Can't Forgive, Can't Forget (Finished)

“Owen!” I shouted happily, running into my brother’s arms but carefully making sure that the paper I was holding stayed out of his sight. “You won’t believe what happened today!” I told him.

“What is that?” he asked me, holding my hand as we crossed the street away from my school.

“We did this cool project in art with watercolors,” I told him. “And I made this for you,” I said showing him the paper.

“Wow,” he said automatically. Then a second later his eyes lit up and he repeated it. “Wow.”

Usually “Wow” was followed up with “Great. Now, what is it?” But today he actually looked impressed at my painting.

“It’s you and me,” he commented. “And is that Fifth Street Treats?” he asked me.

“Yep. Normal paint is hard to use but this was easy.”

“I think you are a natural Kitty,” he replied. I smiled up at him, leaning against his shoulder.

Several minutes later we arrived at Fifth Street Treats like always. I ran inside knowing exactly what I wanted.

“Are you going to get a White and Brown or a Classic today?” Mr. Temp asked me. He was the owner of Fifth Street Treats and always knew my favorite candies.

“Hmm,” I said, putting my fingers in an L shape on my chin as I pretended to think. “It’s a difficult choice,” I told him.

Mr. Temp and Owen exchanged a look as I picked up the obvious choice: White and Brown.

Owen handed Mr. Temp fifty cents, picking up a Classic bar for himself. Then I skipped out of the shop with Owen following behind me.

As we walked we unwrapped our quarter candies and ate them, mine the White and Brown and his the Classic.

I took a bite into mine revealing the brownie inside of it. It was called a White and Brown because it had a brownie and white chocolate. The Classic was like any average bar- Chocolate, peanuts, and caramel. Therefore, the Classic.

Owen ate his in only one bite while I took smaller ones to savor the flavor.

Soon we were home and sitting on the couch. Owen flipped through the channels until he found Cat Attack which was our favorite show to watch together. It featured humans and cats trying to plan sneak attacks on each other.

This episode was one I had seen before in which the cat repeatedly tries to surprise his owner by sitting behind him on the couch and jumping onto his lap. When the cat was sleeping on his cat tree the human would tap him, making him wake up as revenge. Hilarious.

An hour later my parents arrived home and mom bustled around the kitchen attempting to make dinner. She wasn’t the best cook so usually we would close our eyes while she worked. No need to see what disaster the kitchen was turning into.

Dad went right to his office to work like always. He was a workaholic and mom hated it. The only time he was willing to talk and be distracted from his work was dinner time, though sometimes if it had turned out burnt or bad he would say he was too busy to eat at the moment and sneak into his office to order himself a pizza. He probably doesn’t know that I know that.

Turns out that dinner was baked potatoes. Extra crispy. Yum. If you can’t tell I was using sarcasm, which is something Owen taught me.

I ate half of mine and excused myself.

“You don’t want dessert?” Mom asked.

“Depends. What is it?” I asked her.

“Homemade chocolate cake!” she said excitedly. I had known Mom for eight years. Homemade means burnt, nasty, and unsavable.

“I’m good,” I replied.

I was an early waker-upper. Always have been, always will be. So I was awake that morning just like always when Owen was getting ready to leave for school.

“Good morning Kitty,” he told me, plopping down at the table. I could tell he was in a hurry due to the speed of his motions.

He grabbed the box of Rice Crisps and poured them into his bowl, only half of them making it in. The same thing happened with the milk. “Darn it,” he sighed. “I’ll just clean it up later.”

He ate his breakfast wicked fast, polishing it off within a minute. Then he grabbed the cereal and the milk, forgetting I hadn’t eaten anything and put them away in the wrong spots with the cereal in the fridge and the milk in the pantry. Yep. He was in a big rush.

Then he glanced down at his watch. “It’s broken!” he shouted. “It is not four fifty-six!”

He picked up his watch and tossed it onto the table. Then he grabbed his backpack and flew out the door mumbling “I hope I don’t miss my field trip.”

I sighed, using a towel to wipe up the spilled cereal. In the doing so I laughed aloud, seeing that his watch was on the timer setting. I hit the button and it stopped, bringing it back to normal time. It was too late to catch Owen though since he had already run out the door and was several houses down. So to make sure his watch was kept safe I slid it on my own wrist.

The school day went by pretty fast. In art, I made another watercolor picture which had me and Owen sitting on the couch watching tv. We had math in the morning, followed by language arts and lunch. It wasn’t until the afternoon, right after lunch when things start to turn around.

“Hello, students and teachers. This is Principal Neal. I would like to announce that due to some things that have happened we will be having early dismissal. Buses should be here in less than five minutes.” Then the announcement turned off and everyone started screaming and hollering in joy. It happened within seconds surprising everyone.

In the bus loop, the buses started arriving and I wondered about Owen. Would he be picking me up or should I ride the bus? Maybe I should wait here. But what if his school wasn’t having early dismissal? Then I remembered that he had a field trip today. Bus it is.

As we got on our buses several helicopters flew over our heads at a quick speed, too fast for me to get a look at them. A minute later more flew by. Where were they all going?

When I got back home I ran inside shouting “Owen? Owen are you home?” I knew he probably wouldn’t be but I wanted to know why we had early dismissal and if he had seen the helicopters.

I checked every corner of the house before deciding that I would have to wait for him to come home. I turned the tv on and flipped through the channels.

Usually, I didn’t watch the news but today I did because I saw a picture of the Sam Austen building on fire. Sam Austen was one of the biggest businesses in Nellsburg, Michigan and I was surprised to see it burning down. It was a manufacturing business that made all sorts of things like household items. I didn’t know a ton about it besides the fact that part of it actually made the things and the other part of the building came up with ideas for making them.

“The Sam Austen building just caught on fire three hours ago and is still burning. It is in the process of being put out, and local authorities are trying to find a cause for the fire,” the reporter who was a tall blonde woman announced.

On the screen behind her, the Sam Austen building was engulfed in flames with fire trucks pouring water on it from all sides.

“Several firefighters have gone in but haven’t been able to find any survivors other than the ones that made it out at the beginning. Many are still searching. Now for a short break.”

The screen changed to a commercial for shoes which were apparently on sale at some store. But I didn’t want to hear about that. I wanted to know more about the fire.

Soon it returned to the new and the lady was back on.

“Welcome back to the local news. As a review, the Sam Austen building has caught fire and we are waiting for more information on it. Oh, is that it?” the lady asked as a man stepped in next to her handing a folded white paper to her.

She carefully unfolded it and looked at it. “We have received word about the cause of the fire. Apparently, a class of ninth graders was on a field trip to the Sam Austen building and one of them, a boy named George Boscar put a firecracker in his father’s mailbox who worked at Sam Austen as a prank but it turned into a fire. We will be trying to find a list of the names in the class soon but until then...oh, nevermind it’s already here,” the news lady said as the man handed her another piece of paper.

It took her a minute to unfold the paper in which I started thinking. Owen went on a field trip today. He said it was just for his class since his teacher Mr. O’Brien was the best according to him. He was also in ninth grade meaning it was possible that…

I slapped myself hard in the cheek. “Ow…” I mumbled. Then I realized that a couple of names had already been called and started to pay more attention.

“Linda Montana, Mira Nasha, Vincent Connor, Jack Michaels…”

I recognized several names. Mira Nasha was the girl who Owen had had a crush on since fifth grade. And Jack Michaels was his best friend. Where they...dead?

“Cole Goldieton, Owen Brohoski…”

After that, I hit the off button on the remote. I sat still, not knowing what to do. A tear rolled down my face, and then another and another. They poured down faster and faster until I told myself that something must be wrong, that lady must have been wrong. She was lying, he was still alive, he had escaped the fire. Or even better had never been in it.

I cried for hours, knowing that was all wishful thinking. My parents eventually came home Mom sat down next to me asking what was wrong.

“He’s dead,” I sobbed.

“W-what do you mean?” she asked me slowly.

“The news said that he d-d-died in the fire,” I cried.

Within a second Dad had run into the room and plopped down on the couch next to us. “He’s not dead. He just didn’t get an early release like you and stayed after school. I think…” Dad said, trailing off.

Then Mom was showing him something on her phone, tears falling out of her eyes. “She’s right,” Mom sobbed. A minute later Dad joined in, grabbing us in a big family hug.

“Owen is … g-gone … forever,” I finally managed to cry out.