Today is Sunday, my favorite day out of the whole week. I left home on a Sunday, packed my stuff and left nothing but a sticky note on the fridge saying ‘its time for me to leave; love Francine.’ They were going to move to Oregon anyway they don’t want me to tag along. They know my cell phone number I’ve never got any calls from them, they never worried about me. That Sunday morning was my last time in that ugly gray house I couldn’t stand it. That was my last time walking out that door smelling the flower tree by the stairs. Flowers are supposed to smell sweet those flowers smelled gross and always made me gag. That morning was a good morning for me. I was eighteen and ready to leave, I guess they knew that because nobody came running after me to drag me back inside. It was the first day I felt like I can do anything I want to do.

I moved in with a friend in downtown Seattle. She is my best friend there was no fighting, only when one of us were in the shower and the other doing the potty dance outside of the door. There was no asking, “Can you pay half of the rent,” she knew I never had a job, so she never bothered asking. But when I did get a job at that stupid coffee shop I used to love, until I was there everyday, seven days a week.

Then after going through jobs like I do sticks of gum, I was finally able to save enough money to get my own apartment overlooking the city, its nice. Feels good to be out of downtown, away from all the noise. I loved the city but got sick of it.
One day when I was out I walked past a pet store that had the cutest dogs I’ve ever seen. I decided to go in and look at them, when I asked one of the workers how much one of the dogs were. And I told myself i am not going to pay that much for a dog. So I said, “bye, have a good day” to the nice lady, and walked out of the tick infested store.
After that I decided to go to the local dog shelter and save a dog. As I was walking down the hall looking at all of the helpless dogs in the kennels, I found a small puppy, a small fluffy German Shepard. I named him Max, and got him a blue collar, and matching dog bowls for his water and food. His tiny and too fluffy to be a puppy, his fur feels softer than a teddy bear, and he smells better than a baby covered in baby lotion. Max is the best puppy anybody can ask for, well he may accidentally pee where his not supposed to, but that’s a puppy’s job isn’t it. One day while walking max on a sunny spring day, there was a lot of airplanes flying overhead and that’s when I said to myself “I wish I could fly airplanes” then and there I decided I wanted to be a pilot. There was nothing saying I couldn’t fly airplanes. So why not, I went for it. I eventually got my pilots license. I don’t fly people just yet, or cargo, just myself. Flying is everything I imagined it to be. On your own in the sky just feels amazing, looking down at the ground everything looks like toys, toy cars moving themselves, tiny people you can barley see, and Lego buildings, like the ones my brother used to build when we were kids.
But back to now, I am now twenty, and max is now two and as big as his going to get, and now takes up more than half of my bed rather than just the corner. But I don’t mind it. I occasionally get a call from my grandma, she’s like the only part of the family ill actually talk to, she doesn’t know that I just got up and moved out of my parents house without saying goodbye to them. We don’t really take when she calls we just sit there in awkward silences like there’s a bomb built into the chips in the phone and were just waiting for it to detonate. Then out of all the quiet, her little old lady voice says “its time for me to head to bed, goodnight sweetie,” “okay grandma, I love you,” I say quietly.

She must be lonely in that big house by herself without my grandpa. Last time I visited her I was sixteen, most of the time I think to myself, in this empty big head of mine ‘shouldn’t I go and visit her its been forever since we’ve seen eachother i am the only grandchild that likes being with her and talking to her.’ Sometimes I decide that imp going to go and visit her, then I keep putting it off now I say to myself ‘ill eventually go and visit her.’

I got a job flying passengers and mail from Seattle to little towns in Oregon. I’m not experienced enough to be flying those huge jets, and I don’t want to either, these little planes are just fine. Sometimes landing in Oregon, I think about my mom and if I should pick up a phone or not, while i'm there i'm flying back and forth and I haven’t picked up a phone yet to at least say, “hi mom, I love you, I miss you.” She’s probably not even home a lot, she likes to travel and drive to places she’s never been. I guess id be doing that if I was her too, she never traveled anywhere at all when she was growing up. She was cooped up in grandma’s house. I now realize why she always took us on family vacations like every other month, and take us on random day trips that turn into week trips during the summer.
Its Friday I’m not going to fly tonight. So I call up my best friend, and we go out to dinner together, when we were just finished eating she asked “have you talked with your parents lately,” “not yet,” I answered, while poking at the food that’s still left on my plate. She asks me more questions but im not listening, I have that feeling like your trying to sleep while every ones in the same room and still trying to talk to you. She waves her hand in front of me waking me from my space out, and asks “are you ready to go,” “yeah, I guess,” I answer slowly. While she was driving me home she asks another million more questions, one of them was “do they know your flying now?” I didn’t answer her, then I just noticed nobody in my family knows, maybe I should tell them, I know they would be proud, happy, and no longer disappointed in me, well everyone except my mom. I can see an image of my mom shaking her head at me, and asking me “why don’t you have a husband yet, and kids.” I never wanted that at all. I snap out of the image in my head, and look out the window, and watch the streets light flash by. She pulls into the parking lot, I thank her for the ride home, and as I get out she says “Francine…give your parents a call.” “Yeah. I will.” I say slowly, and close the door. Even though I know I wont call them, I fell bad for lying to her. I really want to talk to my family, but as much as I want to, I don’t.

So it’s a new week with good weather, sunny, blue, clear skis. But Wednesday feels weird, doesn’t feel normal, like you know something is wrong, but you just don’t know what is wrong. I have one missed call on my cell phone from an unknown name. Who can it be, I try hitting redial so it will call that person back. But I get no answer. The whole day I think about who called and how curious I am to find out if they’ll call again. Now its late at night, I sit on my big blue couch watching a movie. Someone knocks loudly at my front door, my heart jumps out of my chest, I slowly walk to the door, hearing my heartbeat like its in my ears drowning out the sound of the movie. I look out the window. He looks familiar, but I think to myself ‘could that be him, it can’t be, how did he find me.’

I open the door, its him, my brother that I haven’t seen in two years. when we look at each other I can tell he was crying which was strange because he never cried in front of me before. I can feel tears roll down my cheeks, happy tears, happy to finally get to see him again. I open my mouth to talk but nothing comes out. I put my arm out and open the door for him to come in. Max runs up to him and paws at him, he pets max and sits down on the couch, he doesn’t look at me and I know something is wrong. I finally ask him how he found me, and he said Kelly told him and he tried calling but got no answer. Its quiet for a few minutes then he finally says, “Francine…mom was in a plane crash, we were in the hospital with her last night, but she didn’t make it.” I don’t know what to say or what to do but he tells me he bought me a ticket to go back with him in a few hours. All I do is nod my head, and he tells me I better start packing if we want to make it on time, again I nod my head. I slowly walk to my room and pull my bag from under the bed and put my nice clothes I never wear in it. I feel like a robot, can’t cry, can’t talk, and can’t do anything except have that blank, lost look on my face.

We leave for the airport. Everything flashes by like my life is on fast forward. Were sitting on the plane, it feels weird sitting in the passengers seat instead of the pilots seat. The plane takes off, and I relax, its really hot back here I start sweating, everything seems louder now like the little boy in front of us seems like he has a microphone in front of his mouth as his crying, and another kids is whining at their moms because their ears hurt. I can’t drown out the sounds. I put my head in my hands and close my eyes. The plane jerks to the right and the left, everybody screams, I look out the window like this isn’t happening, then the nose of the plane starts to dive toward the ground that’s thousands of feet below us, I try taking of my seat belt to run to where the pilots are and see if I can magically make the plane stop, but my seatbelt is stuck. The plane is closer to the ground; they turn it to the water. Then the nose of the plane smashes into the water, I hit my head on the seat in front of me, everything turned black. I hear a dog bark, I try opening my eyes but everything is pitch black, then I am able to get up, but I don’t feel any seats, or any people in front or behind me, then just then I run into a wall hitting my head once again, I find a light switch and flick it on. Then I realize I was sleeping, I pull out my bag from under my bed nothing was in it, and it was empty. I run to the living room to see if my brother was there but his not, then I run back to my room quickly looking for my cell phone, I check the missed calls I have, no call from an unknown name, I know I didn’t delete it.

I call my moms phone, praying to god hoping she’d answer, I hear her voice say “hello,” “mom,” I say with a scared voice, I pinch my leg while i am talking to make sure im not still sleeping. She says “What's wrong, its three in the morning,” “nothing,” I replied with a calm, relived voice, “go back to bed, I love you,” she says “I love you too,” I replied and hung up the phone. I look around the room, and say to myself with a sigh, “It was just a dream.”