Dark Intentions - Charlotte Byrd Page 0,6

currency trading company, but it didn't last more than six months. I didn't like it.

So that's how I ended up going to graduate school for journalism. I was still looking to do something that I really cared about passionately. Everyone made fun of my career prospects, everyone except Michael.

Michael believed in me even when I didn’t. He said newspapers and the old style of reporting might be dead, but there’re so many online news outlets now and they constantly need stories. The truth was that I didn't know what I wanted to do. Graduate school postponed that decision and that was good enough.

And then he died.

I was supposed to graduate this semester. This was going to be my last one. I was going to be filling out job applications and sending out resumes and cover letters this whole time and he was going to help me.

He knew what employers were looking for. He knew the language that they wanted, especially if the employee was like me, without much experience.

But when that car hit him, the world stopped spinning on its axis. I couldn't go to class, let alone fill out job applications.

I couldn't sleep.

I couldn't leave the house.

I took a leave from school. And the only thing I have now is a part-time job at a bar that his friend owns. And I have a suspicion that the only reason I still have that job is because I am Michael's sister.

When I get home, I walk carefully on my tiptoes to make sure not to wake anyone up. It's a small three bedroom 1970s ranch style home with paper-thin walls and my niece is a light sleeper despite the fact that she's a toddler.

This is where I live now and where I've lived for the last six months after I had a fight with my roommate because her boyfriend was staying over too much. It was originally her apartment and after I complained, she kicked me out. So I moved back in with my mom.

I spent a week at Michael's apartment about a month before his death and he asked me to move in with him after I complained about our mom and Alexa.

"I know they need my help," I say, "but I can't be there all the time. Alexa wants me to take care of Sadie because she's twenty years old and she wants to party. I totally get that but I wish that she hadn’t brought someone into this world that she didn’t want to take care of."

Michael listened and offered to pay for a babysitter to help Alexa, but mainly to help our mom. He was always good like that, kind, loving. He was too good for this world. I said that at his funeral with tears streaming down my face and I still say that now.

There was a fire in the car and his body was so badly burned and beat up that they had to use dental records to confirm that it was him who was driving.

It was a closed casket because the accident left his body and face too mangled to display. I hate the fact that I never got to see him. A rude old man who probably should've retired years ago called me and turned my whole world upside down. He said that the records were a match and that it was my brother.

He gave me a number to give to the funeral home, urging me to get him out of the morgue quickly. Apparently, summer was coming and it was going to be a busy time for the department, lots of bodies.

If this had happened in person, I probably would've punched him in his face. But as it happened over the phone, all I could do was hang up and shake in disbelief.

6

Jacqueline

I climb into bed and darkness comes over me. I close my eyes, but I can't shut out my thoughts. I went to the Redemption Club, but I didn't find redemption there.

Not yet.

This isn't something that I have ever done before. I was always a good girl. I had boyfriends of course, but no one that serious or long-term. I had been single for almost a year, dating casually, having one-night stands with the guys I met at bars and dating apps. No one stuck.

I wouldn't say that I was looking for anyone in particular. Not at all. More like a distraction.

That's what it was like in graduate school, at least it was for me. Those of us who