January 11th, 1982. Vermont, USA.

It had seemed like the entire small-town of Bennington, Vermont showed up to the Johnson family's wake service.  From the old couple who owned the town hardware store, the entire faculty and staff from the Bennington school district, to the Johnson family's pediatrician, you name it, they were there.

A tragedy like this hadn't struck the town in years. It took an additional two neighboring fire departments to extinguish the flames that demolished the two-story house and surrounding woodland.

The electrical fire had started inside the garage around two o'clock in the morning.

Due to a faulty fire detector, by the time Ann and Nick Johnson woke up from the smell of smoke, it was too late. Bright orange flames doused the stairwell that led to the upstairs portion of the house where their daughters Isabella and Victoria slept. Fire enveloped their home faster than their eyes could process.

Thick, black smoke poured down their throats with every breath the couple took. Going up the stairwell to reach their children was to them the most natural decision they could have ever made. They screamed their daughters' names before they even thought to scream at a 911 operator.

Victoria Johnson, fourteen, had woken up to the sound of her parents screams. For a split second, she assumed she was having another one of her nightmares, which she would always get like clockwork, a week or so before her monthly. When the unmistakable smell of smoke burned her nostrils, though, she knew it wasn't a dream.

Despite the burn of her scalding doorknob, Victoria opened her bedroom door, and began to scream back. By now, she could no longer hear her parents and a wall of fire had reached her doorway. What she could hear, was her little sister Isabella, screaming across the hallway.

Victoria screamed back, a shriek that resembled that of horror movies. She was trapped in her bedroom.

It was jump or burn. 

There is something about the smell of flowers that to those who have stood in a funeral home long enough would agree that blossoms and death become two in the same. Isabella Ann Johnson could not seem to focus on anything else. She had never hated the smell of flowers more in her life until that moment. Nothing about this was beautiful. Nothing about this deserved the décor of lilies or roses or carnations.

Three ornate urns were set up at the front of the blue carpeted room, with photo-boards filled with pictures of Victoria, Ann and Nick respectively.

Isabella had come from a very much middle-class family. Her father was a manager at the local brewery and her mother, a school nurse. She didn't know exactly where any of the money came from for her parents and sister to have gold-plated urns or what felt like millions of flowers or already-paid for headstones, which she didn't see the point of anyway as they were all cremated.

All she knew was that her mother's sister Gina and her husband Tom arranged the services, with the help whoever was on the other end of the same international call they made every day at 2pm eastern time.

It was all too much for her eleven-year-old brain.

Isabella didn't have a large family. Her late-father was an adopted only child and his parents were long gone. Her mother had one older sister who had two children of her own, 13-year-old Kate and 15-year-old Eric. Isabella and Victoria had grown up closely with their cousins, from playing outside in her cousins' treehouse in the rain to playing "Marco Polo" in their pool, she always felt she had two extra siblings. Now, they felt like strangers to her. Everyone did.

Isabella shifted sorely in her chair, her pain medication clearly waning. She used her uninjured hand to shake people's hands as they offered their condolences, and gently turned her neck into the never ending hugs. 

It was all too much at once for an eleven-year-old to handle. Isabella had never been to a wake before, let alone processed a single death so close to her.  In her head, she was going to wake up very soon and be back in her bed under her Disney-themed sheets. She would then trudge downstairs, her mother's homemade banana bread the only thing powerful enough to get her out of the warmth of her covers. In the slightly chilly living room, her grouchy teenage sister would be sitting wrapped in her blanket like a burrito.

"I am so, so sorry, Isabella," whispered Isabella's former third-grade teacher, Mrs. Trent as she bent to her ear. "You know if you ever want to talk, you can pop right across buildings and straight into my classroom. I can even let your principal know we have an arrangement."

"Thanks, Mrs. Trent," Isabella replied, and picked at the plaster on her cast. The response was all she could muster.

Isabella had never heard the word "sorry" more in her life than she had that evening. She had also never been called so many pet names, like sweetie and honey and baby and...

"Darling," came a voice that sounded like velvet, and strongly contrasted the American accents of those around her. For the first time in almost an hour, Isabella looked up from her lap.

Upon the man's arrival, chatter in the room completely subsided. It was as if the mustached man himself had commanded it, loud and clear. Isabella's eyes darted over to Aunt Gina, who was already shooting red-rimmed dagger eyes at everyone she possibly could. The chatting quickly resumed, and Isabella felt like she was completely alone in the room with the two adults in front of her.

"Isabella," the blonde woman with piercing blue eyes breathed as she ever so gently tucked a few stray curls behind her ear.

The young girl immediately noticed that neither of them had actually offered condolences. As quickly as they greeted her, they were moving onto the next of her family in line.

And yet, it had been more than enough.

The months to follow were a blur. Isabella had healing to focus on for much of them. Her physical therapy appointments felt endless but she was nearly back to normal by the start of the summer.

This made Isabella feel incredibly guilty. The better she got every day physically, the more she hated herself.

"It's good, Isabella. It's great, actually, how well you're healing," Aunt Gina remarked at the dinner table one June evening. "Don't you think so?"

Isabella cut a tiny piece of chicken, and dipped it into her mashed potatoes.

"Yeah, definitely."

"You know, the YMCA started their summer camp sessions last week, but I'm sure they'll let you join late if you'd like? They have swimming, arts and crafts, basketball, volleyball... I'm sure some of your friends are there," her aunt continued.

With the mentioning of every activity, her excitement about the idea faltered in her voice. Isabella's own stony face had exposed her. She hadn't seen any of her friends since school got out. As far as she could tell, they were afraid of her, as if she'd shatter into a million pieces if they breathed in her direction.

Her silence was all too much for her uncle.

"You know, your aunt is working really hard to make you happy," Tom put his cutlery down with a bit too much force. A singular vein on his forehead bulged.

"Tom," Gina put her hand on his arm.

Eric and Kate watched in silence. 

For a few moments, the only sound that could be heard in the house was a rerun of the gameshow The Price is Right that was on in the living room.

"No, Gina, it needs to be said," Tom spoke again, folding his arms over his tan Champion t-shirt. "It's been months, and we have been so understanding as we get through this ourselves. I am not expecting Isabella to feel ok yet, but to say thanks or show a little damn appreciation for what we've done for her, yeah, that's what I'm asking for."

"I am thankful," Isabella squeaked, sliding down in her chair a few inches. Her cheeks burned.

"We know you are, sweetheart," Gina replied, but without as much sincerity as she had when the conversation first started. 

"Please, let's drop this," Eric spoke up, pushing his glasses up a bit. "You're stressing Isabella out."

And that was the end of that.

The summer months crept by. There was no summer camp for Isabella, or anything remotely close to how she'd spent any summer in her eleven years of life. She felt like she was in survival mode and it was only getting harder. Isabella couldn't understand why it wasn't getting easier. After all, she was under the impression that the more time that went on, the more bearable everything would get.

But what she found was that the more time that passed, the more she missed them. It was pure and utter anguish, and she had no means of processing this. There was no therapy, no special nurturing from her fellow grieving aunt besides the occasional hug and the nightly home-cooked meals that were getting tougher and tougher to swallow.

On one Friday evening in late August, Isabella found herself sitting on the bottom of the shower floor as the water began to run cold. She'd spent the day swimming with Kate, listening to country music and making several wave pools that yes, did bring a smile to her face quite a few times.

Isabella knew that her cousin had genuinely tried that day to make her happy. Of course, Isabella played along as best as she could, but she couldn't help but feel like Kate was watching her every move, monitoring her every facial expression.

Everyone she knew did it to her.

After she felt she'd had a sufficient enough cry to get her through the rest of the day, and all the chlorine was washed from her hair, Isabella stepped out of the shower. Like clockwork, her aunt was outside the bathroom as soon as she heard the water stop running.

"Isabella?"

"Yeah?" she sniffled from behind the door, wrapping a beige towel around herself.

"Can you come to my bedroom in fifteen minutes?"

"Sure!" Isabella replied, trying to mask her emotional state quickly now that she knew she had such little time to pull herself together.

After all, she knew she'd been pushing them all away without meaning to, and like any eleven year old, her rational thinking wasn't at its strongest. As far as she was concerned, they were probably hoping eighteen came as fast as it could to get her out of the house.

Little did she know, they'd found a loophole.