In the quaint cottage town of Red Grove, Daniella 'Rose' Elliott longs to escape her miserable life and pursue a brighter future. Yet, her dreams are thwarted not only by her family's financial struggles but also by an incident she buried away in th...
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Roses are red Her feelings are dull Everyone is vacationing in Mexico now And that thought hurts her skull.
Dani's hand clutched onto her chest as she sat by the foot of her bed.
Everything was just so fuzzy.
She had a clouded mind and a cloud heart.
"I never got to say goodbye," she cried. Even though Mrs. Herbert was a relentlessly mean old lady, she was just living her life.
And Dani took that away from her.
For what? Money? That deal with Atlas was not looking so good now. Whatever money he could offer her would be nothing to fill the hole in her dead heart.
Nothing could fill the hole.
Then there was Chris — Adam's brother.
He was young; his life was a mess, but he had time to turn it around.
But now he was in Mexico—just like everyone else she knew. All because he knew about Gary.
If he didn't know he still would have died but not by her hands—but by Atlas'.
She took off her glasses and let her body slump as her blurry eyes focused on something small across the room. All the way in the corner of her room were a few Polaroids and photos stuck to the wall with rainbow pins. She was meant to remove them months ago but now seemed like a better time.
Last year, Dani arranged the photos of her friends in the shape of a circle. Right in the middle was a larger group photo of them. Charlotte grinned at the camera while Dani laughed, pushing hair out of her face. The group was about to jump into a lake and the sun was setting behind them. Dani's left hand was holding Michigan's as he was in the middle of shoving Adam off the dock. Adam was a blur in the photo, but he was always a blur in real life. But on the right side of the picture, Charlotte was holding someone else's hand but their body was cut out. All that was visible was their tanned arm, and black bracelet they were wearing.
That boy was Gary.
After she shoved him off the cliff, Dani cut him out of the picture. She couldn't have his face mocking her when she got up in the morning.
One by one she took the photos down and ripped them up—with no regrets. She let all of her frustrations bleed onto the Polaroids as she scattered them in the trash.
With the large one, she ripped out Charlotte and tore her into pieces. For a moment she stared at the rest of the photo, reliving that day. It was the best day of her sad life, but also the worst day...
Instead of keeping it, she just let everything go. Every inch of the photo, every face went in the trash. Leaving nothing but holes and scratched up paint on the wall.
