Second Chances

Samantha Rene Sullivan.
That was my given birth name. I preferred to just be called Sam, but every family get together I was referred to as Samantha. It wasn’t that I hate it; I just thought it was too formal for someone like me.

My mother was a wonderful woman and god bless her heart. She was a great wife to my dad and she was really strong through everything.

My sister was the same way until she moved to New York. Then she turned into some plastic bitch and found a freak that would marry her. Don’t get me wrong, I loved New York and her husband, Shaant, but her, not so much.

My father walked her down the aisle when she was twenty four and I was sixteen.

That was the last time any of us saw him.
Half way through the reception, he had to leave because he was getting relocated to another military post in Connecticut.

That was the last time I hugged him goodbye. If I knew that, I would’ve never let him go.

They say that he died fighting for his country and that’s all I needed to know, but I knew that he died because of a suicide bombing at a checkpoint.

I’m almost glad the damn bastard blew himself up.
Otherwise, I’d kill him myself.

After that, things just fell apart.

My mother fell into a great depression. So did I.
A year and a half of suicidal thoughts and heavy drinking.

I had been hospitalized five times because of it.

But last May was the second anniversary of that we got the call.

On May sixteenth, my mother committed suicide.

I was twenty years old and now alone. I had no where to go and no one to run to. There was no way in hell I’d stay in New York and I sure as hell wasn’t going to stay here.

So for the last time, I walked into that Southern Carolina home, grabbing all my things and shoving them in duffle bags; All the memories, pictures, everything.

I wrote a note and put it on the kitchen table just incase someone were to come here.

I held the picture of my mother and father at their wedding in my hands, pressing my lips against each of them softly. Tears fell down my cheeks and I placed it down next to the note on the table.

I locked the front door behind me and headed for my best friend’s car and she was going to take me to the airport. I knew my parents had left me a huge chunk of money, because they didn’t want my sister to go and spend it on a pair of shoes that she had been eyeing and leave me out in the cold with nothing.

So with about five thousand dollars, I set off for California.