{ First published November 2015 }

You were my first follower. My first voter. My first comment. You let me know my writing was okay. That others might actually like this story as much as I do. So Thank you.

I

turned fifteen today. It was suppose to be the best day ever. I hit a milestone. I'm no longer a preteen. I can actually call myself a teenager. A full blown teenager. I was so excited. Giddy. My dad and I were going to have dinner at my favorite Italian restaurant. I was going to get my learners permit. I was growing up.

The day was like every other. After cheer practice I caught a ride home with Julie, my bff and her older sister Sara. It's about a twenty-five minute ride out of town and my closest neighbor is another six minutes from the house. It's secluded but peaceful. I love it. Julie thinks I'm crazy for loving it but I do. And dad, he loves it just as much. He says the city is to crowed and it's hard to breathe.

"Good luck girl!" Julie yells at me as they pull out of the drive way and I skip my way through the front door. Full of jittery excitement.

I dropped my duffel bag and book pack just inside the front door.Skipped my way into the kitchen with a goofy grin stretched across my face. Grabbing a soda from the fridge I chugged half of it making my way towards the backyard.

Usually I can find my dad out back meditating. It soothes him. His words not mine.

When I stepped out onto the back patio, at first I didn't know what I was seeing. Maybe my brain couldn't process it. Red. Red everywhere. I think my body knew. Some primal part of the soul. I felt this dread bubble up in my belly. My mouth was going dry.

"Daddy?" My voice came out in a child like whisper.

It didn't make sense as my eyes flashed around our yard, onto one red puddle to another. They where everywhere. These red dark spots, turing the green grass black.

"Daddy?" My voice came out a little stronger,a little louder.

I moved further into the yard. My breathing coming out in fast gasps. I avoid the red, moving around the glistening patches and continued further into the yard toward the huge willow tree that borders the edge. It was a trail of red. Leading me. I felt tears brim my eyes.

Fear and dread filled my body causing me to shake. Tears fell from my eyes. I knew something was wrong. I could feel it deep in my bones. In the air, that felt to thick to breath.

I walked out towards the side of the willow that stays shaded and stopped. Red pooled in the yard. The biggest puddle so far. A grey tinged hand lay at the edge of the tree. I followed the hand with my eyes, towards the arm to the vacant blue eyes. When my brain finally registers what my eyes are seeing I fall to the ground and just let out sobbing screams after screams. I didn't know what to do.

That's the last thing I remembered. My therapist filled in the blanks. Gwen my neighbor found me at dusk laying on my stomach, hand stretched out towards my fathers. My finger tips touching the tip of his, barley breathing and unresponsive. The Police and ambulances were called in. As the paramedics checked for my pulse, my screams started again. I was rushed to the hospital and was sedated. Two days later with finding nothing physically wrong with me I was released into the care of Green Bair Psychiatric.

I remember little things, the small bright white room. The small hard bed. The ruff straps around my wrist and ankles. The white coated people. The brightly clad nurses.

They slowly weened me off of the sedation medicine. I remember everything after that, there was nothing left of me. I was-am a shell of my former self. Grief consumed me.

The emotions came the next day. Every feeling you could possibly image was raging through me. I could feel not only my own but every single person in the ward. Fear. Pain. Anger. Sadness. Needless to say, they weren't the good kinds of emotions. It was sensory overload. I went back to screaming and even started pulling my hair out. I thought maybe, I could pull the feelings out. I was a mess. Mind and body. I could not function and didn't know why I could feel others emotions and still don't know why. I was put back onto the sedation medicine and other cocktails of drugs. I was insane. But blissfully empty.

I don't know how many days or weeks pasted while I was slowly weaned of the medicine to where I no longer screamed myself mute or hurt my self. I learned to block every emotion,even my own and the ribbons to an extent. I am avoid. Not letting myself experience emotions of any kind. It is marvellous.

My dad's brother, Jeff pensioned for my release into his custody immediately after finding out about my father's brutal murder or how my therapist Miss Theresa likes to refer to it as the incident. I was deemed functional two years later.