‘So this is the part where I’m supposed to tell you it’s not scary. Well, it is. But fear is natural, fear is good - it just means you’re growing,’

- Unknown

Chapter Six

Cole quietly opened the front door to his house, trying to sneak in without waking his father up. Turning around, he closed the front door, barely making any noise as he slowly crept upstairs, the steps creaking underneath his feet.. The homey smell washed over his senses, calming his mind from all the thoughts that had plagued it since he had pulled Azelie over the bridge rails, the smell replacing all the memories that had plagued his consciousness and instead replacing it with happy memories of his sister and his father.

Cole had grown up in this house, and he loved it almost as much as he loved his family. He loved the memories of living there, even thought there were countless bad memories, the good ones outnumbered them by far. His gaze floated up to his sisters bedroom door as he walked slowly up the stairs, she wouldn’t be up for a few hours but there was no doubt in his mind that once she was, she would run through to his room and jump on his bed until he finally woke up and promised to make her pancakes, just as she did every other Saturday morning.

“Well, I must say Colten Grey, I’m surprised!” a voice spoke, breaking the silence that filled the house. Cole let his head fall slightly as he walked over to the rail of the stairs, looking down into the hall where his father stood with a smirk on his face and a coffee cup in his hands.

“How?” Cole questioned, slightly annoyed that he had been caught.

“You stayed out all night without contacting your daddy dearest to tell him that you wouldn’t be home! I’m so proud - I actually have a normal teenager as a son! Unless, of course, your some kind of alien replacement and my real son was kidnapped,” His father joked, a smile still on his lips. Cole just laughed quietly at his father, wondering how, at times, he could be more mature than his own father.

“Yes dad, I’m an alien replacement! Actually, wait no, I’m a terminator sent back from the future to kill John Conner, I’m just struggling to find him...” Cole replied trailing off slightly.

“Well, he lives just down the street, and feel free to stay as long as you don’t leave a trail of his blood anywhere, you’re welcome to stay as long as you want,”

“Cool,” Cole replied, rolling his eyes at his father as he turned back to walk back up the stairs.

“Did you meet a girl?” His father questioned, wiggling his thick eyebrows with smiling mischievously as his son who had paused on the stairs, his green eyes shining brightly. Thoughts of Azelie plagued his mind once again. It wasn’t what his father had meant, but it was enough to submerge his mind with thoughts of her once again. “Oooooh you did! Come on, tell your daddy dearest all about it!” Cole shook his head at his father, wishing that he could hide his emotions better around him.

“Will you stop referring to yourself as daddy dearest? Next you’ll be calling me your princess son!” Cole said, avoiding the questioned.

“I like referring to myself as daddy dearest, makes me seem more like the caring father figure I am!” His father smirked, “Now princess, tell me all about her! Did you wear protection - you know I’m too handsome and young to be a grandfather!”

“It wasn’t... it’s not like you think...” Cole replied quietly, running his fingers back through his messy, brown hair. He was hoping that his father would just drop the subject, but of course, he didn’t.

“Please! Cole, I know how these party things work! Let me guess - you were absolutely pissed and she attacked you in the bathroom, practically raping you and taking advantage of your drunken state?” His father smirked, thinking that he had it correct. Cole slowly shook his head, still trying to decided if he wanted to tell his father, before deciding that he wasn’t going to drop it until he knew.

“I pulled her over from the other side of the bridge. She was jumping off when I grabbed her and pulled her over,” Cole said quietly. The smile slipped off his fathers lips as he took in his son’s words, trying to figure out what he should say next.

“Was it where....” His father tried to say but had to pause half way, his brain refusing to let him speak the words he was going to say. Cole just nodded slowly, knowing what his father was asking.

“The exact same place,” a silence filled the house once again as both males stood there, trying to figure out what to say next.

“Is she okay?” His father asked, breaking the silence, not tearing his gaze away from his son. He couldn’t imagine how his son felt, even if he tried he wouldn’t feel the amount of pain his son did.

“Yeah, I think so. I drove her home, and she said that she wasn’t being serious, but I don’t know... I saw something,” Cole replied, remembering the flash of emotion he had seen in her eyes. “People don’t just jump off bridges,” Cole added, feeling the stab of his words.

“Just watch out for her, Cole. You never know, she just might need somebody to talk to,” his father replied quietly, his green eyes now filled with sadness, the same as Coles. Cole just nodded slowly in reply as he turned away from his father again and walking up the remaining steps. He made his way to his bedroom, his mind still replacing the events of the morning.

His room was surprisingly clean for a guy. There was only a few plates of food on his desk and clothes piled up on his desk chair that made the room seem as if it was messier than it actually was. He walked over to his window, pulling the blinds shut before walking over to his bed, practically falling on his mattress as he closed his eyes to try and get some decent sleep. He couldn’t get the image of Azelie’s face out of his head, the emotion pouring out of her eyes. She was broken, perhaps more than he was. Whatever was wrong with her, Cole knew that he had to figure it out again.

He couldn’t let her die, not like last time.

“Okay so one carmel slice, and two lattes, that comes to $5.20,” Azelie said, smiling at the customer while he passed her the exact amount. She told him that she would come over with his order once it was done. As the customer walked away she began to make the coffees. The waitress who was supposed to be working at the café to be working was off sick so Azelie had offered to cover for her since Ted had to go meet that artist who was interested in holding an art exhibition in the gallery. Ted had been talking non-stop about the artist all week and so Azelie knew it was important for him to go meet her. Plus Azelie needed something to keep her mind off of the chaos that was running through it, battling down the thoughts that were playing havoc with everything.

She quickly made the lattes, before grabbing a plate and placing a carmel slice on it. Azelie loaded up a tray and walked out from behind the counter and into the area where the tables were, quickly locating the customers and handing them their order.

The café had been busy all morning, something that Azelie didn’t mind, it was nice to have some insanity in somewhere other than in her mind, but now it was getting closer to closing time and the café was empty apart from the two customers she had just served. Azelie walked around the tables, collecting up the mugs and plates that had been left from the lunchtime rush and placing them in the dishwasher. She spent the next hour cleaning up, making sure that everything would be ready for tomorrow. The last customers left while she was cleaning and Azelie started locking up. She switched the lights off in the gallery, leaving the only the light from the sun set outside to light up the room. She left the café and walked into the gallery part of the building. She sat down on the comfortable benches in the middle of the room, looking around at the painting hanging on the walls.

Azelie let out a breath as she looked at the art hanging scattered over the walls, her eyes following the swirls of orange and yellow on one particular painting. During the summer, the gallery had become one of Azelie’s favorite spots for when she needed to escape reality. Art was something her mother had loved to do, and she had passed the trait down to Azelie too.

Her mind quickly brought up memories from when she was seven. Azelie and her mother had been stuck up in their painting room all day, music playing loudly as they both messed around, painting whatever came to mind. When her father had arrived home from a meeting, and found her and her mother locked away in the room, her mother had flicked red paint over her him, Azelie remembering how her mother had laughed perfectly in her head. Her father hadn’t been the least bit pleased and retaliated by attacking her with some blue paint. The whole thing had turned into a paint fight, Azelie taking cover as her parents fought playfully at each other, their love showing in their eyes. Azelie had thought that the worst was over, that the family was finally happy, but of course, the very next day she was proved wrong. It was Azelie’s last memory of them, her last happy memory.

Azelie had always been envious of her mother’s talent, wondering why her paintings never turned out like she had imagined in her mind. Azelie’s talent slowly grew with time as her skill with painting improved, but she knew for a fact that she would never be as good as her mother. Her father, who had the artistic skill of a newborn, had never understood how her and her mother could spend all day painting, never understanding their fascination with art, but always recognized his wife’s talent for it.

Suddenly, it dawned on Azelie that she wouldn’t be getting any sleep, thinking about her parents always brought out the worst of nightmares, the ones she kept locked away at the very back of her mind. With that thought in her mind, Azelie pushed herself up from the sofa and walked out of the gallery, making sure that everything was switched off. She set the security alarm before opening the glass door of the gallery, and locking it behind her. She walked down the main street of Bellingham, avoiding the crowds of people as she did, keeping her head down and her iPod on full blast as the music played through her earphones.

The gallery was barely five minutes from her uncle’s house so it didn’t take her long to walk home. Azelie walked up the path leading to the front door, trying to get out of the cold as as she could. She opened the front door and slammed it closed behind her, the smell of food cooking filling the warm house. She rapidly slipped off her jacket, hanging it in the coat cupboard beside the door while slipping off her shoes and walking through to the kitchen to find her Uncle cooking.

“Hey, how was your day?” he smiled as she entered the kitchen, turning around to greet at her.

“It was fine, busy around lunchtime but I handled it, how was the meeting?” Azelie replied, instantly regretting asking the question as Ted began to babble endlessly on about the artist.

“It was great! They are coming down from Seattle to see the gallery sometime midweek but if they like it, we are looking at an exhibition around the second week of the October holidays! Seriously thought, you should have seen their work! I haven’t seen anything as brilliant since... well, your mother,” Ted babbled on, ending his rant as he brought up his sister.

If there was one subject that Ted had avoided talking about with Azelie, it was her parents. He hadn’t known if she would be comfortable talking about them with him, or if she remembered much about them, and although the thought of bringing them up had entered Ted’s mind many times, he had never done so. Azelie smiled at the mention of her mother, her thoughts resurfacing from earlier. She defiantly wasn’t sleeping tonight.

“Do you have any paintings of my moms?” she questioned, her brown eyes watching Ted has he smiled down at her.

“Yeah, there are a few in the gallery. I’ve had so many offers to buy them but I’ve never managed to let myself sell them. I’m not sure if I ever will,” Ted admitted, his voice growing softer as he looked back down at his cooking, shifting the stir-fry he was cooking the pan.

“You will have to point them out to me one day, I’ve not seen any of her paintings since I was seven,” Azelie replied, not caring how much this conversation was going to affect her later on. She had lived with her father’s side for so many years, and since his sisters had never been fond of her mother, she had never been allowed to talk about her mother, barely even anything about her father. Talking about her parents wasn’t something her aunts wanted to do, Azelie probably would have forgotten what they looked like if it wasn’t for the memories she had managed to hold on to and the pictures she had managed to collect over the years, although most of the time she couldn’t bear to look at them.

“There’s one of you,”

“Huh?”

“A painting, she painted you once, I think you were three, great, big, cheesy smile on your face, hair in pigtails and everything! It’s in the gallery, you must have seen it!” Ted replied, smiling over at Azelie who was now leaning on a kitchen counter, Ted’s words pulling her out of her train of thought. Azelie’s mind instantly new which painting he was talking about, the painting was right at the back of the gallery, hidden from view, not because it was bad, but because it didn’t go with the rest of the paintings. Azelie knew instantly why she didn’t recognize herself in the painting, the happiness in the toddlers eyes, that was something that Azelie would never be able to match. She could now see the similarities between herself and the toddler, the shape of her face, her mother’s nose, but the happiness in her eyes was something that Azelie hadn’t seen for years. “Hey do you mind grabbing two plates? Tea’s almost done,”

Azelie spun around, reaching up to the cupboard behind her and pulling two round plates out before walking over to the cooker and placing them plates next to Ted. Ted turned off the heat on the cooker, as he separating the food between the two plates. Azelie dug two sets of cutlery out of a drawer. She passed one set to Ted and keeping one for herself. Picking up her plate of food, she followed Ted over to the table, setting her plate down across from him as she sat down and digging into her food. They talked all the way through tea, Ted talking about different memories he had of her mother and father, some from when him and her mom were children, some from when her parents were married. Her favorite was went Ted met Jack, her father. Ted had attempted to do the whole ‘big brother image’ by acting as if he was stronger than her father, telling him over and over again that if he messed with his sister or left her pregnant, that he would track him down and cut off parts of him that he would rather keep. Her father had left terrified of Ted, only for her mother to tell him that Ted was as threatening as a Teddy Bear, and that the scariest man that Ted knew was the retired gym teacher who lived across the street from him.

After dinner, Azelie helped Ted clean up the mess left over from dinner, before getting changed into a pair of sweats and a baggy T-shirt and went out for her usual run. She prayed in her head that running would help get rid of what awaited her in her nightmares, that for the first time in weeks, she would sleep peacefully, but she didn’t.

Azelie had been exhausted after her run, barely managing to walk herself up the stairs without falling asleep. She had a shower, before collapsing on to her bed, barely managing to keep her eyes open. It wasn’t long until the nightmares began to pull Azelie’s mind into the darker parts of her sub-conscience, causing havoc with her mind.

“Zellie, Zellie, wake up darling! We are almost at grandma’s and grandpa’s!” A soft voice spoke, waking Azelie up. Her golden brown eyes opened to see her mother smiling brightly at her, their matching eyes meeting. She looked around, slightly confused as she realised that she was in a car - her parents old car to be precise. The smell of her mother’s sweet perfume filled the air as she recognized the song playing on the radio. Her father was sitting in front of her, driving the car while her mother had turned around from Azelie, and was now smiling at her father, saying something to him which Azelie couldn’t quite hear.

Fear filled Azelie as her brain figured it all out. She knew where she was. She knew what was about to happen. A scream stuck in her throat as she tried to scream at her parents, screaming at her father to stop and pull the car over the side of the road. But they didn’t hear her, they continued with their conversation, every so often, her mother’s brown eyes flickering over to Azelie to make sure she was staying awake, Azelie kicked and screamed, trying desperately to break through the barriers of the dream, to stop the inevitable happening.

She saw her mother mouth three words to her father, her whole face lighting up as she said them. ‘I love you’, she said, the sound of the words reaching Azelie’s ears, making her stop her kicking and screaming for her parents to get off the road. Suddenly, Azelie’s limbs grew heavy, leaving her paralyzing. Tears ran down her face as screams clogged up her airways, the noise falling to deaf ears.

Azelie’s head turned, looking out the window to her left, her gaze falling to the accelerating truck on the inside lane. Tears poured down her cheeks as she tried to close her eyes, trying to not have to watch the terror that was about to unfold.

“Look mommy! Look at the truck! Look at the funny driver!” a voice cried, a voice that Azelie recognized as her own, but she hadn’t spoken. Her gaze fell on to the driver in the front compartment of the truck, his face planted down on to the steering wheel. Her mother quickly spotted the driver, before screaming at her husband to pull the car over.

But it was too late. The driver’s body slumped to the left, pulling the truck to the right. The car swung to the right as her father tried to swerve to avoid the truck, trying to save his family but the truck hit the car, pushing it off the road. Both vehicles tumbling off the bank of the road, the car coming to a stop at the bottom of the hill, only to be hit once again by the truck.

Darkness pulled over Azelie as the scene fell away. She woke up, tears rolling painfully down her cheeks, her voice calling out for her parents. She pulled her legs up to her chest, wrapping her arms around her legs as she tried to wrap herself up in a tight ball, the pain of the nightmare hitting her in waves.

She swore in her head, not to think about her parents again, she couldn’t handle it. She couldn’t live through another dream like that. Never again.

First of all, I am soo sorry that this has been posted so damn late! Seriously! The first night I was just far too busy to upload and then i went away for the weekend, stupidly leaving my laptop behind! Arg! Seriously, so sorry!