To Fill the Void

Seven Years Prior

The cool September breeze blew my hair as I rolled the soccer ball around with my feet. I was beginning to feel impatient at both my parents to show up and for the game to begin, but neither would come around. With a sigh I kicked the ball as hard as I could and watched as it skidded across the grass, seeming like it would never stop rolling, until my fifteen year old brother stood in its path.

I shot him a questionable look as he turned to me, and he forced a half smile in return before kicking the ball less forcefully back. I rolled my eyes and huffed out an aggravated breath before kicking the ball onto the half occupied field. Today was the big game, and I had made an effort to make sure my parents would attend, not always were they both present, but never did they once have where they were both missing. However, on one of the biggest days of my life, they both decided to ditch, and I wasn’t just going to let them get away with it when I got home.

Disappointed, I sat on my crossed legs and picked at the drying grass beneath me. I watched as all the other parents would walk their kids onto the field and yell ‘good luck’ to them as they went to go warm up before the game. I’d usually would be one of those kids, but at the moment no one was here to pat my back as I ran off with a smile; well, except my brother, who was making his way over to me.

“They‘ll be here Ellie, don‘t worry.” He forced a smile, before holding out his hands to me. I accepted them as he pulled me to my feet and my coach blew his whistle to signal for us to gather in. “Good luck,” he whispered under his breath, as he went off to look for a place to sit as I jogged over to where my teammates were.

After giving us the motivational speech, the one I could probably recite in my sleep, the game began and I was positioned as goalie, which everyone should have known would cause us to lose the game. I had always been better as blocking the ball with my face rather than my hands, and I knew today would end with me having a nose bleed or any kind of facial bruising. But, taking the coach’s orders, I jogged onto the field and under the net. Luckily, my team didn’t suck, because most of the game the ball stayed down towards the opponent’s goal, leaving me to stand and watch.

I watched as my teammates kicked the ball back and forth to each other and the other team’s kids ran back and forth confused, which I had to hold in the bit of laughter fighting to escape my lips. When one slight giggle escaped in my fight, one of the boys of the other team, who was positioned near my goal, would turn with a glare that could kill. I just simply raised my eyebrows at him with a smirk, before he’d roll his eyes and turn back to the players who were, for once, running back towards my goal.

Taking my hands off my hips, I got ready for anything to come at me. My team and the boy’s fought kicking and shoving for the ball that was slowly making its way over towards me, but no one ever got it in time to try and make a goal. Finally the ball seemed to catch air, as it fell towards the death glaring boy.

“Kennedy, make the goal!” his coach yelled from the opposite side of the field, and a few of the other parents joined in. Snapping out of his gaze at the crowd, the boy charged at the ball and started to direct it towards me and the goal.

Running a bit over to the end where the boy was aiming to kick, I dove for the ball as he put all his strength into that one kick. I had never been one to forcefully put myself into a situation where I got hurt, but this one dive caused me to get a blow to the stomach as I fell on my side outside of the goal post. Smiling despite the pain, I could hear my brother and couch yelling my name and cheering, as I got up and threw the ball over most of the crowd of blue and yellow, to one of my friends on the side of the field who was open.

I lightly brushed off some of the dirt that had gotten on my uniform from the fall, but gave up knowing it would have to go through the wash before any kind of improvement. I continued to wear my smile as I watched the rest of the players run to the other end of the field and I looked over to the crowd. My brother was doing a failed attempt at getting the crowd in the bleachers to start the wave, but it all ended up with him stomping his feet and chanting my name. I smiled at him and punched my arms above me as I screamed with victory, before I began to search through the crowd for my parents and see their reaction.

After scanning and rescanning all the faces of the smiling parents, I turned up with nothing. Neither of my parents was there to help celebrate with me for saving a goal. Neither of them there to be able to brag about me at work like they always said they did, when my brother or I did something amazing. Just my brother, who would always remember, but never gave me that kind of feeling of greatness like my parents did. My smile weakened a little as I returned to reality to see my couch shouting at me, but it was too late, because the boy named Kennedy had poorly kicked the ball past me and into the goal.

His team went up into an uproar for actually making a goal, and Kennedy sent me a smug smile. This time I returned his death glare and rolled my eyes as I kicked the ground for being stupid enough to zone out.

But my attention was once more captured as the whistle signaling half time blew, and I ran over with the rest of the kids dressed in yellow.

Gulping water and watching my coach assign new positions; I heard that I was set to be left wing. The pain in my stomach didn’t ache as bad, but my coach still insisted that I’d sit out for a few before he’d put me in. Clutching my water bottle, I sat at the seat my coach directed me to rest in behind him on the bottom bleacher. For it being September and the temperature starting to decline a bit, the Arizona air still brought sweat to my forehead as I whipped it away with my shirt, and continued to watch the game resume.

“Ellie, that was great! For once you didn‘t get hit in the face!” My brother smiled as he sat in the empty spot next to me.

“Yeah, but it doesn‘t feel as great without mom and dad being here.” I said weakly, as a new kind of pain began to swarm in my stomach.

“They‘ll be here, trust me. And if they aren‘t, there has to be a good reason for it.” He nudged me with his arm, before his smile weakened.

“Ellie, you‘re in the game.” My coach called over his shoulder, not once turning to face me.

“Kick some butt!” My brother called, as I handed him my water bottle and ran onto the field.
Most of the game went by quickly, my team scoring another two goals to add to a total of 7 to 5, and the game was about to end any minute, because some parents were beginning to fold up their chairs.

I ran back and forth passing the ball to my teammates and making attempts at scoring a goal, but it never got quite past their goalie, Kennedy. Whipping away some of the sweat, I watched as my team did a penalty kick, and the rest of the field ran to where the ball had landed. Walking a few steps in their direction, I didn’t copy going after the ball, but waited because I knew it would end up near me anyways.

The weird feeling in my stomach hadn’t left and I was glad the game was about to end, when something bright blinded my eyes. When it finally left, I looked over in the direction it came from and saw that it was from the badge of a police officer, making me scrunch my eyebrows, never had there been a police officer at one of our games before. The bad feeling hit its peak, however, as I watched him make his way over to my coach and exchange some words, which is when my coach point in my direction and my brother. The officer nodded before looking in my direction and turned his back, walking over to my wide-eyed brother.

They seemed to exchange a few words before I watched my brother’s widened eyes fill with tears, and put his head in his hands, his fingers grabbing at the length of his dark hair. I watched the officer put his hand on his back and say a few words before taking the empty seat next to him, the place where I should be comforting my brother, but I was frozen to where I stood.

I could feel my mouth open a bit, as I stared in awe, and thoughts swarmed my head trying to figure out what was wrong. Somewhere inside my head, I could hear a voice whisper to me, telling me to go find out what was wrong, but I couldn’t find it in myself to walk one step. I was scared at what was going on, nothing ever made my brother cry and now he was sitting there crying next to a police officer and I could already feel the tears prick to my eyes. As if the voice had taken over my body, I found myself walking slowly as I trembled with fear over to my brother.

I finally had approached my brother enough to where I could see him trembling over his choked sobs, “Damon?” I whispered, but the voice that came out didn’t sound at all like my own, and it scared me even more.

Instead of a response from my brother, the officer looked up at me and took his hand away from Damon’s back. “Are you Elizabeth Perez?” His voice was deep but soft, and the tone of it made the feeling in my stomach grow. I opened up my mouth to answer him, but nothing managed to come out, instead I found myself nodding. “Sweetie, I‘m sorry, but earlier this evening your parents were found in their car on Jason’s Creek Road, they crashed.”

“Are they okay? Where are my mommy and daddy? Are they okay?” I found myself repeating, as tears fell from my eyes and I pulled at the bottom of my shirt. I hadn’t called my parents ‘Mommy’ or ‘Daddy’ since I was nine, but I somehow managed to choke it out of my trembling lips.

“Elizabeth, I think you should sit down.” The officer said as he began to stand up and put his hand on my shoulder, directing me to sit in his place.

“No! Where‘s my mommy and daddy?!” I found myself bawling at him, as I pulled my shoulder away from him. I already knew what happened to them, having pieced it together, but I couldn’t find myself to believe it.

“Elizabeth, I‘m so sorry, but they passed away at the scene.” He tried to say it as nicely as he could, in attempt to make the situation seem not as bad as it was. But he knew that it didn’t do anything but make it worse, as I found myself falling to my knees, not caring about the sting of the grass burn on my knee caps.

I never knew I could cry so much, as I felt like I was about to drown myself in tears. My parents were dead. On their way to come see me and my stupid soccer game. It was my entire fault they were in that car, and now they were gone, taken away from me and my brother. All my fault.

The officer must have picked me up and set me in his lap, because now I could feel myself crying into the thick material that was rough on my face. ‘All my fault,’ I kept repeating in my head, as I felt the officer stand up while still holding me and wrap his other arm around my brother as he guided us to his police car.

I knew we were being watched by all the people that were surrounding us. Giving us sympathy, but they didn’t know what for. I hated them for giving me sympathy, because all of this was my fault, but I couldn’t manage to say anything. All I could do was cry, and continue to blame myself.

When we came near the police car, I could hear him open the back door and my brother slide in. That’s when he set me down on the ground as I was blinded by the blur of light seeping through my eyes, making me hold onto the door before I could adjust. I was about to slide into the car next to my brother when Kennedy from the other team walked past me with his mothers’ arm wrapped around his shoulders.

“I’m sorry.” he whispered before he walked on past me, and I got into the car, closing the door behind me.

All my fault.