7:00A.M. the beeping of the alarm clock loudly going off in her ear beside her bed. A loud snoring from the living room lingers through the house, then the peaceful singing from the birds outside the window. She stumbles out of bed, tripping over the clothes she had left on the floor the night before. She tries to quietly open her bedroom door, but a piercing shriek comes from the door hinges. She cringes from the sound then continues out the door.
The running water was very hot. The silvery grey steam fills the bathroom as it leaks out of the cracks surrounding the door, filling the hallway with hot, moist steam. A man’s deep voice calls loudly from the misty hallway, “Are u leaving for school yet??”

“Not yet,” she shouts back the voice disappears, a loud slam of a door then complete and utter silence fills the house.

She gets out of the shower about 20 minutes later. As she steps out of the bathroom it was like she just stepped into a freezer, her legs were shaking and her body was full of goosebumps, her hair was as stiff and cold as ice. She makes her way to her room, but before she reached the door, she hears a loud thud come from outside as if someone threw a brick on the concrete ground. She ignores it and thinks nothing of it at all. Assuming it was just some stupid kids making noises. She never would have anticipated anything more, anything worse.

8:00 a.m. she is finally leaving for school. She passed the garage humming to her favorite song and enjoying the cold fall morning. She hears a heart stopping scream, she freezes, and walks slowly back to the garage unsure what she would find. The pregnant lady that lived below her comes screaming and crying into her arms, pure terror had consumed her. She mumbles, “He’s hanging.” A sheet of fear and uncertainty covers her and at that split second she thinks back to the loud thud, the man’s deep voice, and slamming of the door. Then she saw him. Her step dad’s lifeless, still, and colorless body peacefully swaying from the ceiling. Her whole life had flashed before her eyes at that split second. She stood there motionless, feeling her fragile heart break piece by piece.

Red and blue lights suddenly appear out of the fog that one fall morning, this little girl’s life had changed forever. Soon after there were five police cars and an ambulance surrounding her house, police man shouting, “We need help here.” To the paramedics yelling, “There’s no pulse.” As she still sits on the ground helplessly staring at the rope that lies on the concrete, a single tear falls from her face, then she thinks someone’s life once depended on that rope, and someone’s life ended with that rope. By 9:00 a.m. he was gone, and with him went a part of her life and her family. In that spot lays that light brown rope along with her broken heart. To this day she still has nightmares about that once meaningless rope.