Maybe Memories

It’s funny how as soon as I thought I would be alright as long as Karin was by my side, she was ripped away from me, raping me of any chance of happiness. Cause it seems like I was just meant to be happy. It was like fate had given me those ten months of my life happier than anyone else and then decided from then on I’d be miserable. I might sound like a little whining kid right now, but do you think you could stand losing both of your best friends within a year of each other? I know I couldn’t.

On April seventeenth, two-thousand and five, Lisa turned thirteen. Her parents were in Vegas for the weekend, for “work” related purposes, leaving Karin and her older brother Matt alone. Matt being the really awesome big brother that he was, was trying to make it up to Karin that her parents couldn’t be there. He had put a cake in the oven and was upstairs--on the fourth level--teaching Karin how to play “Second Heartbeat” on the guitar.

That’s when it happened. That’s when the ancient old stove caught fire and slowly engulfed the entire first level in a massive conflagration which was rapidly spreading upwards. They didn’t realize the fire until it was too late--Lisa always told Karin that she needed to install fire detectors, but she never did. Of course they rushed downstairs trying to make it out alive, as Matt had told the entire story. Matt rushed out of the house thinking that Karin was behind him the entire time, he didn’t figure out that she wasn’t until it was much too late. Being as severely burnt as he was, he didn’t have enough energy to run back in there and save his baby sister, instead he collapsed on his front lawn leaving the neighbor who reported the fire to come across him.

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That was my second funeral in a year, and this time there was no one to silently hold my hand. There was no one to catch the tears or hear the sobs. I found myself sprinting from that ceremony to that same meadow where Lisa vowed that she’d meet Brian, a landmark for her impending death which I noticed the signs for too late. But this time, as the rain from the massive storm pelted down on my skin and I was brought to my knees from the weight of this crimpling sorrow, it wasn’t to relive the memories of past.

But right there I made a little promise of my own, something I had to do to keep my sanity in check. I made a deal with myself right then and there that I was going to reinvent myself, so that no more memories could pass through. So I couldn’t see them when I looked in the mirror. Avenged Sevenfold, as much as I loved them with all of my heart, had to go. I couldn’t listen to them anymore without breaking out in sobs, and that was with Karin around. It was like a stab in the heart every time I heard them, and that wasn’t something I could deal with right now. So I promised myself I would give up all kinds of rock music, simply because it reminded me too much of Lisa and Karin. I’d listen to rap and hip-hop and stop standing out from the crowd. From now on I’d just try to blend in and be like everyone else.

The plan didn’t work though, because I was me--a natural outcast by nature. Sure I got myself a few friends (Ashley, you were a great friend and I still love you.) and tried my best to forget everything that had happened in the past. But every night in my dreams I couldn’t hide from myself. I couldn’t run from the fires that threatened to engulf me, I could run from the voices of Karin’s and Lisa’s cries as death crept up on them. I was trapped in my own little hell, I’d wake up screaming or crying so hard that breathing was a task.

Then at one point I decided that maybe I didn’t want to breathe anymore. By then I realized that my mother was a hopeless pothead, who loved her drugs more then me. Because if that wasn’t true then I wouldn’t be living like this right now. With no food, or electricity for days and weeks. One night when she was high, and I remember this so clearly now it almost hurts. One night when I complained to my mother(who was very high)that I was hungry, and hadn’t really eaten anything in three days, she pulled a knife on me. It was a bread knife, you know the ones with the real, sharp, jagged edged? Well anyway she stuck that to my throat and these were her words exactly.

“You ungrateful little bitch! I should help the world and slit your fucken throat! Not that anyone would care anyway,”

That’s when it hit me, and hit me hard. No one would care if she did kill me. No one was left in the world to care about me or to love me or miss me if I left. No one gave a damn about me, and I didn’t care about me either. It was January twenty-second, so close to Lisa’s birthday, and I had just thought of the perfect gift I could give her in heaven; me. It seems that everything happens in a ten month period. But not this time.

It would only be six more days until I planned on giving Lisa the best birthday present she’s ever receive.

Just one hundred and forty-four hours until I ended it all once and for all.