“Dashing through the snow, on a one horse open slay. Over the hills we go. Laughing all the way, haha *cough cough cough*” Dad started coughing violently.

“Dad?” I jerked my head up at the sound of him coughing. It was the day before Christmas Eve, dad and I were driving to grandma's house for Christmas like we do every year. “Pull over! Are you okay?” Dad has been sick for as long as I can remember, him coughing means that something is very wrong.

*cough cough COUGH*

There was blood on his hand.

“Oh,” Dad said, looking at his hand like there was some foreign creature sitting there. Dad’s eyes rolled into the back of his head. The car started sliding on the ice on the way down the bridge.

“Dad! Dad! Wake up, please!” I panicked as we gained speed. Two-thirds of the way down the bridge, we hit the curb and went twisting into the air. The car hit the ground sending me and dad flying forward, nearly slamming my head on the dashboard. The car kept rolling, sending glass flying everywhere. 

Some people say that time slows down, but it seemed like time was only speeding up. Dad was now limp like a ragdoll next to me, glass had cut him many times, some deep, smearing blood all over his face and shirt. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I just wanted this nightmare to be over.

The car stopped rolling and I was upside down. I looked over at dad and let out a cry. He was mangled. Glass was stuck in the skin of his face and legs and arms, blood slowly flowing out of every cut. I unbuckled and crawled through the window ignoring the glass cutting my knees and hands. I couldn’t see out of my right eye. I looked back and saw the bridge thirty or forty feet away. I stumbled to the driver's side and pulled dad out through the window. His black graying hair was tangled and bloodied. The blank stare of his black eyes made me tremble in fear. He wasn’t breathing.

I put my ear to his chest and heard nothing. I took off his coat and listened again. 

Nothing.

“No, please, no.” I sobbed into dad’s motionless chest.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------—

I gasped jolting up in my bed, tears falling into my lap after the dream. The car crash was two weeks ago now. The silence made my ears ring. I threw off the covers and wiped my eyes and cheeks. Getting out of bed I walked down the hall taking a left down the stairs, continuing to the kitchen.

“What are you doing up Miss Amaya?” Mr. Marson asked as I passed him. He was sitting on a stool reading some papers. His brown hair was slightly messy, his face wrinkled from the many years of smiling.

“Just a bad dream.” I said trying to avoid any details. I already re-lived the worst experience of my life once tonight.

“Was it the same dream again?” I only ever told him once about the dream I had. Even then, all I told him was I watched dad die again.

“Yea. I couldn’t fall back asleep so I came down for a quick snack.” I responded, my voice tired.

Mr. Marson looked sad. “I’m here if you ever need someone to talk to.”

“Thanks,” I said, trying my best to not start  crying again. Stupid tears. Quickly grabbing some gram crackers, I said, “Good night Mr. Marson.”

“Good night Miss Amaya.” I caught a glimpse of him smiling sadly as I headed up the stairs.

_ -  _   The Next Day   _ -  _

I woke up to my alarm blaring rooster noises. With a big sigh, I stretched as far as I could before sitting up. Slowly getting out of bed, I headed to the bathroom. Taking a quick shower and drying my hair, I changed into my school uniform. The shirt has short sleeves, and dark blue lining the hems of the shirt, contrasting the white. The pants are made of a light fabric, light gray in color. My tennis shoes are white with gray linings. It hardly ever snowed here, the benefit of living in Palm Beach, Florida.

Dressed for school I packed my bag with my school books and homework. I headed down stairs and put my bag by the door. 

“Good morning Miss Amaya.” A young woman with dark brown hair greeted me. Her green eyes shining with a happy laughter. She has tan skin with lean muscles and a tall frame.

“Good morning Lexi, how are you today?” I asked.

“‘I’m great! I made breakfast for you.” Lexi said with a smile.

“Thank you Lexi. '' I replied gratefully.

Sitting at the island in the kitchen, I started eating the eggs and ham Lexi prepared when Mr. Marson entered the room. “Good morning Miss Amaya, are you riding your bike again today? Or do you want me to drive you?”

“I’ll be riding my bike. Thank you though.” I said.  I could ask Mr. Marson to drive me to school, but I wasn’t a big fan of cars. The car felt like a cage since the car crash.

“Of course. Have a good day at school.” Mr. Marson said heading toward the stairs.

“Thank you, you too.” I said with a smile.

“Have a good day Miss Amaya!” Lexi said as enthusiastically as always.

“Thank you. Have a good day, see you later.” I smiled.

Heading out the door, I grabbed my bag and went to the garage to get my bike. Kicking the stand up, I hopped on and started on my way to school. As I glided along the familiar roads, I started thinking about what had happened after the car crash. I was told that Mr. Marson would be my legal guardian until the Will was found and read. Grandma is too old now to look after a child, even a 16-almost-17-year-old child. They had pronounced dad dead at the scene, putting him in a body bag and setting him in the back of a truck. 

There is now a long scar running down the right side of my face. It starts an inch above my eyebrow and ends at my cheekbone.  The doctors had said that I was lucky to be alive, let alone walking and running. We were all shocked that I healed so fast. My eye could open and I could still see perfectly fine, despite the odds. That was the only reason I was allowed to go to school just two weeks after the crash. I have always enjoyed studying, but I wasn’t a huge fan of school. The other kids always gave me weird looks, which I could ignore, but it still got on my nerves.

Cruising onto the sidewalk to the school entrance, I hid my bike behind the thorny hedge. There are not a lot of thieves here, but the ‘cool’ kids group liked to-

“Well, well, well. Look who decided to show up.”

Sigh, great, even before school starts. I turned to the school entrance to try to avoid the boy that the voice came from.

“Well? Aren't you going to greet me?”

“Hello Alec.” I said in the sweetest voice I could manage, turning to face him.

“Whoa, what happened to your face?” Alec Fireheart looked shocked, his dark orange-almost-brown eyes wide and crimson brows pulled up.

“Car crash.” I said, the annoyance creeping into my voice.

“Is everything okay?” Alec almost sounded panicked.

Hah! “Since when do you care?” Alec has made fun of me for eight years, since we were in the fourth grade. Back then he was shorter than me by at least six inches. He had long reddish-orange hair and bright orange eyes. Now he was more than a half a foot taller, his hair had darkened to a deep crimson color. His eyes became sharper, it was now like looking into a fiery pit. With all his baby fat finally gone, you could see all the muscles he had built up over the years.

As I turned and walked away, I heard a heavy sigh behind me. After all these years of making fun of me and treating me like scum, he finally realizes that I can get hurt too. Maybe he will finally leave me alone. Oh, how I was wrong.

As I entered the school, I saw my school adviser sitting in the lobby. She had her hair in her usual loose braid hanging over her shoulder, and some papers on her lap. She looked up as I greeted her.

“Good morning Ms. Meehan. How are you today? Do you need something?” Her green eyes flashed with surprise when she saw me. 

“I’m good. I was wanting to talk to you about your classes for the next few weeks or so. Let's head to my office.” She said standing up. She is a lot shorter than me, maybe 5’4’’.

“Sure,” I knew that she would be wanting to talk about how my dad's death would affect my school work.

Walking into her office she sat behind her desk. I sat in one of the two chairs in front of her desk. Looking around I saw that she had a few pictures on her walls. One picture was of a phoenix. Two other pictures were of different forests, and the last picture was of a black dragon sitting on a rock in the middle of the ocean. The dragon had wings twice the size of its body and it had golden eyes. It was beautiful. 

I looked at Ms. Meehan when she started talking. “I’m sorry to hear about the loss of your father. I know you loved each other very much.” Ms. Meehan’s kind eyes were filled with a soft sadness. She had brought the papers that were in her lap and put them on the desk.

I looked at my lap. Don’t cry!  “Thank you very much.”

“I know that it is hard, and if you need to take time off from school that’s okay. I am meeting with you to set a plan so you don’t fall behind on your school work.”

“I would like to attend and complete school normally, if I could.”

“I know that you love to work and study, but are you sure that is okay?”

“Yes,” I told her, my mind made up.

“Okay, just know I am always here if you ever need anything, alright? Please let me know how you are doing every once in a while.” Ms. Meehan is my favorite person at school because she never says something she doesn’t mean.

“I will. Thank you. I have to head to class now. Have a good day.” I said as I heard the first bell ringing through the school halls.

“You too, Amaya.” She said while smiling gently.

 _ -  _   Some Time Later   _ -  _

Class had already started as I walked into my homeroom causing everyone to notice my late attendance. I walked to the back and hung my jacket on the chair ignoring the stares. I could hear the faint whispers of my classmates like they were talking at their normal volume due to my sensitive hearing.

“Did you see the scar on her face? What do you think happened?”

“I heard that her dad died in a car crash on Christmas.”

“She might think that scar makes her look cool but it just makes her look like a wannabe.”

Oh great. The last comment was made by the most popular girl in school, Makaila Mccormick. I had honestly expected this kind of reaction. I was a weirdo and a nerd in most people's eyes. My hair is pure white all the way down to my knees, and my eyes are bright blue with a singular circle of gold on the rim of my eyes. I have a birthmark the size of a cutie in the shape of a diamond in the middle of my forehead. On top of all that, I’m 6’2’’, taller than every girl in the school, as well as a majority of the boys. I also have all A’s, and I almost always get the award for the highest grade in the class.

Adding all of this together and you get people that either think that I look strange, or they get jealous. I often get glares or hear snickers as I walk in the halls, but I don’t really care. I learned that it really didn’t matter what people thought. It’s not like I can change their minds.

Just as I was sitting down, I noticed that Mr. Johnson had put down the marker he was using for the white board and was looking at me. “I am so sorry about your father Amaya. Let me know if you need any time to yourself or if you need anything, okay?”

“Thank you Mr. Johnson,” I replied with a small smile, trying to ignore the other students looking at me. “I’ll be attending class as usual for now. I’ll just be absent on Monday for the funeral.”

“Of course.” Mr. Johnson was my favorite teacher. He cared about each and every one of his students. The only downside is that he never got the hint to say stuff like that in private and not in front of the entire class.

The rest of the school day went by in a similar fashion. In every class my teachers would express their grievances for my father at some point. My father was a large contributor to the donations for the school, so most everyone knew him. Every time that this happened, I would see people look at me with sadness or pity in their eyes. When school was finally out, I packed my bag and headed for my bike outside.

“Amaya! Amaya, wait!” I heard Alec’s voice call behind me. A few people turned to see what the commotion was, but I continued without bothering to acknowledge him. I knew that he would catch up to me at some point. “Hey, slow down would you? I want to talk to you. It’ll only take a second.” Alec was walking next to me now, matching my walk stride by stride.

Sigh, “What do you want Alec?” My tone was snippier than I had meant for it to be. It was a long slow day of easy school work again.

“I’m sorry about this morning. That wasn’t cool of me.”

“It’s fine. Now please excuse me.”

“Wait! I really am sorry, but… What happened?” He looked genuinely concerned about me. Weird.

“Like I said, a car crash.” You’d think he would know to leave it be. I just want to go home already! I wasn’t trying to be rude, but I could feel the tears on the edge of my eyes. First my dad died, then my bully won't shut up about it.

“Let me walk you home.” I spun to face him when he said this.

“Why? Why are you suddenly trying to be nice after 8 years of bullying and mocking me?”

Alec looked shocked at what I said. “Bullying?! I may have teased you a little bit, but I don’t think I ever said anything bad or mean…?”

“Really?” I asked with one brow raised. You have called me so many names, stolen my lunch from dad, pushed me around, and helped to make sure that not a single person would be my friend.

“I’m sorry if I ever said or did anything rude or hurtful,” Alec apologized looking at the ground.

I squinted my eyes at him and sighed before I said, “It might take some time to fully forgive you. Just a fair warning. That said, do you still want to come?” He was smiling from ear to ear when I said this. It’s like he just got the best Christmas present ever. Why do I always have to be so forgiving?!