Forever Remember: The Rose Code

Chapter 1: Prince Charming

PART I: WHITE ROSES FOR REMEMBRANCE

I sat up in bed, a scream trapped in my throat. My fingers still clawed at the phantom seatbelt, and my heart pounded against my chest in a futile attempt to escape from its bony cage. 

I peered through the darkness at little Hannah Hoover, my newest foster sister, in the twin bed next to mine. Did I wake her again? 

She blinked, turned over, and went back to sleep. 

Not me. I knew if I closed my eyes, I would see my daddy's face streaked with blood, hear him whisper his last words, "Forever. Remember."

I couldn't forget, even if I wanted to.

I untangled my long legs from the twisted sheets and stepped out of my bed and over to Hannah's. She slept best swaddled tightly in the covers, so I tucked her favorite pink blanket around her tiny frame and whispered, "Sleep tight, Sunshine," just like my daddy did for me when I was little. 

Before the car accident. 

Before the nightmares destroyed my sweet dreams.

I changed out of my nightgown and into my running clothes, all black for camouflage, and tiptoed across the hall into the bathroom. By the soft pink glow of Hannah's Star-Brite Nite-Lite, I brushed my teeth, washed my face, combed my unruly hair, and pulled it into a pony tail.

Using the railing as a guide, I snuck down the dark stairs to the kitchen to check my email. I sat at Daddy's ol' oak desk and turned on the computer, hoping for a message from my former foster brother, Dean King. The first email in my inbox was from . . . Dean. Finally!

 Time to meet Prince Charming. Call me. 

I wanted to sing "At Last" and dance around the room, but that would wake someone. So I remained in my seat and just smiled as I deleted the message. Jonathan, my stepfather, often checked my emails. He would forbid me to call Dean if he saw it.

I missed Dean so much. He'd lived with us for five years while his mother was in jail for embezzlement. Dean was my first and favorite foster brother. Jonathan and my mother (who Dean and I called The Rents) thought having a sibling would help me recover from my daddy's death, but I never did. 

For the billionth time, I wished Dean had not been arrested for burglary last year, because The Rents didn't care that the charges against him were eventually dropped. I still was not allowed to visit him, so our only contact was by late night email or covert calls from my best friend Melaney Miller's cell phone.

I stood and stretched, inhaling the clean scent of lemon polish and exhaling my impatience. I needed to know exactly what Dean's message meant, but it was too early to bother Melaney.

I plucked a white satin rose out of the crystal vase on the kitchen table and stuck the stem behind my ear and into the rubber band in my hair. I crept out the back door into the moonlit night. My shadow followed behind me on the concrete sidewalk. When my feet hit the black top, I ran.

I ran to be free. Free from the suffocating restrictions of the present. Free from the haunting memories of the past. Free to be me again, the real me, Jasmine Austine. Not Jasmine Jones!

But no matter how fast or far I ran, I couldn't forgive my mother for marrying Jonathan Jones so soon after daddy died and allowing him to adopt me. I was determined to change my last name back to Austine when I turned eighteen in May.

Keeping pace with my heartbeat, I jogged to the end of the block and turned left on to Pear Avenue. The cool breeze on my face and the steady rhythm of my feet on the road helped clear the nightmares from my mind, most mornings.