The First

I sat slumped in my chair as I watched idly out the window the landscape changing below me. My grandmother sat next with her head leaned back snoring lightly. It was dark in the airplane cabin. I wondered how the air attendants could serve drinks and snacks on the plane with it being so dark.

Of course, it could have been just me. Everything seemed dark to me now. Even a bright sunny day at home had been too dark for me to see things clearly. It was as if I was wearing really dark sunglasses all the time. I even tried to take them off a couple of times, but I wasn't wearing any either time I had tried.

All of it was pointless: living, eating, this trip. There just wasn't a point in it anymore. Everyone that meant something to me was gone now, and I alone was left to deal with their absence. I knew it wouldn't be long and we would be landing in Seattle and then we would get on a small plane to Port Angeles. Tonight we would be arriving at my grandmother's home town of Forks, Washington.

I'd never been to Washington before, and I had never even visited north of Tennessee or west of Louisiana. This should have been exciting, this being the trip, but I could have cared less. Forks was going to be my home from now on, and I didn't care that I had left everything I knew and cared for in Alabama. Everything I knew and cared for had left me long before this trip had been planned and put into practice.

The seatbelt sign came back on and the pilot announced that we would be landing soon. My grandmother started and woke up slowly. She looked at me and smiled half-heartedly. I hadn't move an inch since I sat down into the seat. I didn't even have to refasten my seat belt, because I had never undone it once we got into the air.

I hadn't been nervous about getting into an airplane for the first time but had hoped that the plane would crash. Fate it seemed would not oblige me in this. Everything became a little darker as we began making our descent.

My grandmother continued to look at me as the plane began to decline out of the corner of her eyes, and I knew she was worried about me. I just couldn't force myself to find the light. She didn't understand about the darkness. No one did. I was all alone in the darkness and my grief. I didn't even hope for someone to come find me and bring me out of it anymore. I had tried to find my own way out of the darkness, but I was lost in it as surely if I where in a maze.

"There isn't a really large drama department at the high school, but we could go to Seattle or Olympia and see the professional groups," my grandmother said during the long ride to Forks latter that day.

"Yeah, okay," I said in the voice I'd adopted after the accident.

The old me, the one who was in the light, used to love plays and musicals. I'd wanted to be an actress and do shows on Broadway but not any more. I didn't want to do anything except lay in the bed all day and die. It looked like the earth wasn't just going to swallow me, so I'd developed a new plan.

"There are some really nice boys and girls in Forks if you'll just try to be friendly," Grandma said interrupting my thoughts again.

"Mmm-hmm," I said not even bothering to speak now.

I didn't really see how I was going to make any friends in Forks. My grandmother was going to home school me because I was so far behind now. I should be graduating in a month or so with all my other friends, but I never had to motivation to force myself to catch up with my class. I was almost an entire year behind them. I hadn't seen the point in school anymore and wanted to quit, but my grandmother insisted that I get my high school diploma.

I stared at the ceiling of my grandmother's guest room, which was now mine, as I lay in bed. It was very dark and the rain tapped lightly on the roof outside. Sleep was not forth coming as it hadn't been for almost a year. I lay still in the bed as the light changed slowly outside from darkness to light. This was my new life, and it was going to be as dark and pointless as my old one.