Apparition

Chapter 18: An Unfortunate Ending
Sarah muttered a line of curse words and bent over, putting her face in her hands. “Have you ever seen how it ended? The fight?” She asked, looking back up at me.
“I haven’t. And even if I did it probably wouldn’t be the same as it’s going to be when the time comes. Like I said, whatever happens in the present can alter the future which means it’s unpredictable. I don’t know who’s going to get out safely and I don’t know who’s life is going to be lost. And so far my family are supposedly entwined with everything else now.”
“No they aren’t! They can’t be!” Sarah jumped up from her chair and leaned over the table to get into my face, her hands clenched into hard fists. “You can’t possibly still be thinking about saving the person who left us all! Because if you do your family might die. Do you understand that? I can’t stand to see another family get destroyed because of ghosts!” Sarah was trembling all over but not because she was about to transform but because she was literally about to cry. I was able to see the tears building up at the corner of her eye. She sat back down and quickly wiped her eyes dry but that did no good. Right when I thought she got a hold of herself once again she exploded into tears.
I stared at her wide-eyed, my mouth dropped open.
“I just can’t,” she sobbed. “You can’t do this, Natalia.” She was crying so hard that her speaking was barely understandable.
I wanted to go comfort her but I was still in shock. Sarah, the hard piece of stone had crumbled into fine sand. I didn’t understand why but she did.
“Excuse me,” she mumbled and ran out of the living room, up the staircase, and into her room, slamming the door behind her.
When I finally reoriented myself I stood up and walked up the stairs to her bedroom. I knocked lightly on the door. “Sarah,” I said gently. “Are you okay?”
She was crying even harder than before so I entered the room that was once forbidden to me.
The crying was coming from inside of a separate room. The closet I was guessing. I knocked on that door and asked her if I could come in. She didn’t respond so I came in.
Sarah was sitting in the middle of her large closet that was filled with the same colors and style of clothing. Black, grey, red, and leather. There was a whole shelf just for her stilettos.
There was a box in front of Sarah that was opened and all the contents dumped onto the floor in front of her. I sat down beside her and looked at the picture she was looking at. It was an old picture of a man, women, and two little girls outside of a suburban home. The man was tall and had on wired frame glasses, his blonde hair neatly pushed back, bright green eyes, and he was wearing a light blue button up dress shirt and a pair of neatly ironed khakis. He was obviously a business man. The women had bright orange hair that gently waved down to her torso. She had beautiful grey eyes and a narrow face. The women was wearing a nice beige spring dress, the fabric of the dress straining against her pregnant belly. The littlest of the two girls was being carried by her father, her arms around his neck. Her curly orange hair was pulled into a cute ponytail at the top of her head. She looked around the age of three and was wearing matching dresses with her sister that was standing in front of her mother. She had long, thick, and straight bright orange hair, bright green eyes, and a long face. If it wasn’t for her features I couldn’t have guessed that the oldest of the girls was Sarah because of the sparkle in her eye and the cheesy smile across her face.
“Are you okay?” I whispered.
Sarah shook her head. “You can’t bring your family into this, Natalia,” she muttered. “I won’t be able to stand and watch your family get hurt because of what we are. I saw a family die because of ghosts and I can’t watch another.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know….”
“It happened the year that we bought this new house,” she whispered. “A couple of months before it my family was breaking apart. I never saw my father because he was always on business trips and my mother to was at work. My sister Sophia and I were left with a nanny. I didn’t mind it because I was only nine. I didn’t know a lot.
“Whenever my dad was home was when I was the happiest. He would spend all day with Sophia and I but when my parents thought I was asleep I was really listening in on my parents arguments. Then they brought up divorce. I couldn’t believe my ears. I knew what divorce was. My best friend, Mariah Jenkins parents went through it. Mariah said her older brother ran away because of it. I couldn’t let divorce happen to my parents so I ran downstairs and simply talked my parents out of it and to my surprise it worked. I told them about Mariah Jenkins parents and how I didn’t want our family to be destroyed.
“A couple weeks later my father quit his job and got employed by a place that didn’t require him to fly around the country. It was hard for my father to quit his job, considering how hard he worked to get there but his family meant more than anything to him. We moved out of our large home in Virginia Beach, Virginia to a smaller house in Alexandria. I missed my best friend but I loved Alexandria. It was so… calm and there were trees everywhere.
“When we moved and got settled in I saw my father more often. It was great. The fighting stopped and eventually my mother got pregnant.” Sarah smiled to herself. “They said it was a boy.”
“One night when we were driving home from dinner in town my mothers water broke. We were already halfway home and the hospital was very far from where we were. We were all scared for my mother and Stefan, my baby brother. Especially me. I’ve never had so much concern for anyone because usually I knew that everything would turn out all right.” Sarah paused and took in a deep breath as she entered the climax of her story. “I transformed for the very first time right there in the car with a blinding flash of light…. My sister was screaming, my mother was screaming, my father was screaming, I was screaming…. Then we swerved off the rode and tumbled down a steep hill…. That’s all I remember.
“When I woke up I was in a hospital. The doctors said that I survived off of magic just to try to cheer me up. I didn’t like it when they said that though. I was in a coma for three days, would’ve been longer but ghosts heal quickly. I thought that if I survived then the rest of my family did. When I asked the nurse where my family was they said that they didn’t make it…. I didn’t want to believe that so I pulled the IV out and everything else they had attached to me and ran down the hallways screaming their name. They tried to hold me down but I kept kicking and screaming. I eventually broke down and I let them take me back to my room. I didn’t understand how I could possibly make it and they couldn’t. I was supposed to be dead. I wanted to be dead. Ever since then things were different; I was never my old self.
“I always blame myself for my family’s death and I know that if you choose Nathan over your family and your family somehow gets hurt… you’re going to be blaming yourself for the rest of your life. So please, Natalia, please don’t go tonight,” she begged. Wow. Sarah was begging? To me? I had to promise her that I wasn’t going tonight because of the sincerity in her eyes and voice. It wasn’t something I could say no to. I’ve never seen or even imagined Sarah like this.
I closed my eyes. “I won’t go tonight,” I whispered.
She sighed in relief. “Thank you,” she muttered. Suddenly her arms were wrapped around me. I opened my eyes in shock. I didn’t know what to do so I wrapped my arms around her and patted her on her back awkwardly.
As I hugged Sarah I tried not to think of one particular thing. I had to keep my mind off a decision and make the decision undecided until the time came which I tried not to think of the time. I had to keep my mind open and clear.