Blood On My Hands

Today's the day, Sarah thought while she smoothed back her wavy brown hair, tying it neatly into a bun. Today was the day she'd move from Sacramento to Los Angeles to begin her undergraduate career. Today was the day she'd escape her old life and start a new one, a better one.

As Sarah pulled into the neighborhood, she began imagining what the house would be like. She pictured a one story house with no yard, very few windows, and only one bathroom. For a group of four girls, that wouldn't cut it.

"Your destination will be on the right," the GPS said as Sarah neared the property. She parked by the road and got out of the car. The GPS must have been wrong, it had to have been. There was no way the house she had parked in front of was the house they were renting. Sarah grabbed her cellphone and looked up the address that her friend had sent her, 1120 Westchester Place. She glanced back at the house to see the same address on the mailbox.

"How did this even happen?" Sarah said as she looked at the massive property. The yard had been perfectly landscaped and was fenced in for privacy. The house itself was brick and displayed an infusion of Victorian and Spanish architecture. "There has to be a catch." Sarah turned back to her car to see someone had parked behind her. She watched as they exited their vehicle.

"Dad!" She screamed with excitement and ran to hug her father. He threw his arms out and hugged his youngest daughter tightly as if they had never been separated. "What are you doing here?"

"I had to help my baby girl get moved in and settled into the big city," he smiled at his daughter, so proud of her accomplishments. "Cecily's mom gave me the address. Wanna give me the grand tour?"

"Sure," Sarah dug through her pocket for the key. Just as she was about to insert it into the lock, the door opened. “That’s strange.”

"Might need a new lock," her dad frowned, already analyzing the craftsmanship of the house.

Sarah shrugged her shoulders, nonchalantly, and in her mind agreed with her father’s statement. Leading her father inside the house that would be serving as her new home, she said, "This is my first time seeing it, so I don't know my way around."

"You didn't pick this gem out?" He stroked his beard as he examined the first few rooms.

"No, Cecily's friend from Napa Valley did. She's pretty spoiled and ditzy so I expected something like this," Sarah scoffed, rolling her deep cerulean colored eyes.

"It's real nice for a couple of college kids. What's the rent like?"

"Not bad at all," Sarah found her way to the kitchen and turned on the light,"500 for rent and utilities."

"Damn. Seems like they started renovating the kitchen and didn't finish the rest of the house," he observed, comparing the modern style of the kitchen to the Victorian feel of the house itself. "How about some lunch before we start all the moving?"

Sarah and her father stopped at a nearby diner to grab a quick bite before the tedious moving process began. She glanced over the menu and decided to stick with something light since she'd be doing a lot of lifting and running up the stairs.

"So when do your classes start?"

"Next month," Sarah passed the menu to the waitress and thanked her.

"And what'd you decide to major in?" He asked.

"Political Science and Sociology."

"Why two?"

"I'll drop one as a minor and keep my major as the one I like better."

"That's my girl," he paused. "So, I've got some news for you."

"What?" Sarah asked as she sipped on her soda.

"I'm moving to Pasadena."

"What? Are you joking?"

"No, not one bit. I'm going to be the house manager for a sober living house."

"That's great, Dad," Sarah could barely contain her excitement.

"I'll be thirty minutes away and you're welcome to visit anytime. I wanted to be close to you since we're both starting new chapters in our lives."

"I'm really glad you came back from Washington."

"I couldn't leave you alone again. The first time was hard enough."

Alan Kenway had been a normal, ordinary man until he met his wife, Lindsay. Everything started out well, like any marriage, but then things got progressively worse. His wife was a perfectionist and suffered from anxiety. If he remembered correctly, she had been diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder and schizophrenia. None of that mattered to him at the time. He stood by his wife as she went back and forth to her therapy sessions with a psychiatrist. Soon, she dropped the sessions and began taking too many pills mixed with alcohol. She stayed drunk from dawn until dusk. As much as Alan wanted to divorce her, he couldn't bear the thought of leaving his children with that monster they called a mother. He needed to be there for his children no matter what. Alan began drinking regularly to cope with the drama he suffered through daily. Some nights he'd blackout after putting Sarah to bed just to forget the verbal fights he and Lindsay had earlier that day. One day, Alan came home from work to find Lindsay beating their daughter. He packed his and Sarah's things, but Lindsay was a step ahead of him. She harmed herself, making the bruises and cuts look like an act of domestic violence. The cops arrested Alan, overlooking the fallacies in the woman's statement. Soon after, Alan was free from jail and ready to fight a legal battle with the woman that was abusing his daughter and trying to frame him. He hired the best lawyer in the state of California to fight for him. As the legal battle continued, Alan found himself drinking more and more. He placed Sarah with her grandmother hoping that Lindsay wouldn't harm her while he battled his demons in rehab.

After lunch, Sarah and her father returned to the house to begin the tiresomely long task of moving in her belongings. Sarah already had a room in mind. Cecily had told her that if she got there first before any of the other girls, that Sarah had first dibs on whichever room she desired.

Apparently, Sarah wasn’t the only one who had that room in mind because when she made her way up the stairs and to her chosen room, Sarah found that one of the other girls was already unloading their belongings into it.

“What do you want?” asked the girl after noticing Sarah standing in the doorway, holding one of the many boxes filled with her belongings. When Sarah didn’t reply, the girl raised a perfectly manicured eyebrow and sneered, “Do you talk or are you just deaf? Answer me.”

Refraining from the undeniable urge to ring this girl’s jaws, Sarah took a deep breath, and then replied as evenly as her voice would allow, “This was going to be my room. Cecily said whoever got here first had first dibs, so this is my room. I was here first.”

“Oh, you must be Sarah Kenway, right?” The girl asked while crossing her arms, regarding Sarah over the bridge of her nose, haughtily.

“Yes, I am, and you are?” Sarah gave the girl a hard, glowering glare while standing her ground. No way was she going to let this bratty bitch run all over her. That’s one thing she was glad her mother had taught her.

“Mia, Mia Owen, and you’re tracking mud into my room,” Mia sneered while waving Sarah off with a hand. “Go find your own.”

Sarah stood there fuming. Who did she think she was? Swallowing back a rather nasty insult, Sarah decided against starting a confrontation. After all, her father was downstairs, and this Mia chick wasn’t worth her time.

“Whatever,” Sarah murmured while rolling her eyes, deciding to walk off in search of another room.

Sarah kept walking until she came upon the next room whose door was ajar, so she could peek inside and know if it was occupied or not. It wasn’t.

Reaching out for the doorknob, Sarah suddenly felt as if someone was watching her. With her hand on the doorknob and about ready to turn it, she looked this way and that, finding nothing, no one. Sarah was alone in the hallway. Wrinkling her eyebrows in confusion, she finally turned the doorknob, deciding to brush off the whole abnormal experience. Maybe it’s my mind playing tricks on me, Sarah thought as she entered the room.

“Fuck that room. I like this one better.” Sarah muttered with a smirk, placing the box she had been holding on the ground.

“I see you’ve found your room.”

Sarah turned to find Cecily standing at the door.

“Cecily!” Sarah said, smiling as she ran over to her best friend and gave her a hug. “When did you get here?”

“Just a while ago and you?” she asked. “I saw your dad. He helping you get moved in?”

“I got here a couple hours ago. Yeah, he is.”

“It’s good to see him doing so well,” Cecily smiled. “Well, my stuff isn’t going to unpack itself. We’ll hang later tonight. Movie marathon?”

“Sounds good,” Sarah nodded as she returned to her room.

Sarah and Alan continued unpacking her things and setting up her room. The sun was beginning to set as they unpacked the last box. Minus the desk, the room was perfect. Sarah was thoroughly impressed even though it wasn't her ideal room.

“I need to be going, honey.”

“Already? I still have a desk to build,” Sarah joked.

“I’ll be back later this week or you can come visit me. We’ll work something out.”

“Will you cook for me before my first day?”

“Don’t I always?” Alan chuckled.

“I want steak, a copious amount of steak and mashed potatoes. Garlic mashed potatoes,” she specified.

“Demanding, now aren't we?”

“Just a little.”

Sarah embraced her father and walked him to the door. They said their goodbyes, even though Sarah wasn't prepared to see her dad go. At least he’d only be thirty minutes away. She loved the idea of seeing him a few times a week. Sarah locked the front door and headed upstairs to begin the arduous task of building her desk.

Before she made it to her room, she stopped by to meet the last roommate of the house. Sarah knocked on the door frame, causing the girl to jump in surprise.

“Oh, hi,” she said in a quiet voice. “You startled me.”

“Sorry, not my intention at all, I’m Sarah.”

“Natasha,” she waved awkwardly.

“Well it’s nice to meet you. You paint?” Sarah noticed the canvases scattered over the floor.

“Oh yes. I’m an art major. I’m thinking about adding on English as well. I guess we’ll see,” she chuckled.

“Cool, well I was just stopping in to say hi.”

“Thanks,” she smiled and went back to picking up her canvases from the floor.

After an hour and a half, Sarah was completely over building her desk. She had read the instructions back and front several times and she still couldn't figure them out. She was certain she was missing a few screws, ‘Included: 8 wood dowels, 10 retainer pins, 16 screws, and 5 drawer knobs.’ She grabbed the bag of accessories and counted the screws.

“Twelve, thirteen, fourteen,” she counted. “Fuck!” She counted once more to make sure. “Ugh, why?” She brought her palm to her face in frustration. She grabbed a sticky note and scribbled down a message to herself to grab a box of screws from the hardware store.

After her failed attempt to put together her desk, Sarah decided a shower would do her some good, especially since the day was filled with her running around and working up a sweat. Before she gathered her things for the shower, she let the other girls know that the bathroom would be in use.

Once inside with the door closed and locked, Sarah began to strip off her clothes and then hopped into the bathtub, but not before closing the shower curtain behind her. Turning on the water, Sarah commenced in letting the hot water pour down on her, letting it soak her from head to toe.

“This feels so good,” Sarah smiled, while lathering her wet hair with shampoo, and then deciding to start singing a song that had been stuck in her head all day:



She turned off the water, done with the much needed shower. Sarah pulled back the curtain only to jump back in complete surprise. A boy about her age with blond hair and dark eyes was standing at the bathroom door, staring at her. Sarah wanted to scream bloody murder, but didn’t want to attract the other girls’ attentions because she didn’t want to make the situation even more awkward than it already was.

Pulling the curtain back in place to cover herself and hide her nakedness, Sarah asked furiously from the other side, “How the fuck did you get in here?!” She could’ve sworn she had locked the door behind her. At this point, her face was bright tomato red from both rage and mortification. This boy - this stranger had seen her pretty much fully unclothed and dripping wet!