out, so much we still needed to fix. My father still had to tell my mother he was cheating on her. My mother still had to learn what was going on in my life. We still had to have at least a moment where we could be an actual family. See, they can’t be gone. There is just too much we still need to do. Too much we need to tell each other that I have tell them.
I kneeled; the dust of the old apartment suffocated me as I shivered. The room was still. All I could hear was of the sound my heart beating too fast in my ears mixed with someone’s thick laugh echoing along the walls of the room. I watched the television hesitantly, as it broadcasted footage from the scene. The limousine I was in with them only hours ago: destroyed, crushed and squashed in the middle of an intersection. A truck lay on its side a few meters away. Red and blue lights reflected off the shattered pieces of glass on the road. Three human size black bags lay on the dull dark road next to an ambulance. The person’s laugh continued to reverberate through the lifeless room, the sound slowly getting louder and closer.
A soft hand abruptly moved a strand of hair away from my face. My eyes flickered as I recognized the hand as Katelyn. She was so close that I could detect the small strands of brown in her eyes encircled by her eyelashes that were painted on with a thick layer of mascara. Her face filled with millions of emotions and yet I couldn’t feel anything. Physically my body felt dull and jaded, but mentally I felt like a stranger to emotions, and analyzing my surroundings became all of the sudden easier, as if my feelings were a fog hiding me from the clearer details. “Sweetie…” She whispered, her voice delicate as if she were afraid she could shatter me. I tried to reply, to reassure her that I was ok; that it was all just a big misunderstanding; that the reporter and the police had confused another couple for my parents. That they were back home sleeping, but ready to ground me for life tomorrow morning. However, my mind didn’t have control over my body anymore. “Jennifer, please! Stop laughing.” She whispered again, her eyes slowly drowning in a sea of tears.
Laughing? That thick sound of laughter belonged to me? That can’t be right. Nothing of this is right. My parents aren’t dead, and I’m definitely not laughing. On their own, my fingers intertwined themselves through my thick hair and pulled hard on the strands, instantly inflicting pain. All I wanted was for the reporter’s clear, perfect voice to shut up; for the human bodies in the now too small room, to stop giving me worried looks; for Katelyn to stop treating me like I was made of glass; for the feeling of my ears bleeding to disappear; for all this to just be a nightmare that I would wake up from. Any second now.