Already Gone

Enter One

"How did she kill your sister?" 

   If Nick wasn't interested in my story before, he sure was now. I think I understood now, the whole "hook" thing my English teacher was stressing earlier. 

   Too bad I wouldn't find a hook for my essay that was as good as the one I just used on Nick. 

   I eyed Nick, debating if I really wanted to tell him. I was even skeptical to tell Callie and Arizona the truth about what happened to Stella and here I was, about to tell someone I hardly knew?

"I don't want to tell you," I felt myself start to tear up and directed my eyes away from Nick and settling them on Arizona's comforting ones instead. 

"Summer," Nick set his water aside and leaned forward on the table, "Don't you see? Something like this could easily knock your mother's argument out of the water."

   I shrugged, "I don't tell anybody what happened."

"I'm not just anybody though," Nick reasoned, "I'm the person who has to convince everyone that you are better off with Callie and Arizona. That you would be safer with them."

"She's just going to point out that it was my fault too," I mumbled, "And she's not wrong..."

   Nick sighed softly, "Summer...you're what? Fourteen?"

   I nodded and looked down at my fingers as I started picking at my nails.

"You're a child," Nick stressed, "She's a grown woman...a mother of two...just please, tell me what happened."

   I looked up and over at Callie who gave me an encouraging nod. Taking a deep breath, I tried to calm my racing heart, never having told this story out loud before.

"It was a Wednesday...I know because Stella's favourite cartoon was always on TV on Wednesdays," I flinched slightly at her name, "It was over the summer break too...so we were both at home."

   I stopped when I noticed that Nick was jotting something down on his notepad with his pen. My hands started to shake so I quickly tucked them underneath my legs. 

"We...we went to the park that morning to meet up with her friend. Elyse," I squinted my eyes slightly, "And there was an ice cream truck there...and I remember Elyse's mom was nice enough to buy us all ice cream because I didn't have any money with me."

   Nick's pen was no longer moving so I figured that he thought that the ice cream detail wasn't important. I didn't care though because even if he didn't think so, every little detail of that day was important. That was the last day Stella was alive. 

"Around noon, we walked home," I went on, my voice beginning to tremble, "When we got home, I made us lunch and I let her watch TV while she ate...she was really excited about that."

The pen remained still.

"After lunch, she wanted to keep playing, but I was too tired," I bit my lip and blinked rapidly, trying to hold the tears back, "The night before, my mother had come home in the middle of the night...high I think...drunk too."

   I stopped, unsure if I wanted to keep talking. 

"Did she do that often?" Nick asked after a beat, "Come home like that?"

"I guess," I replied and shifted my weight from side to side, feeling the pressure come and go on each hand, "She'd be gone for days, sometimes weeks at a time but she'd almost always return like that."

"So what happened that night?" Nick questioned me gently.

   I closed my eyes as an image of my mother screaming suddenly popped into my mind. Her eyes were angry and her arms were flailing around as her fingers jabbed in my direction.