One day, Amy and I decided to go to the store to buy some movies and snacks so we could hang out. Amethyst said she would spend the day with me because none of my friends wanted to hang out.

Once we get to the store, Amethyst said she was going to pick out the snacks while I go to pick out the movies. But I am a hard decider when it comes to movies. I pick out all the comedy ones because I like Amethyst’s laugh. Her laugh is a little high pitched and when she laughs really hard, she can hardly breathe, which makes me laugh really hard.

As soon as we get done paying for our movies and snacks, we quickly run out to the car to see who will get there first. Amethyst always loses because she decides to wear high heel shoes everywhere she goes. I think she is crazy, but I guess it’s a girl thing. As I’m running, I couldn’t stop smiling. Hanging out with my sister always made me happy. So once I get there, I just stand there for a few seconds trying to catch my breath. Then I turn around to brag in Amethyst’s face that I beat her to the car again, until I see her in the arms of a tall fat guy who was running from three cop cars. He pulls out a gun and points it at her. He continuously screamed at the cops “I have a person! You shoot me, I shoot her!” I was scared out of my mind. All I could hear was Amy screaming “CARTER! PLEASE! HELP ME!!”

“Hey! Let her go!” I finally screamed after realizing that he had my sister.

“Shut up!?” He screamed back. At that point I was scared and didn’t know what to say. But then I realized that I had my lucky pocket knife in my back pocket. I take that thing with me everywhere just in case things like this happen or if we get stuck in the wilderness or something.

So I pull out my knife that is about two inches long and get closer and closer to him screaming “I’ll kill you if you don’t let her go!” He again told me to shut up or he was going to shoot me. I was tempted to just throw the knife and hope that I hit the man and not Amy, but then I look at her and I see her crying and mouthing the words, “please don’t Carter… Please…” So I put my knife down and hope that nothing happens to her.

The cops pile out of the car and point their guns at the man holding Amethyst. They kept telling him to let her go, or they would shoot. But he wouldn’t let her go. He kept screaming at the cops to put their guns down or he was going to shoot her. The cops looked at me crying, and they put their guns down. But the tall man was scared too, and accidentally pulled the trigger on his gun, shooting Amy right in the head. He let her drop to the floor and we watched her blood gush out of her head.

“AMY!!!!!” I screamed. I started cursing at him for killing my sister. He pointed the gun at me and told me that I was just asking for trouble. As he gets close to shooting me, the police men run up to the man and five police men pinned the man to the floor. They ripped the gun out of his hands and stuck him in the police car. A few other cops were looking at Amethyst to check if she was really dead or not. And yet, all I was doing and all I could do was just sit on the floor screaming and crying. A woman police officer came up to me and was trying to calm me down, saying that everything would be ok and that they were going to take Amy to the emergency room. But that didn’t change anything about how I was feeling.

“MY SISTER IS DEAD! HOW CAN YOU TELL ME EVERYTHING WILL BE OK!?” I screamed at her. They put me in a separate police car and they put Amy in an ambulance and rushed us both to the emergency room. As they were putting me in the car, I was trying to break free from their force to rush to Amethyst, but they wouldn’t let me go. They said they wanted me to calm down in a separate car. So as they stuck me in the back, I was trying to break out of it, but the back of cop cars have no door opener inside. I was pretty much trapped back there. I pushed my hands and face up to the window screaming “AMY!!! AAAMMYY!!!!”

As soon as we got to the hospital and the police officers let me out of the car, I rushed in to the emergency room as fast as I could. I was running around the hospital like a mad man looking for my sisters. Finally, I nurse came up to me and asked who I was look for.

“Amethyst Jones! My sister!” I was rushing the woman telling her that I needed to see her right away.

The nurse took me to the room Amy was in. But she was walking very slowly. But as soon as we got to her room, I ran in super fast. I saw my parents both crying really loudly. I sadly asked if she was ok, but my parents were crying too hard to even speak. So I looked at the doctor, who was looking just as upset. I repeated, “Is she ok?!” The doctor came up to me and said, “We’re very sorry… But that shot in her head went right through her brain… Your sister is dead.” After that, all I could think and remember were the awesome times that I had with my sister, and how those fun times, are now just memories…since they won’t happen ever again…

After about a month and a half of Amethyst being dead, my parents started fighting. And they weren’t tiny fights, they were big fights. They had been screaming things like “I hate you!” and “I don’t know why I ever fell in love with you!” The fights had started to happen just a few days after Amy had died. My mother screamed at my dad that he doesn’t pay enough attention to us when she is super busy at work, and that’s why Amy had died. She told him that because he didn’t care about us, that’s where Amy and I got the idea of just running around town looking for trouble. I tried to tell my mother the whole story so that things wouldn’t get worse, but she didn’t listen to me. She still blamed things on my father for everything he did. She kept yelling at him for just sitting in his chair and watching football games or basketball games on the television.

Their last fight was about two days ago. But since that fight, they hadn’t been talking to each other. Every day I have been hoping that things would get better. I was hoping that one of them would walk up to the other and apologize for saying what they had said. If my family wouldn’t fight, I wouldn’t be such a depressed kid. But ever since her death, I haven’t been the same way. I haven’t been able to talk with my friends because I’ve been so depressed about my parents fighting all the time, and because my one and only favorite sister in the world had just died because some stupid guy decided to shoot her in the head for no reason. I feel grateful to have friends who want to help me get out of my depression, but it’s just not working. They keep calling me asking if I am alright, but I’m not. So now I’m just a quiet kid. I tried to be a happy kid again, but because they decided to fight, I haven’t been able to be the same.
Of course, the day I try to be a happier kid again, out of all things, my parents do something stupid, and making things absolutely worse. My mom decided to come up to my dad and yell in his face, “Gabriel Johnson, I want to divorce!” I tried all I could to get my mom to calm down and take that back, but they pretty much just pushed me out of there way so they could fight some more. So my dad yelled back, “Well Carmon, weird how you said that. I was just about to say the same thing to you!” I was in complete shock after that. Usually when my parents fought, my dad was usually the first one to apologize for what he had done. Even if he hadn’t believed everything that my mother had said, he still took the blame so they could be a happier family again. But no, my dad said that he was done with my mother. So all that was left for me to do was cry my eyes and heart out for the rest of my life. Ever since my sister had died, I’ve been such a depressed kid. Now, I really don’t know what to do…

I was hoping that my parents would get back together a few days after they divorced. But sadly, they both still really hated each other. And they just kept yelling the same things they had said before they divorced. But their next fight started with my dad walking in the room saying, “Man, I can’t wait to get as far away from you as possible.”

“I can’t believe you’re the man I fell in love with!” My mother would start out. “You’re just a selfish man that can’t even pay enough attention to his kids and even care enough that his own daughter just died!”

“I don’t care?! Listen to yourself, Carmon! You are at work twenty-four seven! You never have time for the kids! I never see you with them!”

“Gabriel! Do you even know that your son won his basketball game?! Do you even know that your daughter won a hundred and fifty dollars in her last poetry slam?!” She would scream. Before she said that, she acted like she was just thinking of something to yell back. Honestly, I think they are just being ridiculous. I could hardly even listen to this fight.

“Yes, Carmon! I do know that Carter won his basketball game and I do know that Amethyst won a hundred and fifty dollars in her poetry whatever thing!” Now he is screwed because he said “poetry whatever thing.”

“See, Gabriel. This is why we are divorcing. You can’t even keep a good fight going on! You don’t even know that dang name of your daughter’s POETRY SLAM!” My mother was now acting kind of like a jerk because she said “POETRY SLAM” really slowly for my dad to comprehend what she was saying.

“You know what, Carmon? I’m done. I’m done with this conversation. And you know what else?! I’m taking Carter with me! And we are going to move to Fairbanks, Alaska! My ex-girlfriend from Fairbanks and I have been talking for the past couple days and she said we could stay with her! At least she actually cares about me and loves kids! So say your last good-byes to him because we are leaving next week! Good-bye!” And then my dad stormed out of the house. I looked down the stairs to look at my mom. She was sitting on the couch crying telling herself that she can’t let me go. She was saying that she just lost her only daughter; she doesn’t want to lose her only son to a horrible man like him. So after that, I just decided to go back into my room and act like I was sleeping…
~~~

During the rest of the week that I was with my mother, I tried to spend as much time as I could with her before I actually moved with my dad. I could honestly say that I wasn’t excited to move. I was actually really upset because here in Michigan was where Amy and I had all our fun times together. And now that she is dead and we are moving to Alaska, there won’t be anything I had to remind me of her.

So the rest of the week, I had to pack up all the stuff that I wanted to take to Alaska with me and put them in boxes to be shipped out. I wrapped up all my breakable stuff and pretty much just stuffed them all into any box I could find. But while I was packing, I went into Amy’s room and took some of her stuff to take with me so that I wouldn’t ever forget her. I mean I knew I wouldn’t, but I just wanted some stuff that would make me think of her. So I wrap all of her stuff nice and carefully so that when I receive my boxes in Alaska, they won’t be broken or anything.
~~~

Today is the day that my father and I fly to our new town in Alaska. All my stuff was packed and already being shipped down there. My mother was still drowning in her own tears because she was so upset that I was leaving her. She was horribly angry with my father for taking me away from her, so she didn’t say one word to him. He tried talking to her just to make her feel worse, but she ignored him as much as she could and just kept whispering to me, “If he dares to hurt you in any way, shape, or form, you call 911 right away and then call me. I will come and pick you up and rescue from him.” I didn’t really know what to say or how to respond to that, but all I did was nod and look away so I maybe she would stop saying things like that.

On our flight to Alaska, I asked my dad why he wanted to move to Alaska instead of staying in Michigan where I could be closer to my mom.

“Hey, dad?” I started out. I sounded kind of upset, but only because I was. I really missed my mom and I had already missed Michigan.

“Yea, Carter?”

“Why are we staying with your ex-girlfriend? Why couldn’t have you bought another house in Michigan where I could stay closer to mom?”

“Because, son, I want you to get away from her. I don’t want anything bad happening to you, and I don’t want to take any chances with you staying with your mother.”

“I have another question.”

“Hit me.” Oh trust me, I kind of wanted to.

“Why have you been talking to your ex-girlfriend?”

“Well, we’ve been thinking about getting back together.”

“Oh…” I said sadly. The rest of the flight, I didn’t really want to talk. So I just turned around and tried to go to sleep. I just wanted to get my mind off of all this…

After our plane had landed, I grabbed all my stuff from the luggage carrier and my father and I jumped out of our row and started walking off the plane. I still didn’t really have anything to say because I still didn’t feel comfortable with the fact that my dad is dating his ex-girlfriend again. But once we get off the plane and into the airport, I could already tell that Alaska was going to be a hundred times different than Michigan.

As I’m looking around the airport, just glancing at everything around me, somebody taps on my shoulder. I turn around to see if it was my father getting ready to yell at me for just booking it off the plane and not waiting for him. But as I turn around, there is this tallish blonde-haired woman, who was wearing a truck load of makeup.

“Carter!” She yelled, with the hugest smile I have ever seen. “How are you!? I’m so happy to finally meet you!” She gave me a really big hug after that. I was trying to break free, but her hug was too strong. Finally, when she let go of me, she announced that she was Candice.

“Oh, hi Candice…” I said kind of quietly and then turned around.

“Candice, honey. How are you?” My dad said to her.

“Hi honey. I’m doing absolutely perfect now that you’re here with me.” Gross. That’s all I have to say. “How was your flight?”

“Oh our flight wasn’t too bad. They were pretty long, but there weren’t bad. I got some good sleep while I was on the planes. And I was telling Carter all about you can Natalie. Speaking of which, Carter, can you come here a second, son?” I turned back around, and walked over to my dad. I was still upset and didn’t really want to meet them. But I also didn’t want to be rude.

“Carter, this is Candice. She is the woman I fell in love with. The one I told you all about on the plane.”

“Yeah, we met.” I said, trying not to make eye contact.

“Oh, wonderful!” He gave Candice a big smile. “And have you met Natalie?”

“No.”

“Oh, well Carter, this is Candice’s daughter, Natalie.”
“Hi.” She said giving me kind of a devilish smile.
“Hey.” I said and then turned around again.
After meeting everyone, my dad and Candice talked for a few more minutes, and then we packed our entire luggage in the back of her car and left. While we were in the car, I didn’t bother to say anything to anyone. I was still really upset about the whole situation. So I just stayed quiet…

As soon as we made it to Candice’s house, Natalie told her that she would show me my room. Once we got there, she turned around and shut the door.

“What are you doing?” I asked her.

“I just wanted to let you know that your once happy life is going to dramatically turn upside down.”

“What are you talking about? My life already turned upside down when my father fell in love with your mother again.”

“True, but after meeting me, things are just going to get worse for you. Unless…”

“Unless what?”

“You do everything I say.”

“I’m sorry. But I’m not doing anything for you.” I said. At that point, I was kind of in a bad mood from a bad plane ride, so I didn’t sound very nice.

“So you’re not going to?”
“That’s what I just said. Who would do stuff for you guys?”

“You’re such a mean boy. I wonder if you get it from your stupid dead sister.”

“Don’t talk about Amethyst.” I started to get upset, but I was fighting back tears.

“Why not?”

“Because what happened to her is none of your business! That’s why not!”

“I heard from your father that she died from a mugger. She must have been mental for wearing stupid high heels to a freaking store. I wonder if you will be like her.”

“YOU KNOW WHAT?!”

“Hey, hey, hey! What’s going on in here?!” My dad and Candice rushed in the room.

“Natalie, honey, what’s going on?”

“I was just trying to be nice and ask what his sister was like so I could cheer him up about her death. But he just kept yelling at me.” If I could curse at her, I would.

“Carter, can you come out here for a minute.” I gave Natalie a quick death glare that said ‘I’m going to kill you’ and walked out. “Sorry, honey, this will only take a minute.”

“No problem, baby.”

“Now Carter, why are you being so rude to them? Do you hate me?” Kind of. “Do you just want the world to just go your way?” Yes. “What is wrong with you lately? You’re not acting like yourself.” Yes I am.

“Dad, I would tell you, but you never listen to me!”

“Carter I always listen to you.”

“YOU DON’T! YOU NEVER DO!”

“Well I’m listening to you now. So what in the world is going on with you and Natalie?”

“Dad! She just lied to both you and Candice! She told me that Amy was mental and that’s why she died! She said that she died because she was stupid enough to wear high heels to the store and that she was just looking for ways to die! Plus, she said that I was going to be dumb as her! And I was telling her not to talk about my sister that way, but she just kept saying bad things about Amy! Dad! I hate it here! I’ve been here for twenty minutes and I’d rather be on a plane going back to Michigan with mom!”

“They are nice people! You just don’t want to accept the fact that they will probably be your new mother and sister! So I don’t care if you like them or not, but you better be nice! Or you’re going to have to deal with some very un-fun stuff with me”

After dad’s big yell, he stormed out of the room and slammed the door. I turned around and decided to just go sit in a corner and not leave. There is no way I am going to say something nice to them. But just in case someone came in to get something, I didn’t want anyone to see me crying about how my dad never listens to me, so I hid in a closet and shut the doors. While I was sitting in there, I could hear people talking.

“So honey, what were you guys talking about? What happened?” I heard Candice ask Natalie.

“God, he is such a little baby! He is older than me and I don’t act as young as him! All I said was that he better watch out for me because life with me won’t be very fun.”

“What else did you say?”

“I was telling him that his precious sister ‘Amy’ was stupid for practically killing herself.”

“Oh I know! I might just lose control of myself if Gabe just continues to talk more about his ‘darling daughter’. But once we get some money from this idiot, we’ll ditch them and be on our way out of Alaska to the beautiful island of Hawaii, where we can continue with this plan to get more money out of suckers like Gabriel.” They don’t love my dad! They just want money from him! And I would tell my dad, but he wouldn’t believe me to save my life. So you know what, if we go broke from these people, he’s going to be by himself, because I’m going to stay with my mother while he lives on the streets with nothing!

So quickly, I jump out of the closet and reach for the cordless phone that was left in the room. I dial my mother’s number so I can ask her if I can come home. There Is no way I’m going to stay here and live with these people. My dad is has gone crazy and these people are crazy enough as it is.

Riiing! Riiing! Riiing!

“Hello?” My mother answers the phone.

“Hello? Mom? This is Carter.”

“Hi honey! Oh my goodness I miss you so much! How are you doing? Is everything ok? Is your father hurting you? How about those people he bragged about? Are they nice to you?”

“Mom, Mom. Chill. But no dad hasn’t hurt me, and no these people aren’t nice to me. I actually called to ask if you could come get me… I hate it here. I’ve been here for thirty minutes, and they’ve already brainwashed dad to be a total jerk! The daughter even called Amy stupid and mental for dying!” I started to cry as I was talking to my mom. “Mom, dad didn’t even believe me when I tried telling him that. Mom, please come get me. I hate it here.”

“Carter! What are you doing!? Who are you talking to?!” Candice opened the door.

“I called my mom! I’m telling her to take me home!”

“You are home!”

“Not with you! You’re a horrible person! I wish you would just die!” Candice took the phone out of my hands and hung it up.

“Get used to it” She said and left.

The next day, after having a horrible first day, I sat out in the living room of Candice’s house. I didn’t bother to touch anything. I didn’t sit on the couch and I didn’t bother to touch the TV remote. Every time my father tried talking to me, I was dead silent. And he just ignored that and walked away. After a few tries, he knew I wasn’t in the mood for him. But after a while, he came back up to me and it looked like he didn’t care if I was listening or not or if I would reply to him or not.

“Candice told me that you yelled at her again last night.”

………

“She said you told her that she could die.”

………

“Carter, you can’t just call your mother and tell her to come pick you up from here. That costs a lot of money. So you are just going to have to suck it up and just like Candice and Natalie. And whether you like them or not, you still need to be nice to them.”

“Not to save my life, dad.”

“You will do it.”

“I won’t.”

“You will!”

“NO!”

“Don’t yell at me Carter!”


“Why should I even bother talking to you?! You never listen to me anyways! And I overheard them talking the other day! Just watch! You’re going to live out on the streets because they’re going to take all your money and leave and I’m not going to care!” After saying that, my dad whipped his hand across my face. His hand hit my face so hard that I fell over.

“Now you listen to me!” After he said that, I quickly stood up and ran out the door.

“Carter!” I heard him scream. But I just kept running, tears falling down my face faster than ever. My cheek stinging from his hand hitting me across the face. I didn’t even think about stopping. I didn’t know where I was going or what was going to happen. But I didn’t really care. I just decided that I hated him for never listening to me and for hitting me for no reason.

After running for a while, I finally stopped and looked back. I didn’t see his car or any sign of him. But a white mini-van pulled up next to where I stopped. The front door opened, and my dad, Candice, and Natalie all start to pile out to take me home. But before they could actually catch me, I ran again. This time, into the forest. I could hardly breathe while I was running. I wanted to stop, but I knew I couldn’t, or else I was going to be caught by them. So I just kept going. But next thing I know, I hear something growling at me. And of course, to make things worse, there is a great big momma grizzly bear. I stop and don’t make any sudden moves. But then Candice and my dad find me. They are screaming at me not to move or do anything.

The bear starts to circle around me. It gets closer and closer to me. I try to stay as still as possible and I try not to let the bear know that’ I’m afraid of it. But I started to get more scared as it got closer and closer to me. So finally, when it was about two feet away from me, I book it down the forest again.

“CARTER!” My dad and Candice scream together. I just keep running. I’m going, and going, and going, until…

He caught me. I was so out of breath from running from my dad that the bear jumped me and I fell straight to the floor. The bear slashed her hands down my chest and all around my body about twenty times. Eventually, I could feel my breath getting smaller and smaller. Finally, I knew I was done.
And I was…

I wake up from what I thought was a nightmare. But as I look around, I notice that I am floating on clouds. How is this possible? I look around and I see nobody here but me. Am I really dead?

“Carter…” I heard somebody saying my name in a soft voice that sounded kind of like Amethyst. I turn around, and there she was. She was sitting on a swing that was also just floating on a cloud.

“Amy..?” I said shocked but excitedly.

“Dad’s being quite the jerk, huh?”

“Uhmm, yea. Amy, oh my gosh I’ve missed you!” I rush over to her and give her a hug.

“I missed you too, Carter. But I’ve been hanging out with you every day.”

“What are you talking about? You’re dead! Am I dead?”

“Yes, we both are dead. But while you were alive, I was still by your side every day. I was the one who told you to run. I was the one who told you to go with dad and not mom.”

“Why, Amy?”

“Because I wanted you to be with me. Plus, I needed your help to get mom and dad back together.”

“What?”

“By you being dead, that upset dad. And he overheard Candice and Natalie talking about how dumb you were just like me for running and killing yourself. And so that brought him back to Michigan where he met up with mom and they got back together.”

“So, because of me dying, they already got back together?”

“Yea, you’ve been asleep for about three weeks.”

“Really?”

“Yea. But I’m catching you up on what’s been going on. So mom and dad got back together, and Candice got arrested for getting drunk and then murdering some guy off the street.”

“Predictable.”

“Ha-ha, yeah. And of course mom and dad are still upset about how we both dyed, but I helped them to not be so sad.”

“How?”

“Mom’s pregnant with a new son or daughter, so they won’t be lonely.”

“You’re amazing, Amy.”

“Yep. They are hoping for a boy so they can name him Arthur, which is a pretty close combination of Amy and Carter. Wouldn’t you say?”

“Yeah. It sounds perfect.”

“Yep.”

So after meeting up with Amethyst in heaven, we got a lot of time to catch up. She was telling me all about what she had been doing in heaven and what she had been doing on earth with me. We also got to go sit with my parents together again. It just sucks that they can’t see us though. But whenever they pray to us, we can whisper in their ear, and they can hear us in their minds and their hearts. And finally the day came, where mom had her son Arthur, and they lived a happy life together raising him. We got to watch mom and dad raise him happily, and he had a fun time getting to learn about the both of us. But all I can think about now, is how happy I am to be with my sister, my family, and my new baby brother…
Together…



The End