walls of our house. A car turns onto the street, but I quickly realize it’s not my parents. It’s a cop car.
That’s weird.
I watch the black and white vehicle make its way slowly down the road, like the cops inside are checking addresses. It stops in front of the house across the street, and I narrow the gap in the blinds that I’m looking through so I don’t get caught spying like a creep.
I chuckle when the cops get out of the car and are immediately soaked through. It’s funny because they have these plastic covers on their hats, but it’s not doing much good for the rest of them. But my amusement immediately dies away when they don’t jog toward the McNeal’s house like I’m expecting. Instead, they run across the street and right up the sidewalk to my front door.
The blinds snap shut as I lean back on the couch, and my heart trips when the doorbell sounds off. Why would the cops be here? I push up from the sofa and look through the peephole just in case I saw things wrong, just as a firm knock reverberates through the door.
I open it, and the smell of rain slams into me along with cool wind as the storm works itself into a fury outside. Lightning crackles, lighting up the tree in the front yard to be an eerie bright white.
“Are you Delta Gates?” an older officer with a gray mustache asks me, his blue uniform soaked and dripping.
“Yes,” I answer, not sure what to think of this. Am I in trouble for something?
Nothing immediately comes to mind, but that doesn’t seem to stop the fear and adrenaline from kicking in. The mustached officer pulls a rain speckled notebook out of his pocket and flips it open. He thumbs to a different page and then squints slightly at whatever is written there.
“Are you the daughter of a Ray Gates and a Tanya Gates?” he asks.
“Yes...” I confirm, and suddenly the fear and adrenaline pumping through me isn’t for me anymore. “What’s going on? Are they okay?” I ask, worry soaking my tone like the rain did their uniforms.
“We’re very sorry to tell you this, miss, but both of your parents perished in a car collision that occurred approximately two hours ago.”
The officer keeps talking, but I can’t seem to hear him. All I can hear are the words both of your parents perished over and over again. A flash of lightning streaks across the sky, and a boom of thunder follows quickly on its trail. The other officer ducks slightly like he’s expecting the sky to fall down on top of him.
I push out of the door, past the officers and out into the storm. I don’t even know why. It’s like I’m searching for their car to be parked there, even though I know it’s not. I stand in the middle of the driveway, already soaked through. The smell of rain fills my senses, and it pours down, stealing my warmth like the police officer’s words just stole my happiness, stole my breath, stole my...life.
Lightning strikes.
Very sorry.
Thunder booms.
Both of your parents.
Rain pelts.
Perished in a collision.
Thunder yells down at me from the sky again as I collapse on my knees.
I’m crying, sobbing, my soul leaking out through my eyes, but the rain is battling my tears, the thunder drowning out my wails.
Lightning flashes and wind whips past me, stealing my shock away like someone wrenching a blanket off you in the frigid cold.
The officer’s words settle into me against my will, and the next thing I know, an agonized keening is leaking out of my mouth like a dying animal baying at the moon.
The officers are beside me, and I think one of them is trying to get me to stand up from the puddled ground and help me back into the house, because I feel myself rise up from my knees. More lightning and thunder fills the sky, and I look up at it as the cop once again flinches away at the sound.
Fall. I just want it to fall.
“Fall!” I beg the sky on a sob as I stare at the furious storm. My mom and dad are gone, and I just need the sky to fall and swallow me whole. I need to go too.
I just need it to fall.
“Please…”
In present reality, I feel cool hands wrap around my arms and hear my name being spoken through calm lips, somehow pulling me to the surface