still (v.h.)

the mansion

winter 2021

Georgia Grant

My dad's funeral was nothing like he would've wanted. 

The color black filled every open space, ugly purple flowers piled around his picture, people he barely knew stood in suits with fake tears in their eyes.

"Kid," he whispered to me. 

"What, dad?" I was thrown off by his disruption of Aunt Lindsay's wake.

"Don't let mine be like this." he said.

I ducked my head down to giggle. Who says that to their seven year old ?

"I mean it, I'll give you all the money in the world if you promise to throw one hell of a party when I'm gone."

I shook my head at the memory. I could use a party right now.

Andy's cold hand lay in mine. He focused on my face, but I looked straight ahead. I couldn't stand him sitting next to me like this. After what he'd done. 

"I'm getting some air," I announced.

"I'll come," my mother called back from the other side of Andy.

"No."

My heels clicked on the marble floor. Another thing he would've hated.

"Now when we go inside, you have to be quiet, got it?"

"Got it," I returned.

We walked inside the massive bank, hand in hand. My tiny shoes tapped loudly on the stone floor, turning heads. Immediately, he picked me up.

"Quiet, quiet, G."

"Quiet, quiet."

As I entered the kitchen, I leaned my arms on the counter in front of the sink, hanging my head. I wasn't sure how long I was standing there. How many memories floated through my brain. 

The worst memory always came last. I tried not to remember. I wish I could forget that day. 

Crash.

My eyes snapped open as I sat up in bed. Vinnie lay next to me.. again. We had just started to become okay again. But, he still didn't know how I felt.

It had been months since that night in the park. 

"Georgia! Come out, you slut." a voice shouted through my house. It came from downstairs. My parents were downstairs, I would be okay. I'd be fine. 

Vinnie was alerted by my sitting up and began to stir next to me. 

"Who is that?" he asked, his eyes still closed.

"I..I don't know."

Who would be calling me a slut? It doesn't make sense. Who would- oh.

"Vinnie, I think it's Andy, you need to go."

"What the hell is he doing here?"

The scarcest thought ran through my head.

"Is your car in my driveway?"

"Uh, shit. Yes, yes its behind your mom's car."

I'm dead. Andy had been angry before. I was ghosting him just after we kissed. Now there's this? As much as he may have hated me, he hated Vinnie more.

"We know you're here!" the voice called again.

We?

I heard another crash, glass shattering.

Then footsteps up the stairs. 

I needed to get to my parents. They would keep me safe. 

Vinnie slid the window open and climbed out onto the roof. I knew that I had told him to leave, but now I was really alone up here. I ran into the closet and hid behind my clothes before sliding the door closed. 

My breath shook. This was not happening. 

The footsteps grew closer to my room as my heart rate picked up. The sound of something else hitting the floor rang through the air. Something metal. A baseball bat, if I had to guess.

"C'mere. I know you're here. I saw his car."

This was not Andy. His voice wasn't nearly as high. This person crept around my room for what felt like hours until he began to search other rooms. 

John.

I froze before moving. I couldn't leave him. But, then I remembered. He wasn't here. He wasn't here thank god he wasn't here. 

I creaked the closet door open and checked the hallway for the person who was here before. Nothing.

Taking my chance, I sprinted down the stairs, desperate to reach my parents before anyone could reach me. 

And as I met their room, everything began to play in slow motion. 

My dad met me there. He ran out ahead of me and into the kitchen, looking back and forth. 

The second person stood to his left.

A handgun already raised.

My dad looked at me. He already knew what would happen.

Moments later, I was holding his head while he lay on the kitchen floor. A crimson lake surrounded us in a chilling embrace. 

The ringing sound in my ears faded into my mother's screams and the killer's swears. He had just killed my father. 

I looked down to his face and he was gone.

I was met with my own lifeless eyes in the reflection of the kitchen window. I have to wash my hands, I thought. I need to get these germs off of me. Wounds can be infected by bacteria. I can't let it be my fault. It can be anyone's but mine, not my fault.

I turned around and walked briskly until I reached a vacant bathroom. I left the door open behind me and turned the water on. I reached for the soap and began scrubbing my hands for twenty one seconds. It's more efficient than twenty seconds. I did it again. And again and again. The germs are still there, they need to be gone. My hands were beginning to turn red again. It hurt. This hurts. But, infected wounds hurt worse. I kept going. Again and again and again until-

Certain hands crept from behind me and grabbed mine. They didn't move them. They held them still. Minutes must have passed before I looked up to the mirror again. 

"I know," he said. "I've got you, I know."

And then, tears fell. Tears hadn't fallen for weeks. But now, they did. 

I turned myself around and buried myself into his chest. He was there that night. He did know.

Vinnie came sprinting in through the back door. He didn't leave me. He came back. 

"What the hell what the hell what the hell?!" he yelled over my mother's gasps for air.

"Where did you...? I saw you leave," I said, breathless.

"I wasn't going to leave you, I was going to leave your room," he told me, "I was going to find them." 

With his words, we both looked up to see the gunman gone. 

"You saw who it was?"

"I saw."