Vengeance

Ominous clouds loomed over the city and thunder rolled across the sky. From inside my grandparent’s small home everything seemed so peaceful. This was nothing more than another summer storm in Ireland. Still, gazing over the city skyline from my bedroom window reminded me of my mother and father. Six months ago, my parents drove their car off the bridge that crossed the River Liffey. They were downtown at a party for my father’s promotion at work. According to the police officers investigating their deaths, he had one too many sleeping pills, thinking that he would get home in time before they kicked in, and fell asleep at the wheel. They told my grandparents and me that was the only reasonable explanation, since that was the only substance known to cause something as horrific as this. It was only half a year ago, but it still felt as though I had only lost them yesterday. Now, I was living with my grandparents on the North side of Dublin. I was used to life here. Both my Nan and Granddad were understanding of my feelings about what happened. Of course, they were just as hurt as I was, if not more. They lost their only child; their only daughter. Nan and Granddad were heartbroken, but they were still moving on. I, on the other hand, felt as though there was no way to go on. Still, I accepted the fact that they were gone. I was over those five stages of grief or whatever that dumb shit is called, not like the people who made it up really knew that they were talking about. Nan still kept a close eye on me, but I was now nineteen and I was fine on my own. The only person I really needed was my best friend, Melanie Davidson. Mel and I had been friends since our third year of school and ever since then, we had never fought, or gone more than a week apart. Even a day or two was little too much time away from each other. My grandparents and my parents always loved Mel. They knew how much she meant to me and they knew for a fact that I couldn’t even imagine life without her. Both Mom and Dad knew that without Mel, I would probably go insane. Mel was really more of an older sister than a best friend. She protected me from mean ex-boyfriends and bullies in the schoolyard. More importantly, Mel could always put a smile on my face when no one else could. She was like my other half. Melanie Davidson was really the only person I needed. There wasn’t one step of life that I took where she wasn’t by my side. Even when her family took her on a trip to England, she refused to move until they agreed that I could also go with them. There I sat at the bay window in my small bedroom, lost in a sea of my own thoughts, looking over the vast city. My bedroom was at the front of the house, and it had a view of the city like no other. The walls of my room were light blue, though some spots were covered with my drawings. Art was always something I wanted to pursue even as a little kid. Drawing, painting, sketching, whatever it was, it was my escape. The amount of creations I made in the weeks after my parents had died was unbelievable, to be completely honest. It was as though I shut the rest of the world out and found comfort in my art. My room was where I found peace, surrounded by all my drawings. A frantic knocking at my door snapped me out of my thoughts. Mel’s voice slipped in through the cracks, asking me to let her in, which normally never happened since she would usually just invite herself in. I told her to come in and she burst through the door as if she were waiting years for me to finally answer. Today, Mel was wearing her contact lenses, so there was nothing in the way of her big brown eyes. Her long chestnut hair was neatly tied back into a ponytail with side bangs swept to the right side of her face. She wore a light blue blouse with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows, and a pair of average skinny jeans, with white converse. A classic Melanie Davidson outfit. She always looked flawless. Even when she slept over my house, passed out on the floor in the living room at some late hour while watching a movie, she woke up looking pretty damn good. “Caroline, do your grandparents know that the people living next door to you are complete creeps?” she asked, closing the door behind her, and then flopping onto my bed. “Wait…Mr. Stevens? The guy who just works on his garden all day? I always thought he seemed so nice,” I questioned. “No! Not Mr. Stevens! The people who live on the left!” She corrected me. I thought about the house to the left, but to my understanding that house had been up for sale since I was a little kid. “Well, what happened?” “There were two guys out on the front lawn just talking to each other. One had blonde hair, and the other had brown curly hair, and…and both of them just looked at me. They didn’t seem angry or anything, but they both just gave me a blank stare at the same time,” Mel explained. I tried my best to come up with some memory‒any memory‒I had of that house. Nan would always tell me that no one lived there, but I knew that the house couldn’t stay empty forever.