Ella's Twisted Senior Year(6)

The traffic gets a little better when I turn down Cheery Street, but the damage is still everywhere.

A small trailer house that used to be a real estate office is in shambles; the owner, a middle aged man, stands in the parking lot with his head in his hands.

The destruction continues in a wavy line, downed power lines and crumpled cars. I pass the cemetery where those little plastic flower markers are all upturned and strewn around and my stomach sinks.

Half an hour later than usual, I reach Canyon Falls, my little circle of a neighborhood that borders a massive horse ranch. Our neighborhood was a planned community that apparently pissed off the ranch owners because they wanted acres of beautiful land instead of a bunch of houses. Luckily for us, their ranch gave us a beautiful view of the horses out of our back yards.

Canyon Falls has a man-made lake in the middle of a circular road. All the homes are technically “lake front” homes, but it’s not like we can swim in the thing since it’s fenced off and filled with water fountains.

My parents bought one of the first homes to be built here and it was when I was a baby. When you turn into the neighborhood, our house is the first one you see if you look straight across the lake.

Only now it’s gone.

Everything doesn’t quite register at first. My car rolls to a stop in front of the playground that Ethan and I used to play on as kids. I stare through the monkey bars, across the lake you can’t swim in, and straight into the sky that replaces where my house used to be.

And then everything hits me at once, a massive explosion of fear that lodges in my throat and makes me shake so hard I can barely drive.

My tires peel out as I race around the circle, slamming to a stop at the end of my driveway.

My house is a pile of bricks and wood. Shingles and pipe. All out of order.

My phone starts ringing but I barely recognize it. Another horror makes my eyes fill with tears. I leave the phone in my car and run toward what used to be my front door.

“Dad!”

My feet crunch over a piece of roof. I stumble through a sideways door frame. The right wall of my house is still standing, kitchen cabinets open and dishes still in place, as if waiting for dinner to be served. “Dad!” I scream, over and over, praying to hear his reply.

Please be okay.

I hear a siren in the distance and I trudge on, kicking and moving stuff that used to be my house. The couches sit in the middle of the living room as if nothing happened. But the good thing is that Dad isn’t in here. He might be somewhere else, still alive and waiting on me.

“Dad!” I yell again and I stand still in the wreckage, hoping to hear something in reply. The sirens get closer. Car doors slam. Across the lake I hear people shouting and I look over and see that two other houses have been demolished as well. People gather around them, but no one gathers here.

Maybe dad got out safely. Maybe he walked over to help out the other neighbors.

I bend down and pick up a game controller and water pours out of it. Video games are my dad’s favorite past time. He’s a mega nerd in that way. PC games, Xbox games, he likes them all. And now they are all gone.

I make my way through to what used to be the hallway and some of this part of the house is still standing. There’s walls and doors but the roof is gone. The entire second floor is gone, so everything that was my bedroom is now just open air.

I hear a groan and pray to God that it’s not just my imagination.

“Dad!” I call out, shoving a piece of drywall out of the way. Then I see it. The hall bathroom has a mattress over the bathtub. And it’s moving.

I rush over and push the mattress up and out of the way.

Dad looks up at me, his forehead all bloody and swollen.

“Punk?” he says, staring at me with wild eyes.

“Oh my god, you’re alive.” I drop to my knees and grab my dad in a hug, not even caring that something sharp stabs into my knee.

The sirens are suddenly right behind me. An ambulance arrives and Marcus, my dad’s coworker, jumps out.

Normally you can’t see the front yard from the hall bathroom. Now you can see everything.

I yell for Marcus and he rushes up and pulls my dad out of the tub.

More paramedics arrive and neighbors walk over. I let them handle my dad and I make my way back to the Corolla to call Mom. Everything happens in a blur as my brain starts to make sense of what’s happened. I can almost close my eyes and pretend that everything is fine.

But our house is gone.

I’d left this morning with my bed unmade and my laptop charging on the desk. I had brand new bottles of nail polish and now I’ll never get to use them. My expensive icing spatulas and spring-form pans, now bent up tossed around debris.

It’s all gone.

A sob rises in my throat as I grab my phone out of the car and stare at the screen.

Someone pats me on the back as they walk by, neighbors pretending to be friendly but they’re really just sharks wanting to gawk at the carnage.

This morning started out like every other boring school day. And now my house is a pile of trash.

My hands shake and a tear rolls down my cheek. There’s five missed calls on my phone, all from my mother. How am I supposed to tell her that everything she calls home is gone?





Chapter 4





The Burger Barn is nearly empty when we arrive and the employees don’t seem too thrilled to have to peel their eyes off the TV to help us. Kennedy laces her fingers into mine while we stand in line behind Toby and Keith.