It was dark in the room; I loved it dark, especially at times like this. I had barely come home from my father’s house in Salt Lake City, Utah, and hadn’t seen my mother and grandparents in nearly 3 months. I had told myself that I missed them and wanted to stay at their house rather than go to my father’s house, but now I had reconsidered that thought. I was lying on the bathroom floor for about 10 to 15 minutes now when she heard light footsteps coming my way.
“Regan? Regan where are you!?” The sound of the footsteps started fading away. “Conan, are you sure Regan went upstairs?”
“Yes, I’m positive.”
“Ah, well then. She’ll come out sooner or later.”
She was right, and I knew that she was right, no matter how much I refused to believe it. I couldn’t stay locked up in the bathroom forever. There’s a life waiting out there for me to live, but for right now I’ll be stuck in a bathroom until things die down a little.
      I waited for a few minutes to really make sure she had gone back downstairs. A few minutes morphed into half an hour as I listened to my music, blaring through my coal red headphones. I gently picked my face up off the carpet, which had left a nasty red imprint on my cheek, my face stained with dry tears. My light brown hair was an absolute mess, but I was not in the mood to brush it. I had to get away, and if it wasn’t quick I didn’t know what would happen. I picked up my phone and made sure the song I was listening to was put on repeat, because it was a perfect resemblance of how I felt. “Monster” by Skillet, because I felt so much like a monster, ripping families and bonds apart like pieces of paper. My finger gravitated towards my volume button and raised it as high as allowed. I liked the music high with the over-the-head-type of head phones, because you can’t hear anything around you, just peace, quiet and your own thoughts are allowed past. My hand reached for the doorknob as I slowly unlocked the door, hoping that no one would hear. As luck would have it, everything was silent around me, and I slowly crept out of my room and halfway down the stairs before I finally got the guts to, literally, bolt out the front door and onto the sidewalk next to our house. I knew I was bound to be punished later for running away, but it was kind of like a spur of the moment thing; nothing matters but what you planned on doing anyway. I paused just for a second to let my brain catch up with my body, but then an old wrinkly hand started opening the front door, which I happened to be staring at right then and I was not about to confront her so I ran. I always knew I could run well. I ran for passion, I ran for competition, but when you’re running from someone, you get a whole new “push”. As soon as I saw that hand, I ran like it was the zombie apocalypse. I didn’t know where I was going, since I barely moved to San Antonio, Texas, and I didn’t care. I just ran.
      I ran up the hills in our crowded neighborhood for a good 10 minutes before I came to a fork in the road. Agreed, I was running away, but I knew I didn’t want to go too far, because I didn’t want to get lost, so I turned right, which just led to a neighboring neighborhood. As I turned the corner, I started to slow my pace down to a normal walk. All the memories of past month started crowding my mind like Wal-Mart on Christmas Eve. All the fights, all the arguments, all the threats. Then I started to wander back further than just a month. Everything started when I was 8 years-old. My parents got divorced, and everything crashed and burned from there. There were always fights between Mom and Dad and other family members and relationships were never really close with anyone in the family. My mom and her parents always tried their best to get along with my sisters and brother, but when came to me, I was that one girl nobody noticed they left behind at the park-alone. Which I didn’t mind, because most times I tried to get some alone time without kids screaming and yelling or nagging or pulling or whatever else young annoying siblings do, but Heaven forbid I ever got alone time, because when I did, I got yelled at for avoiding “family time”. I could literally feel the anger boiling up inside of me. “Well, at least I’ll finally get my alone time now,” I thought.
It was amazing how discriminated people’s homes can be. Different colored bricks, different colored and shaped cars, and some of the weirdest, and creepiest, looking yard decorations I’d ever seen. I kept walking and suddenly looked at the time on my phone. 8:24 P.M. It had been about an hour and a half since I was in the bathroom on the floor.
“Wow, it was later than I thought,” I said while looking up at the dark sky. “I’d better head back now.”
I couldn’t help but release a heavy sigh. The idea of going back didn’t really sound appealing to me, but what choice do I really have? Surprisingly, it didn’t take me long to get back home and that’s when I realized I had been walking in circles for almost 2 hours. When I got home, nobody was there; the house was completely deserted. That’s when I noticed a note on the dining room table in nice cursive handwriting:
Hey, honey. Your brother had a science fair tonight, and he begged us all to go. There are some left overs in the fridge if you’re hungry and if there’s an emergency we’ll just be at the school. Oh, and don’t mind your grandmother. She came with us and she really didn’t mean it. I trust that you just need some time to cool off so just settle down at home, but don’t destroy the house. Love you!!!!                 -Mom         
Right and she didn’t mean all the outbursts and hurtful words aimed at me for the last month and a half. I was being ornery and was not about to eat Grandma Alanna’s cooking, so I just cooked myself macaroni and cheese. I took my bowl full of cheesy deliciousness and sat on the couch to watch a movie. As I was skimmed through the DVD case, I saw a movie I got a while back but never watched.
“Hmm…Second Chances. I like that title.” I plopped the disc into the DVD player as it ate up and displayed the contents onto the huge flat screen T.V.
      The movie was about a girl whose leg is severely injured while in a car accident that costs her father’s life. She and her mother move to the country where Sunny, the main character, gets a chance to meet a horse, Ginger, who also had an injured leg. After reluctantly agreeing to let the girl ride the stir crazy horse, the owner of the horse ranch, Ben, decides to teach Sunny how to barrel race, just like all the other girls he’s teaching. After a tragic fall, with the horse landing on her already injured leg, Sunny is ok and able to get back on the horse, having a second chance  to ride and win a barrel racing competition.
      The movie was really enjoyable; I just couldn’t believe I hadn’t watched it sooner. 10:57 P.M. It’s almost eleven and they still weren’t back. On any other occasion, I would’ve just gone to bed not caring, but after watching that kind movie I felt really kind-hearted and felt the need to check on everyone. I set off on the journey of an eight minute walk to my school.
“Wait.” Realization struck. “They probably left for the science fair almost right after I ran off. So that means they’ve been at the school for almost four hours!” I started to worry and picked up my pace just a bit. Science fairs didn’t last up to four hours, or at least mine didn’t. By the time I got to the school parking lot, I had almost broken out into a run. Much to my dismay, there were still a lot of cars in the parking lot, making it harder to find our aqua blue Honda van, so I just decided to call Mom.
“RIIING. RIIING. RIIING. RIIING. RII-”
I hung up. I knew that if Mom didn’t pick up when it got to the fourth ring, she wasn’t going to pick up at all.  After another few minutes of searching I finally found the van, so I knew they were still inside. Hesitantly, I went through the big glass doors of the school building. I really didn’t feel like having to confront my grandma again, but I had a really bad feeling about this. I suspected that the science fair would be held in the gym, so I walked steadily over there. It wasn’t too big of a gymnasium, but it sure was crowded. If every empty space wasn’t filled in with science boards or projects, it was filled with people of all ages. From little children to babies to teenagers to grown adults you name it. I knew I was on a “mission”, but no one said I couldn’t stop to admire all the neat projects little sixth graders made. The projects varied from the most commonly known papier-mâché, tomato sauce spitting volcanos to some really weird projects like the size variation between a human heart and a giraffe heart. Yet again, I was sent on another search for my kin, which took me another little while. I finally regrouped with my family, and we continued our sightseeing expedition.
“Wait, so you guys are barely getting started with the science fair?” I asked puzzled.
“Yeah, we haven’t been here for that long. Where have you been?” Mom replied even more confused.
“I just went for a little walk around the neighborhood. I didn’t go far.” I mentioned while trying to avoid eye contact and majorly failing at trying not to blush in embarrassment. I don’t know why that got on my nerves, but it did.
“Oh, well, I hope you had fun on your walk.” She smiled at me so innocently it stung.
It’s like she didn’t even remember what had happened. Maybe…..
“Hey, Mom? When did you write this note?” I asked, pulling out the note she had left on the table for me. I didn’t know why I had put it in my pocket.
“What note? Huh, when did I write that? Hmm…looks like my writing….” She said while thoroughly examining the note. She obviously didn’t know what was going on.
“So you really don’t remember writing the note? What about…” can’t believe I was going to bring this up, “Mine and grandma’s fight or my running away?”
“I thought you said you were just going on a walk. You didn’t tell me you ran away!!! Why would you and grandma fight? She absolutely loves you! Regan, what’s goi-“
There was an odd smell that was almost intoxicating, that was roaming around the room. It smelled like a chemistry experiment gone wrong. Finally, the smell caught up to me and soon everything around me was engulfed in pure blackness as I felt my body and mind go limp.
      It was dark in the room; I loved it dark, but not at times like these. It had only been about a week or so since I got back from her father’s house in Salt Lake City, Utah and hadn’t seen my amazing Mom and  beloved grandparents in almost 3 months! Although I loved my Dad, I was overjoyed to be at home with my mother. I hopped out of bed enthusiastically and went over to her mom’s bed to hug her and wish her good morning, then went to her grandma’s room to do the same. I skipped down the stairs to help her younger siblings get some breakfast for the big adventures that wait for them on a beautiful Saturday morning like this one. Something had been troubling me though.
“This doesn’t seem right. Something’s definitely not right.” I thought to myself. It felt different, like it wasn’t supposed to be this way, life I mean. Hadn’t there always been like fights or something? I couldn’t tell. It was like one of those moments when you can’t tell if something was real or just a dream. No, this can’t be right. Things definitely were different. This family has never been this close, but I can’t help it, it feels odd, but the one thing I couldn’t seem to get out of my head was that movie, Second Chances.