INTRUDER

NOW

Ellie came into my room last night and asked me to sleep with her because she felt she needed some hugging. I told her that of course she could come cuddle in with me and that any time when she felt like that she could come in. I loved my sister so much that I didn't care if I had to share a piece of bread with her, I didn't care if I had to share anything with her. She was like my own daughter and I lover her so much. She was like my angel. I would do anything for her. Ellie started talking about how she was so weirded out by the interrogation that happened yesterday and I told her, with a laugh, that the police had sent her to do it. I told Ellie about going to the police office but I didn't tell her what I went there for. I didn't want her freaking out thinking that my theory was true and that Garred wants to kill us. I don't want to talk about that with anyone because I know for a fact that it was a hallucination that I thought was my dad, but in that moment when I was talking to the police I wasn't thinking about him being a hallucination. When Derek reminded me that I have not taken my pills, I realized that it was useless talking to anyone about my theory. I know Ellie would gladly listen but it would be a waste of her time. Instead of wasting her time, I just cuddled up next to her.

Today I awoke with a jump when Ellie started poking me. 
"What happened?" I screamed.

Ellie started laughing a little but then she went back to a serious face.

"It's been a year," she softly says.

"Yes, it has." I remember the day I spotted Ellie cutting herself softly while sobbing in the bathroom. I remember seeing her face flood with pain and the tears fall onto the wooden floor. I remember seeing the blood drizzle down her arm.

"Do you wanna talk about it?" I ask.

"What is there to talk about, it's just been a year since I stopped cutting myself."

"Yeah, but don't you want to tell me how it's been and stuff like that."

She goes on to tell me that her life has been okay ever since she stopped but she has considered going back again when our parents were killed, well to be clear: when Maggie was killed.

Dad's funeral was only sad because there were a bunch of men crying, but that was all. I didn't cry, but I pretended to. However, in my mom's funeral, I did cry. I cried my eyes out even after the ceremony was over. I stood by her casket and told her how sorry I was. I was so sorry for everything. For failing at keeping her safe. It was my fault. I cried for hours after everybody had left the place, I screamed into my pillow at my foster house after the funeral. I was so sad and no one understood. Not one person. Not even Ellie because she couldn't go to the funeral since she couldn't drive and there was no one to take her and I think they didn't trust me at that place very much. So, no one knew what it was like to see your own mother dead like that. It was horrible, it was like a living hell right there were I was standing. I died right there in that funeral house. It was as if someone had come up to me and shot me in the heart and I was bleeding my feelings out. That's what it felt like. If you don't understand that, then I guess no one that you loved so much, more than yourself, has died.

Susanne walks into our room while we are silently remembering that day that I found Ellie. It was a good day, because if it wasn't for me finding her: Ellie might be dead today. I couldn't live without Ellie.

Susanne asks us what we want for breakfast and I say that I just want some chocolate milk... cold. Cold, piercing cold, the sensation that you have no heat nor hope. Cold is like a dead feeling, but it is very refreshing. I smile at the thought of that. Ellie asks for some warm chocolate milk because she once told me that she never ever wants to feel cold because it reminds her that our mother is not with us right now and she has no one but me to cuddle up with. Just me. She does have Susanne but she doesn't know her as much as she does me. She has known me for four years compared to knowing Susanne for not even a year yet. Just barely even a month yet.

I go to the kitchen to fetch my chocolate mil that was freezing cold. Exactly how I liked it. I drank it with care so I could savor ever single taste of it and so it will never ever go away. I will never forget the taste of the cold chocolate milk as soon as it hits my tongue. The richness of it overwhelms me and I close my eyes, this time I remember the feeling of when I drank my first homemade chocolate milk. One day we went to my friends house and they served me chocolate milk when I was seven, after I got home that day I asked my my mom if she had ever tried chocolate milk and she laughed saying it was her favorite, but only when it was homemade. She would only drink it if it was the one her mom made her. I asked her if she could make me a homemade one and she obeyed. When she handed me the glass, I could feel the coldness and beauty of it. When I took a tiny sip out of the glass, it felt like pure heaven. It felt marvelous. It was so rich and creamy. It had the perfect amount of sugar and the perfect amount of cocoa. I was in love ever since. Now, Susanne brought me back to all of those memories with this chocolate milk. It was so good and perfect just like the one Maggie made. Maggie Ruhner's Famous Chocolate Milk was what I always thought when I was a child. I always dreamed of it being on the news and my mom talking about it. I would always laugh and smile at that idea. Now, that idea is dead to me since there cannot be another Maggie Ruhner. No one is ever going to beat hers. Susanne's was almost there, but not quite there. She was almost to the point where I was to tears, but just not there yet. I would have to drink this multiple times throughout the day for it to bring me to tears, and when it does bring me to tears, that's when I will realize that Susanne's chocolate milk is better than Maggie's. But in a sense it is never going to be like hers. Maggie is always going to be the most uniquest woman I have ever known. No one is ever going to change that.

I finish the chocolate milk and silently hug Susanne... I tell her how much I loved the chocolate milk and how much I loved her.