There is so much blood. His head, oh my God, they shot him in the head, what the fuck did he get involved in? I don’t need to get any closer to know that my cousin is dead. Now I have to make a choice, I obviously can’t do anything to save him, so I gotta get out of here before they come back. I’m not trying to pay the price for his stupidity.
Now is my chance to run And I don’t mean just leave here, this is my chance to really run, far….get out of this life. But, I don’t have anywhere to go, my parents are too far away for me to stay with them, and I don’t have any other friends or family around here that aren’t involved with my uncle’s business. I must be in shock, I’m barely thinking straight, but my body is running. I’m heading for my motor cycle and I’m getting out of here before those guys come back.
Which they will, if this is something gang related. Stix always told me that we were more organized crime than a gang, but fuck knows what the difference is. I guess nothing.
I drive. I don’t know where I’m going, I can’t see through the tears, I can hardly breathe. Every time I blink, I see Stix and his head blown into pieces. I can smell all the blood. God Damnit, I didn’t sign up for this. I have to leave this life and never look back.
Chapter 3 – Chloe
Wow, what a long and stressful day at the hospital. Not that I mind, of course. I want to help people, which is why I’ve chosen such a hard career path. It make’s me happy to know that I’m making a difference in the world. However, on days like this when it feels like it’s been endless, I can’t wait to get home. I need a bubble bath and some soft music to calm down.
Thank God I still have my beautiful family home that I grew up in to go home to. If Mom didn’t leave it for me when she went to live in England with her boyfriend, I would probably be in some shitty apartment somewhere. I wouldn’t be able to afford anything as nice as this.
I try my hardest not to look at the house next door to mine where my childhood love once lived, before he left me right after our first kiss. He said it was going to be temporary, but instead, he left for the city to work with his family and never came back. I don’t know why, but the way his cousin came to get him, late at night, I kinda had a feeling that would be the last time that I saw him, and my unanswered text messages confirmed that.
Still, it wasn’t until a few months later when his parents moved out that I knew for sure it was over. I begged them not to go, but they had to tell me that Ted was lost to me anyway. That he started working for the family business, despite their disapproval, and he wasn’t coming back.
He was living the life that I never thought he wanted to be a part of. We didn’t really talk about his uncle and cousin, but I knew that they were bad news, and he didn’t want to be involved in that… clearly, I never really knew him at all, because that’s exactly where he ended up. He wasn’t the Ted Landon that I thought I was in love with.
Not that it made it any easier to recover from the tragedy of teenage heart break. was just one of those things that I needed to go through to become a stronger person. It was childish love, puppy love, not real love. Not that I know what real love feels like of course. I haven’t exactly had much of a love life since then, because I’ve been working on my career.
I got my nursing degree and I’m proud of myself. I am an independent woman who doesn’t need a man to give her life meaning.
I grab my key, purposely avoiding looking at the new family who live in Ted’s home because even after six years it hurts my heart to know that he isn’t there anymore, and I go inside. I changed the décor a lot after the house became mine, because I wanted to make it my own, but it still feels like home. It’s a comfort to me. I always knew I wanted to stay close to home, so I went to college here and my mom left when I graduated, so it was perfect timing for me to move back in and take over the house.
I suppose I could try and go out on a date or two. My coworkers try to hook me up all the time. I would like to have someone to come home to at the end of the day, share my life with. I just have to put in the effort. At least then I know that I don’t have to worry about looking at Ted’s old house anymore thinking about what could have been. Literally, all I really want to do in life is finally move on.