• Many questions can sometimes be solved in one simple answer...

    Amber woke up to the familiar smell of eggs, bacon, and coffee being made from downstairs in the kitchen. She covered her face with her pillow hoping to sleep for a few more minutes until she heard her mother's familiar voice.
    "Amber, time for breakfast!"
    "Two more minutes!", she yelled groggily from her room.
    Her mother came up to her room and pulled off the covers from her daughter.
    "C'mon get up, lazy bones!"
    "Mmmm!", Amber muttered.
    "Get up or else you won't be able to eat your breakfast before school!"
    Amber sighed and finally got up from bed. "Fine", she yawned. When she got downstairs, her father and her two older brothers were already eating.
    "Well good morning , sleepy head!" said her brother, Eric.
    "Yeah we thought you'd never wake up." said her other brother Carlos.
    Instead of a nice greeting from her father, as usual, all he did was flip a page in his newpaper and gave a brief "Hmph". As usual, Amber ignored this and went to take a seat at the table.
    "Food looks good as usual, mom." Amber said sweetly.
    "Oh thanks sweetie."
    Breakfast went by fast. then Amber went back upstairs to change into her clothes, grabbed her backpack then went back downtstairs.
    "See you guys later!"
    "Bye! Have a good day." replied everyone, except her father.
    Amber casually walked to school. Then the thought came to her . For some reason, Amber always contemplated different things about her family. The one that she mostly thought about was why it seemed none of her family members personalities seemed to match hers. Another thing she thought about, though not quite as often, was why none of them seemed to look anything like her. Her with her black wavy hair, brown skin and big brown eyes while they all had blonde hair, with not quite as big light blue eyes and light tanned skin. And she also had some sort of slight accent. But the one that rarely came to her mind was the big one that she could never quite get: why did she always have this weird feeling that kept nagging at her? Why did she always feel like they kept something from her? But like she normally did, as she entered the school gates, she simply waved away the thought and decided to focus on more important things: like the fact that there was a test in English that she really had to pass. Which explains why she didn't want to wake up that morning, she pulled an all-nighter studying. Which came to something else she always wondered: why was she flunking in English while her brothers were each getting A+'s? Oh well, she thought, might has well get this test over with.
    After she handed in her answers and got out of class, there was History, then Math, and then finally lunch. As usual, she sat alone to eat and drew doodles in her notebook. Her passion was art, which was the course she was planning to take when she got to college. She was constantly painting or drawing in her room. She even painted murals on the walls and ceiling of her room!
    Lunch ended, so then there was her Art class, then Science. Finally school was then over and Amber began to walk home. The thing is that Amber can sometimes space out and completely not notice everything around her; Which includes a passing car. Her house was right across the street but unfortunately, Amber didn't notice that the street light had changed. And even more unluckily, she was standing right in the middle of the wide street and directly in the path of a passing speeding car!
    She heard someone scream out her name and instantly snapped back into reality. Her head shot to the left where the car was just about to hit her when she felt someone smack right into her and wrapped their arms around her. The next thing she knew, she was on the sidewalk and the car sped right on by.
    "Hey! Are you okay!?" a boys voice asked.
    Amber heard the urgency in his voice then realized her eyes were squeezed shut. She quickly opened them and answered to reassure him she was okay.
    "Oh yes, I'm fine! Thank you so much! How could I ever repay you?"
    "Don't worry about it. I'm just glad you`re alright." Then he smiled sweetly at her and she smiled back. Amber was expecting them to lean toward each other and passionately kiss like they do in the movies but reality isn't always that, well...intense.
    "Are you crazy? You were almost killed!" Amber heard her father scream at her. She scrambled to her feet and said nothing while her father calmed from his rage.
    "Sweetie!" Her mother ran to her and wrapped her arms around her daughter. "Are you okay!?"
    "Yeah mom, i'm fine" she told her and returned the embrace. Out of the corner of her eye, Amber saw her rescuer walking away.
    Once her mother had let go, Amber's father finished off his anger session. "Go to your room!" he screamed.
    She obeyed and walked into the house and went up to her room. Once there she tossed her backpack into a corner and just stared up at her ceiling. She was pretty shaken up after the incident and just needed to rest a bit to think. She remembered the boy's face and recognized him as the cute guy from her English class. She remembered his name was Aaron and was one of the popular kids. She figured he was way out of her league and that she didn't have a chance with him. She decided to forget him for the time and just to relax and not think about anything.
    A few hours later, she woke up and realized she had fallen asleep. Then she realized that she was starving. So she went out of her room and faintly heard arguing coming from her parents closed bedroom door. Curiously she went over; Just as she was about to open the door to come in and see what the problem was, she heard her mother say her name from inside the room. She let go of the knob and pressed her ear to the door.
    "I told you it was a mistake from the beginning! I told you to leave it with them and not to meddle! I told you not to bring THAT into this house!"
    "I knew she would suffer more and more if she stayed with them, what else was I supposed to do!?"
    "It was not our PROBLEM! If you didn`t butt into their lives, we wouldn't have that problem now would we!?"
    "Well I'm not HEARTLESS! I couldn't bear to leave her the-"
    "IT'S A THING! AN IT! How could that THING be worth anything more than a grain of DIRT!?"
    ".....I just didn't know what else to do. I knew it was wrong to take her from her own parents....but.....I just didn't know what else to do...."
    "That's the problem with you! You can never stay out of people's business! You even named that thing! You should have left it right there in Mexico where it belonged!"
    "Your right. But we can't do anything about it know. She's our responsibility. She's 16, we've raised her...we have to continue our job as parents fo-"
    "WE!? WE can't do anything but YOU CAN!"
    "Wh-what can I do?"
    There was a pause before Amber's father solemly gave his response.
    ".........Get rid of it."
    Amber's eyes widened. She pulled away from the door and ran back to her room. She could not believe what she had just heard. And she couldn't believe she finally had the answer to the questions she thought were just simple thoughts. She finally knew what that nagging feeling was. This was not her family. This family didn't want her. They wanted her gone. Immediately the only choice she had came to her. Through the river of tears that were spilling on her cheeks, she realized what she had to do.
    She had to run away, far away.
    She also had to find out the answers to all the new questions that were quickly filling her head. Especially to the big one.
    Who am I?



    To be continued...