MICHELLE

      IT WAS AUGUST 31ST, 2004 and I have only been in this house for two days, yet I am somehow already bored out of my mind.

I should be out exploring the city, maybe meeting a few people so that when I start school tomorrow I won't be completely alone, but I can't because my mom refuses to let me out of the house.

I hate it.

I know she thinks she is helping me, but all she is doing is leaving me alone to sit with the same thoughts that have been circling through my head since February and cursing my every movement.

My dad thought moving in with my mom—in a completely new country—would help me with everything I've been going through. Yet here I am sitting in my new bed, with my new sheets, in my new room staring at the blank wall across from me with all my old thoughts.

I tried not to think about it—everything that's happened in the last seven months—but it was hard because it was like my mind was hardwired to only think about it.

With a slight shiver, I wrapped my arms around my body, pulling my sweater tighter against my body. Hoping that it would do its job to keep me warm.

Letting out a frustrated groan, I pulled myself out of my thoughts and let my eyes wander around my room. My eyes had drifted away from the wall and fell onto the box of photos that I had brought with me, the photo that had caused my minor panic attack moments ago now sitting on the floor crushed into a ball.

It was a simple photo that I had taken of my best friend Chandler a little over a year ago, the week before we started tenth grade when she held a funeral for her goldfish that died because her brother's cat had knocked his bowl off of her table then grabbed it and ran.

But looking into the blonde's sparkling blue eyes as she smiled up at me through the camera made my stomach twist into knocks that I knew deep down would never untie.

There are only four months between August twenty-fifth and January first—one hundred and twenty days.

I don't know how things changed so much in such a short time.

And the worst part about it is knowing that it was my fault.

I was the reason my best friend died because I was too wrapped up in my own world to notice hers falling apart.

"Michelle!" my body slightly jumped in surprise as my door flung open and a tall red head appeared in my door frame. It took a second for my eyes to adjust to the sudden burst of light, as they did my mom took it upon herself to walk further into my room "Jesus, you scared me." She sighed in relief, placing a hand on her heart. "I've been calling you for the past five minutes."

She has? "Sorry, I didn't hear you." I grumbled, not in the mood to humor the woman.

The past few months my mom has been noticeably more interested in my life and I'm ninety percent sure it's because my dad asked her to be. I mean, there is no way it's a coincidence that the woman who never said a word to me from the ages of two to eight finally decided she wanted to be a parent right around the time my best friend—a girl who was practically my sister—died.

I did want to believe it was because she loved me and actually wanted to talk to me, but I'm not naive.

"Declan and I are heading out to the store." She glanced down at the boxes scattered across the floor. "Do you want anything?"

Now that the door was open and I was focused back on real world sounds I could hear my younger siblings—Maeve and Finn—arguing about something down the hall.

I shook my head.

"You sure?" she asked, using her classic 'worried mother' eyes that I'm still not used to.

I nodded "Yeah, I'm sure. I have to focus on unpacking right now."

The woman looked me up then down before letting out a sigh and turning to exit my room "Alright, hun. If you change your mind, call me."

"Okay."

Then she left and I drifted back into my thoughts.

AUTHOR TALKS!!
I rewrote the prologue and idk about you guys but I like this version better.