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At age 13, my life changed forever. And not the normal teenager-puberty-growing-up way. I mean the kind of change that comes when your aunt and uncle are in a freak car wreck.
It’s the kind of thing that you don’t really acknowledge until it happens to you. Until it creeps up on you like a snake, ready to strike, and it bites you before you even have time to scream. My life was perfect in the Before. My greatest struggles involves staying awake through science class. I lived in a big house with my little brother and parents that we only got to live in for a year, had plenty of friends.
It was January 23rd when it happened. I was pulled from school early by a crying administrator, taken to my aunt and uncle’s house in a confused sort of coma. I remember the officers. The tears. And worst of all, my cousins. They were 10 and 6, both boys, both sobbing and confused. I will never forget their faces.
We took them home. The six year old didn’t understand, and you have no idea how much it broke my heart. Where’s mommy, he asked us. Over and over, because he couldn’t believe she was gone. I was numb, and for the first few days I couldn’t sleep. My eldest cousin got my room, and I took a couch.
Three months later, we moved. To a new house with lots of bedrooms. But I was still numb. What right did I have to be sad, when I lived with children as broken as my cousins? And what right did I have to be happy, either, in the wake of all the heartbreak?
I kept it inside. All of my emotions, good or bad, because the days of crying to my mother were long gone. I spent my days Surviving, because sometimes that was all I could do. I can’t say I wasn’t angry. But there was no one to be angry at, so I got quiet. Tiptoed on fox feet past my broken cousins, comforting them best I could. It’s funny how fast that little girl grew up.
At school my teachers begged me to talk, and I told them that my family was going through something. I didn’t want to make a scene. Six years later, I moved out, went to college, but old habits remained. I was Emotionless, thinking that sharing my emotions would be a burden to someone. That I didn’t deserve to have them. That’s what heartbreak does.
I still struggle with it, but it’s getting better. Somewhat. There are times when I remember lying on the couch, thirteen years old, promising myself to devote my life to helping my cousins. Oh, how lovely it would be to have that girl back.
I’m not sure how to end this, so, uh, the end.
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