Prologue ~ Raven
Life. It always seems to tear you down when you’re the happiest.
I had just begun my senior year, my best friend Kat and I had just celebrated my 18th birthday that day after school. We decided to go thrifting downtown and to meet my parents and little brother for dinner at my favorite little Italian restaurant by the beach. It was a little bit of a drive, taking an hour, to the next town, it was worth it though. I was finishing my last year of high school, applying to art schools, and becoming an adult. It felt like was finally getting my life together, I was ready to start the next chapter. If only I had known that the chapter I was going to get, was not the one I wanted.
Kat was the beautiful one. She was all blonde locks and golden skin. She had big baby-blue eyes and a cherub face. She loved to shop at the mall every weekend, always sweet talking her way into cheap deals. That was her, mesmerizing in every sense of the word. She could pick up a piece of trash and it would seem like the most interesting thing you’d seen all day. Anything she did seemed to gain the attention of anyone and everyone. It was the way she swung her hips, flipped her hair and flashed her teeth. Yet, she wasn’t all glam and glitz, she wasn’t just another dumb blonde, she was smart and kind and funny, quirky beyond measure. But most importantly, she was my best friend, she was there when I lost Rudy, my golden retriever, she was there when I got stood up for the first time and took us to get mani-pedis and ice cream. She was the only friend I had, the only friend I ever wanted, the most important person in the world to me... and that night, she didn’t drive home with me.
Alice and Gary were my adoptive parents. I had been in and out of the system since I was born and until I was eight. I had no parents, an orphan until I was adopted on my eighth birthday. So you see, September 21st was not only my birthday, but it was also my adoption day, which meant the date was always crazy important to my parents who made a huge fuss of it every year.
Cooper was my sweet little brother. You hear stories of annoying siblings who you pick on and fight with, but not Cooper, no, he was my little buddy. My parents adopted me when they were pretty young, Alice was 26 and Gary was 28. They always said that they never planned on having children until way later, but I just kind of pooped up, surprised them, and that was that. Which means that they didn’t have Cooper until four years later when I was twelve. From the second he was born, he was my little dude, my best bud along with Rudy. A sweet little six year old without an ounce of ill will in his body, don’t get me wrong, he was a mischievous little guy, but it was all just six-year-old fun and games.
That night my worst nightmare happened. That night, I lost my light.
