Unforgivables

It started down by the river. In the same place my mother used to bring me as a child. Those hot summer days we had spent down there were etched in my memory like they had happened yesterday. Those cool fall nights when her and I had snuck down there, just the two of us, to catch frogs were still so close I could reach out and touch them. The fireflies would dance across the water and if we were quiet enough we could hear the crickets singing to us in the background. My mother would tell me that they were singing for me. When I was younger I really truly believed what she said was true.

Bad things happen to those who deserve it. That is a famous saying that I always believed to be true. When my brothers or sisters would do something bad they were punished for it, which made it true. When a robber would steal something from a shop the police would find him and arrest him, which made it true. When a fire took everything I had once loved and held dear…that made it wrong.

It had happened on a cool January night. The firemen say that it was an accident, that a curtain caught flame over a candle. Whatever the reason this happened I was the only one out of my family of nine to survive. I was a middle child, only ten-years-old, and the policemen told me that it was a god given miracle that I was unharmed. I say it is a wretched curse.

Now when I say a curse I mean a curse. I had to have done something bad for something so terrible to happen to my wonderful family. My parents never fought or gambled; it could not have been them. My siblings did small things that were bad but they were punished for them; it could not have been them. That left me. What had I ever done though? There were countless hours that I had lain awake, in whatever foster home I was in at the time, staring at my ceiling trying to figure out what I had done to bring such devastation to my family. Nothing seemed to fit.

When I was thirteen the government moved me to a new foster home, a home they said wanted me for as long as I wanted to stay. The woman who lived there had never been able to have any children of her own and was nearing her late forties. Her husband, a man in his early fifties, wanted a boy to help him out with barn work and other things that could not be done by his daughter. His daughter was nearly fifteen when I arrived there. Her hair was nearly to her knees and a lovely blonde color. In a picture she showed me once I remember her looking just like her mother.

This family took me in, fed me, gave me a place to stay, and treated me as if I were their own son. Things I would not appreciate until later. There was a river just down the valley from their house that I could see from my window and would often stare at during late nights. A few times their daughter, whose name was Annabell, would try and pull me along down to the river. I declined every single time. No force on Earth could make me go near another river again. I would look, from afar, but never again would I walk the rocky banks like I had done as a boy.

I’m sixteen now. My black hair has never been cut short enough to not frame my face and I keep it that way because my mother once told me that if I keep it long people can see my bright green eyes better. A stupid comment seeing as how my eyes are green enough for at least ten people. To spite spending hours in the sun each day my skin stays a natural creamy white and no matter how many bails of hay I move or how strong I become I always stay lean and don’t gain a pound, whether in muscle or fat. I haven’t grown an inch since reaching five-nine either, a trait from my mother no doubt. My name is Christopher Jay Brown, after my father, but everyone calls me Kit. A name I received from my mother in my earlier stages of life.

Christopher Brown had been my father. He was a fisherman so we rarely saw him around. The only thing that relates me to him is my green eyes. He always had the sternest green eyes and when he looked at you a certain way you knew you were in for it. Carol was my mother. There was no charcoal black enough to match her hair and no ocean blue enough to match her eyes. She was nearly a foot shorter then my father, which explains my height perfectly. Robert was my eldest brother. He would be in trouble the most and was always bugging our father about going with him one day. He was going to be sixteen in only three weeks. Tiffany was twelve. Her plans were to move to a big city and become an actress. There was no doubt in my mind she would make it. Andrea was my twin and dearest friend next to my mother. Her idea of having fun was mud sliding, something my other sisters looked down upon. Cameron had just turned eight, his eyes were full of life and he was sharp as a nail. Zoe had been five and spent most of her time on the lawn playing with dolls or following Tiffany around. Jason had been the youngest at only three. A sad fate for a child not yet ready to have dreams or goals.

My new family, the McKinney family, was nothing short then wonderful themselves. Marcus was the husband and caring father. He was the owner of a small business in the center of town, though we lived nearly five miles out of town, and also raised livestock to sell at auctions. Jenna was the mother and caretaker of the house. She spent most of her time cleaning the house, making meals, and in her garden. Never once did I hear her complain. Then there was Annabell. She was the most interesting of girls you would ever see. Around me she would say the most unappealing things for a girl her age to say but around anyone else she would not talk out of order at all.

Sounds perfect doesn’t it? I left one unbelievable family only to fall into the hands of the nicest family the world has ever known. What reason is there for me to complain? Sure loosing your family is the hardest thing anyone could ever go through but after six years you were expected to move on, and I had moved on. I understood perfectly fine what had happened and I knew my life was nothing compared to how horrible it could have turned out to be. For all that I know I could have been moved from family to family until I turned eighteen and then thrown on the street with nothing but the clothes on my back.

So then what’s the point right? Why am I even telling you this and why should you care? Maybe I’m getting this out so I can understand it more, maybe I’m telling you so things don’t seem as bad, and maybe I am telling you for no reason at all. It goes back to my mother. Why I was her favorite child any why the river was her favorite place to take me. It’s why whenever Annabell asked me to come with her I would say no. It’s why I went to such strange places, why my mother called me Kit, and why I don’t like to talk. It’s why I met someone like myself, why I met people who wanted nothing more then to hurt me, and why people died.

People are trying to talk to us. Whether it is your mother, father, siblings, or someone most people don’t tend to hear. They want us to understand that in this life, and the next, and all of time in between there is something out there that we just won’t understand. Why were humans ever created, simple question with a simple answer. What purpose we serve…entirely different story.
“Kit!” she screamed at me from god only knew where.

“What?” I muttered into the solitude of my room. The darkness was enclosing around me as I felt myself slipping. “What?” I asked again, just on the edge of human hearing.

She smiled then, or smirked. I couldn’t tell what one. I wasn’t far enough gone yet. “Wanna know a secret?”

I knew to many secrets as it was. Knew to many things I should have never found out. “Of course.”

“It’s your fault.” Her idea of fun. She’d torment, laugh, scream, and sometimes even beg me for forgiveness. “They are dead and it’s your fault.”

“If that were a secret…” I muttered and fell back against my bed looking at the ceiling. “You wouldn’t be talking to me.”

A/N: Ha! Finally got this damn thing to work! Anyway, I know the first chapter was boring but that is just the way life works. You are going to have to bear with me on this one alright? RR if you want. I\'ll upload more chapters whether you think is sucks or love it. It\'s my choice not yours. So...forward into the abyss we go.