I still remember the night my parents died.

It was a cold night. My fingers stretched outside the covers of my bed and the freezing sensation was instantaneous, inching its way up my skin. I was awake for several moments, silent as a mouse. Even before the police informed me of their car crash, my apartment was far too quiet. I glanced at the clock. Almost midnight.

Normally, at this time, Mom would've played her Diana Ross collection as she knit and sew and Dad would be reading, the sound of him flicking his page would carry down to the hallway and snuck its way into my room. But there was no sound. Something was wrong, I automatically suspected. It was far too quiet. Then I remembered they were at a friend's function and I assumed they had not returned home yet. I frowned. They should be home at least half an hour ago. They said they would be home around 11.

Nonetheless, I brushed my suspicions as ludicrous and attempted to settle into a dreamless sleep but it was too cold. The thick blankets weren't enough. Still, I forced myself to sleep.

Five minutes seemed to pass by when the bell rang and I shot up, confused. Why was our house bell ringing at this time? But my hands scoured my nightstand blindly, searching for my glasses, then found them and jammed them onto my face.

The view of my room sharpened palpably.

I staggered over to my coat rack, grabbed a robe, and stumbled into the living room. Groggily, I yawned and saw the door to Bobby's room open as I shuffled over to the door. I yanked it open and found two men in blue uniforms standing in front of me.

My throat closed up. "S-sir?" My voice was shaking. I was always rather nervous around authorities. It was the way they looked at you, as though suspecting trouble when you already knew you didn't do anything wrong but yet you were still nervous around them.

Outside, the night had changed. It was no longer a dark, blank canvas of skies. It was a grey morning with black clouds plaguing the dawn. The stocky one on the right adjusted his glasses and spoke tonelessly: "Good Morning." It was not. "Are you David and Genevive Emerson's daughter? I am Detective Longhold. And this is my partner, Detective Sharp. We're officers from the NYPD."

I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes, my vision adjusting. "What's...what's wrong?"

"We are sorry to inform you but your parents had died in a car accident on the way home tonight."

My blood went cold. I was numb, staring at them vacantly with shock. The incoherent sentences were stuck in my gullet. The rest of the events flowed past me like water over a rock in a gentle stream: the description of how they died, the lights, the bloodcurdling sirens, the faked condolences, the funeral...especially the funeral. It was a sordid affair. But I was barely paying attention as my cousin Hadley clasped my hand and fixed her gaze upon the two coffins about to be lower down into the ground for eternity and beyond.

This couldn't be happening. I refused to believe it.

And yet it was.

And it was all because of them.

[a year later.]

The smell of roses always reminded me of death.

I close my eyes and squeeze out the painful night from my memory, the lids of my eyes scrunching in. I have to stand upright to stop myself from collapsing and breaking down in tears. My dress is suffocating me, enclosing tautly on my waist as I play with the edges of the tear-stained letter I've written to say to their graves on the first year anniversary of their death. The words are now inky, barely articulate as the salty water from my eyes mess up the writing.

Even now I'm still trying to digest what happened, digest my parents are truly dead, and digest how they died.

According to everybody else, they've died from a car crash, due to a car hurtling into theirs in the rushing Manhattan traffic because of some exceptionally drunk underage drivers. Apparently, there were drugs and narcotics ingested in their systems when one of them- Orson Calloway- was behind the wheel, with a bunch of his friends in the car. They've all survived miraculously and they would've been imprisoned for their careless behaviours but they've escaped scot-free unscathed, with their parents paying off the judge and the jury.

I clench the sides of my letter, nails digging into the white paper, crackling it apart at just the thought of it. It makes me so angry that Orson Calloway and the rest of their inner circle are still living in their gleaming, shiny penthouses, probably laughing at the fact that they didn't have to go to jail for what they did.

It's not the first time they- he- wronged me. The first time I let it slide. You know what they say, right? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice...

...and I'll make you pay.

The first time I couldn't do anything about it, especially with Orson's money and status. Especially with the way he and his friends snuff out the weak like fodder. I was a coward, not finding any courage to stand up to him for what he'd done. I used to have a little brother. Atticus was the sweetest little brother you could have. My lips twist into a bitter smile at the reminder of Atticus. Atticus always had a bit of difficulty fitting in- well, to be fair, we both did.

When it came to the status quo of Kensington Prep, it was one thing to have money but it was another to have power. In New York, everybody had money. It was the most expensive city in the United States- a working class lifestyle would not survive here. So it wasn't money that the losers, dorks and scum of Kensington lacked. It was power. Power was everything in the world of Kensington...but to understand power, we must understand the game it liked to play.

And power is simply a game of illusion, a game of appearances.

And in Kensington's world, Atticus had no currency in that game.

Atticus was dorky, with glasses too large to fit his face and thick, chunky braces that catch the light of the sun. He liked comic books and anime, he enjoyed Harry Potter and attended activities such as Models United Nations and various other academic clubs nobody with a social agenda would be caught dead in. He was never 'cool'- whatever the hell that meant- and he made himself a target.

Orson Calloway was Atticus's opposite. He was cool. The popular player, the guy who could have any girl, any guy he wants, filthy rich, invulnerable, beautiful, invincible, mean, rendering everybody's attention without lifting a finger. People praise him and worship the ground he walks on. Atticus didn't even stand a chance against Orson's hierarchy. Orson ate Atticus alive. My brother didn't stand a chance.

Orson and his friends would do all that they could to cause life to be a living hell for Atticus. They'd trip him over, tear out the pages of his books, put dog shit inside his locker...it was all until Atticus couldn't take it. So he signed a note and imbibed a whole bottle of hydrocodone. He was only twelve when he committed suicide. I was fourteen. I'd never left my room for a week after his suicide, reading his suicide note over and over, crying and cursing Orson Calloway's name, cursing them. An image of a disillusioned fourteen year old clutching Atticus's notes, wondering what happened to my little brother and thinking about what a shit older sister I was. How could I've never noticed how tortured Atticus was? Living a life where he must've thought he was worthless, facing bullies such as Orson Calloway and I've never once checked on him, assure he was okay? How was I at all a supportive sister? Now it was too late and I regretted all the things I wish I said, things to help him realize there's other ways out.

It's all because of Orson Fucking Calloway. All because of them and their stupid mind games.

My blood burns at the meddling thought of Orson Calloway. Orson Calloway and his merry band of elevated rich kids with inflated egos and an affinity of fucking somebody else's life apart. It boils my blood that he can get away with everything he wants- it's mind-crushingly unfair. He has money, the looks, the charm, the number one representative of the top one percent...he could get away with anything, really. Even murder. I have no doubts.

And he did- twice.

Before my brother's death, I guess I sort of admired him from afar. Dark hair, ice-blue eyes and a body toned to perfection: the epitome of every teenage girl's- or boy's-wet dream. But I was also well aware of his flings and doubtful behaviours, I was also well aware that he'd never date- much less notice- someone like me. Someone who wears ugly chunky glasses, someone who keeps their head down and passes out their math homework. Someone who he never glances at for once, someone who always manages to escape his periphery...so it was my perfect fantasy, something I just imagined at the back of my head. A shameful secret I tend to, like a garden I hide behind tall walls.

Until Atticus died from the overdose and I found out Orson Calloway was the culprit. His name was mentioned so many times in Atticus's letter, highlighted in neon yellow, repeated over and over in the sentences. He pretty much held the gun to Atticus's head.

I never did anything about it, though. I was too chicken, too scared to go against him. Too powerful, too popular, too strong. How could someone like me be any kind of formidable threat against Orson Calloway?

He and his friends would burn me alive. Without a second thought or consequence.

So I stood by the distance, quietly hating him, quietly cursing him. But I never did anything, because I was too afraid of what he could do to me. He drove Atticus to a point of no return and I was afraid he would do the same to me. Or worse.

But not after taking the lives of my parents and getting away with it without so much of a scratch. My hazel eyes ignite with determination as I run a hand through my black locks and I start to piece together a perfect plan for revenge. But don't you think this is a light-hearted tale of basic schemes to humiliate Orson Calloway. I'll cause him the pain the same way he'd cause mine.

Orson Calloway got away with murder.

And so will I.

a few things will be rewritten just to iron out inconsistencies and beef up the background to match the ending. hope you enjoy this newer installment of blood on the leaves (i can't believe i've been writing this since 2016).