Lady

Chapter One

"Raine, come on! Liz is waiting for you!" Jan yelled up the stairs.

"Hold on; I can't find my wallet." I yelled back, pulling my hair into a ponytail. I yanked open the door of my wardrobe to find my wallet resting on a shoe box. Grabbing it, I made sure that I grabbed the right shirt to exchange. Satisfied, I pounded down the stairs. Jan pulled me into a tight hug before I excaped into Liz's mom's car. Liz greeted me inside.

"So... how long will Jan be here?" Liz asked.

I scoffed. "As long as she behaves. That's the only reason why she is living with us at the moment. We're the only family she acts decent around. But it might be the fact that we're the only family that is LDS, so we have more expectation out of her."

"That or if she doesn't, she'll be going to military school." Liz said jokingly.

"So, how was your trip?"

"To Cali? Lots of fun, but the ocean was freezing. We went to a beach called Glass Beach. It used to be a place where they smashed cars, so there's a bunch of glass lying around... if you look close enough." She pulled out her wallet and showed a peice of green glass. "I don't know about you, but I think that alot of the cars that were crushed had old fashioned root beer bottles in it." She continued talking about her amazing experience in Northern California. Soon enough, they reached the mall, and they raced over to Aeropostle. After exchanging the shirt we nearly ran over to the theater to see Indiana Jones. I turned my phone onto vibrate, just in case my younger brother decided to call me. Just as Indy grabbed the snake, my phone vibrated. I walked outside and answered it.

"Hello?" Someone was sobbing on the other line. "Hello? Are you alright?"

"Something... has happened." Jan sobbed.

"Jan? Are you all right? What's happening?" I asked, panicked. "Is everyone all right? What's going on?"

"Some one did a hit and run on... on..." Jan bursted into tears.

"Jan? What's going on? Who's hurt?" I had a feeling I knew who it was.

"Raine... it's Max... he might be dead..." Jan sobbed.

"Jan, call 911! I'll be back home as soon as I can. I'll get Brian." I ran down to Borders, where I knew my older brother would be working. "Is Brian here?" I asked the person at the desk.

"Yeah, he's in the back, restocking." I clambored to the back, where he was re-stocking Curious George.

"Brian, we need to go home." I sobbed. Brian whipped around, nearly hitting me with a book.

"Raine, what are you doing here?" he hissed.

"Brian, you don't understand! Max might be dead!" I sobbed. His face changed immediently.

"What did you do?" he asked.

"Me?! Why are you blaming this on me?!" I wailed as he dragged me to his car.

"Because you're the one telling me. What happened?"

"I'm... not exactly sure. Jan said it was a hit and run..." I sobbed in the car as he raced home. I could only pray he was alright...

When we arrived home, we found the boy scouts already there, attempting to stop him from losing his precious blood. Only a few minutes later, the ambulance appeared, taking Max, Brian, and Jan with them. One of the boys led me into the house, and called his sister over, hoping that the sister would provide comfort. Instead, the sister just chatted on her cell, and helped herself to the cupbord. Finally, Liz releived the girl of her comforting duty. I quickly breifed her up on the story.

"What am I going to do?" I cried.

"For now, just get as much of it out of your system as possible." Liz said, holding me. "Everything will be all right..." she soothed. She softly started singing a lullaby to calm me. It seemed to work, because next thing I knew, I was in my bed with my mother rubbing my back. I shot up.

"Mom, how is Max?" I asked, worried.

"Honey... I'm so sorry..." she whispered, and hugged me. No... he can't be dead... he just can't be dead... he was going to Junior High, there's no way he's dead... I thought.

"Mom... what are we going to do?" I asked.

She sighed. "We'll let the Savior take this pain from us." She said. "Remember, in Alma, Chapter seven, verse eleven, it talks about how the savior suffered for all of our pains and afflictions just for us. He didn't suffer just for our sins."

"What about the person that..."

"The police are looking for him; and our job is to forgive him."

"Mom, how can we forgive him if he killed Max?"

"It will be hard, but we will become better people if we do forgive him." she whispered in my ear. She kissed my cheek. "Goodnight, and try to sleep tight."

I sat there, pondering on my mom's words. I didn't quite understand them at the moment. How could I forgive a murderer? It would be different if he or she had turned around to see if Max was okay. But the person was a coward, and ran off. And I had been taught all my life that the Savior will always be there for us, but I felt more alone than I ever had before. There was no way I would be able to talk to my Father right now; I wouldn't be honest with him. Or I would be too brutally honest with him; one of the two.

I folded up my large quilt then headed towards Max's room. I pushed the adjar door further. Jan had already occupied Max's bed; and she had curled up in a poor, sobbing heap. Under the moonlight that spilled into the room you could see the streaks of tears that had fallen in every direction. She was breathing heavily, trying to pull herself together in a fitful sleep. I carefully crawled onto the bed with her and rubbed her arm. Finally, in a fit of sobs of my own, I fell asleep.

The next morning when I woke up, I was shocked to se the rest of the family on the double sized bed. I could only guess everyone missed Max as much as I did. I quietly sneaked downstairs to have a bowl of ceareal. Despite the fact that I hated Raisin Bran Crunch, I had it anyway. It was Max's favorite. There, at the table, was the first time I truely didn't feel alone since his death. I could almost hear an Everything will be alright... from Max, but I was still too mad at the Lord to be able to hear it clearly.