by Carrigan
(Canada)
The crunch of metal, the sound of bones shattering, the picture of Jessie smiling fiddling on her cell when she saw the black Lexus come from no where. The shock, her life flash before her life. Macy found her self gripping the arm rests of a hospital bed in a double room, a curtain between the two beds.
Macy looked around the white walled, blue tiled room, red and white roses filled the shelves and dressers. Cards, and teddy bears too. I saw my mom sit in a chair flipping through a book, it was a rusty old red book I would remember anywhere. My mom's photo album of me and my sister Jessie. A cold tear ran down her white cheek as she flipped the page.
I tried to sit up and comfort my mom but the pains that ran up my back kept me tied to the chair like glue. I let out a roar of pain thinking about the crash again, like a broken record playing over and over again in my mind. The final words of Jessie that day,
"Smile, it's good for the mind and body." Jessie scanned a book to mind and peace. I rolled my eyes.
"Mom!" I yelled my body all sweating, feeling my self burn up.
"Oh Macy!" My mom called she grabbed my head and wrapped her arms running her fingers through my messy brown hair.
"What happened!" I yelled my head pounding every time I moved it, I closed my eyes tight just wanting to wake up in my cozy bed at home.
"There was an accident..." That's all I needed to here and a fire lite up inside me, one that I remembered clear.
Jessie smiled, the car coming, flashing before my eyes. Then SMASH! The Lexus into the side of the car, but it my mom dad and Jessie are OK why am I hurt?
"Why aren't you hurt?" I asked.
"Don't you remember? Cousin Sophia was driving you guys to go to a party?" My mom asked sitting right beside me on the bed, But Sophia was fine, maybe.
"Where's Jess!" I started to panic, my skin all sweaty my face red.
"Hunny-" My mom snuffled tears running down her face. "Jess's not coming back home. Macy, Jess died."
I took deep breaths but nothing helped, I wanted to yell scream kick punch. Do anything, I wanted Jess back. I wanted to wake up in my bed and everything to be OK. I looked at the curtain that was were Jess was.
Why had I missed all of this? Why was I the one to live? What about Jess, she should have lived she was the one with the great life not me. Jess had friends, a boyfriend, Jess was pretty and popular and played sports. She was the one to be missed. I was just the girl who was Jess's sister. The one that switched sandwich's when our dad mixed them up on his day off. The kid who no one cared about.
The blue SUV hit another pot hole and bounced me out of my seat, it felt weird being in a car in a seat belt, usually Jess would be sitting beside me babbling about some new yoga or soccer thing she had learned about. But now the only sound was the classic radio station playing a sad violin song.
I understood now, why my parents were dumping me at my Aunt Nicole's and Uncle Ted's for a couple months while my parent's 'recovered'. It was because I was not pretty Jess, I wasn't the favourite child. I looked at the green fields that rolled over top of each other into the deep blue sky, the fences rolling along the fields with horses grazing and running with freedom and pride.
"This is it!" Her mom tried to sound cheery but it sounded dead as the SUV pulled into a dusty driveway with fences surrounding and horses playfully galloping beside the fence trailing behind the car, it was like driving into heaven, horse heaven. One problem, Macy had always hated horses. When the car pulled up beside the small cabin Aunt Nicole ran out and halted beside the car with Macy's small 5 year old cousin Lucy tugging on Nicole's shirt and swinging around in old cowboy boots and a black cowboy hat upon her red mop of hair.
Macy opened the door slouched out and didn't bother pulling out one of her many suitcases, instead she walked right up to her aunt she had barley known and waved to Lucy. Lucy pulled the hand she kept in her mouth and reached out to shake Macy's. Macy frowned in disgust to her slobbery cousin.
"Well, haven't seen you in a while Sarah." Aunt Nicole said giving Macy's mom a hug as Sarah sobbed on Nicole's plaid shoulder. After minutes of my mother sobbing my father handed my uncle the four bags and my Aunt waved goodbye as my mom and dad drove down the driveway. I was mad they were leaving me at this stupid ranch to rot in the pain of Jessie. I reached in my sweater and pulled out Jess's old Nokia flip, covered in red stains.
When my Aunt showed me my small shoe box room I placed my bags down and sat on the small twin bed, looked at the pastel walls, this was not home. The walls were covered in poems and drawings of horses signed by Jess and me.
My aunt left me alone, closing the door behind. It was like a cell my parents had imprisoned me in. The doors and windows like bars and the pictures my temptation. I bite my lip and looked at the nightstand beside the twin bed. It was a paper signed my Jess maybe 6-7 years ago when Jess and I came to Aunt Nicole's ranch monthly. That was when we were at least 4-6. A tear ran down my face.
Wherever the wind blows,
I'll be there by you side
holding you close, never letting go
Making you feel safe, not a single lie.
Where ever the wind blows,
the memory of horses will fill your empty heart
nothing else matters,
Cause I'll love you no matter what
-Jess. Age 9.
I held the poem close to my heart and looked at the ceiling, that was one of my favorite poems.
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by Carrigan
(Canada)
Macy Taylor woke up, face drenched in sweat with the bedroom light blinding her eyes, she let out a small but load morning groan. A oval shape face with freckles startled Macy making her heart skip a well needed beat.
"Lucy?" Macy panted surprised to see her little cousin gazing over her so early.
"Finally you wake up I've been waiting for ages..." Lucy rolled hazel eyes and let out a small chuckle.
"What time is it?!" Macy rubbed her eyes with the sleeve of her night gown and half wanted to pull the covers back over her head. Instead she rolled to the side of her bed looking for her digital clock then something struck her, her clock was at her parent's house in N.Y.C.
"5 a.m duh. Don't you own a clock City?" Lucy laughed slapping her knee and jumping on Macy's small double cot bouncing around make the whole bed shake. Macy hated when Lucy called her City, the nick-name Lucy had given Macy only a day after Macy being in Pennsylvania.
"At my parent's house I do." Macy grumped, stepping out of the bed and slipping into a pair of sneakers. If only she could get a decent sleep for once.
"Your parent's house?" Lucy raised an eyebrow questioning Macy's choice of words.
"Yeah that one in New York remember?" Macy stared before the door when Lucy shocked her.
"Why didn't you say your house?"
Macy followed behind Lucy as they crept down the wooden stairs of the small Rothlen estate, or her Aunt's small horse ranch. Macy wondered if Lucy had ever been dropped as a baby on these stairs.
"Ssh they might here you." Lucy whispered swishing her fire red hair around and staring at Macy with cold hazel eyes. It reminded Macy of the times Jess and her would sneak down stairs to walk all the late shows the kids at school would buzz about.
"I thought you said they wouldn't be up." Macy mocked Lucy as they stepped off the stairs into the living room that led into the backyard.
"Hey ladies!" Macy's aunt Nicole swooped a handful of popcorn and waved to Lucy and Macy.
"Hi mommy." Lucy giggled running over to the couch and hugging her mother from behind.
"What are you up to?" Nicole asked turning around and winking at Macy for dealing with Lucy's constant cop and robber early morning games.
"Just a new game I invented." Lucy laughed as Nicole tussled Lucy's red mop of hair. Macy was 100% sure Lucy was adopted because nobody in Macy's family had red hair, freckles or brown eyes.
"Just come in before lunch? I have a new horse coming in today and I don't think he is uh... Very friendly, he is a rescue horse he kicked his old owner." Nicole worried. But Macy knew the horse did far more the kick it's old owner.
The warmth of a June day made Macy sweat from head to toe in her N.Y Soccer outfit as she stepped through the marshy grass of her old elementary school. She would remember this day any day, she noticed the group of 5th graders soaking in the last day before middle school next year, there was a long line around the school to no other then Jessica Taylor, queen bee of 5th grade.
"Hey Jess!" Macy waved to Jess and the young Jess looked over at Macy up and down waved and then turned back to singing books. Didn't Jess remember Macy? Jess's long blonde princess hair fell along her back her face young and fresh with spots of makeup and her eyes a light grass green. Macy made her way over to Jess getting comments like.
"No budging giant!" and "No cuts troll."
"Jess why'd leave me?" Macy asked Jess wanting to hug her sister wrap her arms around her and smell her cupcake scent.
"Excuse me?!" Younger Jess asked squinting away at the giant in front of her, of course Jess didn't know this Macy, she wouldn't know what her sister would look like 3 years later.
"Why'd you die?" Macy asked again stomping her cleats against the gravel.
"Uh?" Jess asked staring at Macy like she was some loser.
"Why would she remember you Mace." A voice, similar to younger Jess's and more cocky voice laughed, Macy turned her head and saw a older Jess wearing a sweater, jeans and her face caked with makeup and blonde hair in a ballerina bun.
"Jess!" Macy smiled seeing her sister 3 years older and much prettier.
"Mace, nice to see your not a mess." Jess laughed, typical sister.
Macy leaned into give Jess a hug, say she's sorry for all the mean things she did to her but Jess said something that interrupted Macy.
"You don't hate horses you adore Cougar." Jess said before running off into the forest behind the school, Macy tired to follow but kept tripping over her on feet yelling Jess to stop and wait up.
Until Jess woke up in one of the pastures, she was pressed against a tree, Macy stood up and looked around the hot sun shone against her back and her hair a mess, she heard hoof beats, a black flash rushing to her, Macy ran, she ran so fast she didn't know if this was another crazy psycho dream, instead she tripped over her laces and feel into a ice cold river, the water rushed over her body making her shiver, until pitch black.
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by Carrigan
(Canada)
Macy's grandma strode through her Aunt Nicole's cottage door with a pan of garlic potatoes in hand. Lucy ran up to Grandma Rothlen and wrapped her arms around her waist.
"Oh Lucy!" Grandma Rothlen laughed handing Uncle Ted the pan. "Oh is this little Macy?!" She asked eying the shy blonde that sat on the stairwell who was also eying the Grandma her mother had never introduced her to.
Grandma Rothlen waddled over to the stairwell and reached her arms out. Macy stood up and Grandma wrapped her arm's around Macy and tousled her caramel hair. Grandma smelled like apples, like her Nana's chef smelled like.
"Oh you look so much like your mother." Grandma Rothlen laughed pointing at Macy's chill blue eyes. Last Macy remembered, her mother was beach blonde and had green eyes like Jess.
"You're so tall." Grandma Rothlen said.
"I'm in Grade 8." Macy reminded her.
"Well, we don't have time to catch up mother, you have your flight to New York to catch remember." Aunt Nicole reminded Grandma Rothlen.
"Oh yes I forget, well should we go eat?" Uncle Ted suggested motioning his hands towards the small dinning room table.
Macy jabbed her fork into her plate of turkey and took a sip of cranberry juice.
"What was Jessica like Macy?!" Grandma Rothlen asked.
"Mother!" Aunt Nicole barked slamming her knife against the wood table.
"It's fine Aunt Nicole." Macy sighed placing her glass back down on the table.
"So Macy you left me hanging!" Grandma Rothlen laughed snorting red wine from her nose.
"She was really pretty, popular, everybody loved her." Macy replied, Grandma Rothlen oohed.
"Did she have hobbies?" Grandma Rothlen trailed on staring at Macy.
"Yeah, dancing." Macy said ready to get up and run to her bedroom and cry on the rock hard pillow.
"Oh doesn't she sound so much like Sarah, Nicole? Little Jessie sounds just darling!" Grandma Rothlen cracked her lips in a smile. Macy buried her face in her hands and let out small whimpers.
"Lucy do you mind taking Macy outside." Aunt Nicole barked getting up from the table and dragging Grandma Rothlen into the kitchen.
Lucy led Macy out into the garden, that had rows of fields of horses that led up into the stable.
"Grandma just gets carried away sometimes." Lucy said as her flower dress flowed in the wind that blew Macy's hair in her face.
"Yeah, I got that." Macy spat out a chunk of hair.
"I'm so sorry what happened with Cougar though, I meant to wake you up I swear!" Lucy said as they reached the stable with chipped green paint.
"Wait who's Cougar?" Macy turned to Lucy, in Macy's dream Jessie had mentioned a horse named Cougar. The November air blew all around Lucy and Macy making there dressed fly everywhere, typically every Thanksgiving Macy would go to a dinner at her Nana's mansion in the country of New York.
"He's the new horse we got last week, he's adorable, mom yelled at me and said he could have killed you." Lucy laughed which Macy didn't find so funny.
"Common it's not so bad, mom said if you want you could ride him." Lucy looked at her shoes.
"You know I hate-" Macy started
"Oh shut up Macy! You'll love horses Jess did!" Lucy mocked then covered her mouth that had been caked in red lipstick.
"You don't even know Jess!" Macy stormed into the stable and pounced down the aisle and let out a scream so loud the whole word heard it.