Fated ✔

Fated 1...

...please, won't you wait, won't you stay, at least until the sun goes down...
When you're gone, I lose faith, I lose everything I have found.
Heart strings, violins, that's what I hear when you're by my side...
- Final song

EIGHTEEN YEAR OLD Gray Fisher sat down, her back against the door of her room, hands over her ears as she tried to drain out the sound of her parents fighting. She closed her eyes and thought about happy memories that had happened before any of this to drown the noise downstairs. When she felt the noise die down after a few minutes, she released her ears and dropped her arms to the rugged ground in helplessness and depression.

Why had this happened? She thought back to three years ago. How had this ever happened?

As long as she had known, her parents were loving to her, and caring, without fear of what the future would hold for them. She had seen them go and come out of difficult times in the past...together. But now, everything's changed. No more hugs from her parents after coming home from school, no more heartfelt kisses every time something goes wrong, no more fun time once every week with her mother in the kitchen making god knows what...no more dad.

The fighting started when she came back from school one afternoon, the school in which she had no friends, no one to talk to, expecting to see her mother and father with outstretched arms waiting for a hug, waiting to hear all about her day.

She heard shouting.

She found that it was coming from the kitchen and so walked quickly to see what was going on. She stopped abruptly, almost touching the door when she heard her dad shout something, something that killed a part in her, something that stopped all those hugs and kisses she'd always received, something that destroyed hopes of spending forever together, something that changed their lives.

"Did you think I loved you, Meredith? Did you think I gave a damn about you or her? Well, just in case you didn't know, I don't. Just starting from now, I don't want anything to do with you!".

Gray looked at them through the halfway opened door and failed miserably to keep out of this conversation. She barged in and jumped on her father and pulled him in a tight hug.

"No! You don't have to do this! You are the only one I have! Don't do this, daddy! I need you, dad! Mom needs you!". She reached for her mother's hand with the hand that wasn't around her father's neck, gripping unto both tightly. Tears finally begin to fall in fast torrents down her mother's face and when Gray finally looked up to see her mother's wet face, hers quickly became wet too. Their eyes met and she instantly realized what to do. She dropped the hand that held on tightly to his neck and looked at his face, extremely sad. Her hand was still in her mother's hand as her father spoke.

"Didn't you just hear me? Don't you ever touch me!", he screamed and pushed her away from him. She fell on her rump and her mother rushed to help her up. Then, her father stormed out of the kitchen and out the front door and was heard getting into his car and speeding off to wherever god knows. Her mother hugged her tightly and didn't let go until her arms ached. They cried on each other's shoulders. Each understanding what couldn't be said in words.

She had later found out that the reason her father had stopped ' loving ' them was because her mother had lost her job, the job that brought food on the table. Turned out their father married her mother out of money because the job was really bringing in much.

Ever since then, she loathed her father and struggled with her mother to put food on the table. Her father had brought his drinking habits into the house. Turned out, also, that he had been drinking before the truth had been spurted out. He, during the times when the marriage had been ' peaceful ', had no job and relied solely on the income of his wife. Now he has a job at a gas station which brought very little income and which he spent on himself for booze.

Her mother, with the money she had earned from the work which was at an airport as an air hostess, built a small bakery shop and started work. She had the help of her own mother (Gray's grandmother) to bake the goods. Gray had started working there, to keep things going smoothly, as a part time waitress. The bakery shop brought little money and sometimes her father would barge into the shop, drunk, and yell at her and her mother for money for booze. One time, he had injured a customer by hitting his head with a chair in anger in his drunken state. That caused the reduction of people in the bakery shop.

She got up from her position at the foot of the door and went to her window seat and sat down and looked out.

She didn't have anybody except her mother and grandmother. She thought, as tears ran down her face. Her door burst open revealing her father, who ran towards her and grabbed her hair and pulled her towards the door.

"No! Leave me alone! I don't want to go anywhere with you! Let me go!". She screamed as she grabbed hold of her father's hand on her hair and tried to pry it off.

Suddenly, she saw a shadow at the door with a baseball bat in its hand. She watched it as it was raised and landed on her father's head.

Her father screamed and let go of her hair to clutch his head. The shadow which Gray already knew as her mother, ran towards her and held her close on the floor. Then it happened.

"Shit! Now you've done it! I want you out of this house! Both of you! Leave!". Her father yelled.

"We were already leaving, anyway!". Her mother shouted and then looked at her daughter. Gray looked at her mother with shock and with her eyes, asked if it was true. Her mother nodded with wet eyes and upturned lips. They smiled together as her father stormed out angrily.

"Yes, baby, you heard me, we are leaving here. To a new home, darling, far away from here, with your grandma. We are selling the bakery and moving out... away from him". She said as she looked towards the door, hands on her daughter's face.

"Really, mom? We're moving? ". She asked, also with tears in her eyes and a smile on her face.

"Yes, darling. We're moving. Tomorrow. After three years, baby. We're finally leaving". Her mother answered, smiling and pulling her daughter into a tight - gripped hug. They sat there for a long time, holding each other and having dreams of the future.

After hours on the floor, her mother moved to stand up, disentangling themselves from each other. Then she went to the door and locked it. She got on the bed and slept, close to her daughter, a sleep without dreams.

Then the next day, they left.

As early as five am, they packed up with urgency, all the things that belonged to them with the help of Gray's grandmother. They loaded up in her mother's grey mini bus. And by seven am, with Gray's mother in the driver seat and Gray and her grandmother in the back seat, they were on their way...never looking back.

But Gray looked.

And saw her father, standing near the wooden fence...a very angry scowl etched on his face...staring at the retreating vehicle.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and turned towards the owner who was her grandmother, a smile on her face. She smiled back and looked forward to a new life.

____________________A/N

Heyyyyy! How was it? I hope it was perfect for a first chappie!
And I really hope it was to your liking. I know I said 1000 words but it was more than that and it was worth it, though.

So, Gray is on her way to a new life with her mother and grandmother. What the hell will the future hold for them? Why don't you find out by first clicking on a star button and then comment and finally share and continue by moving on to the next page? Cool, huh?

Um...another thing...
There might be riddles in every chappie and this one will be the first!
Just to keep the fun going.

Now,
Where do pencils go on vacation?

The answer's embedded in the next page. So there!
Enjoy!

- Gracious