Your monthly allowance: $ 2,000.00

The total trust fund from Ethan: $2.5 million

The trust fund from your grandfather: $2.5 million

We feel this amount of finances will provide for you throughout your life. On a personal note, your mother has been doing very well. She attends individual therapy and a grief group therapy session every week. I’ve retained a life coach to be on our staff. If you would ever wish to contact us, feel free to give us a call. We are very proud that you will attend the university your brother had been accepted to previously. Please give our best wishes to Jesse. We love him like a son.

Best wishes, your father.

I crumpled the paper up and then smoothed it back out. A burning sensation grew in me as I sat there. Everything was so clear, so focused. My heartbeat slowed to a calm steady beat and I no longer had to remind myself to breathe. I shredded each piece of that letter. I didn’t know how long it took, but I didn’t stop until each piece had been folded, ripped, folded again, and ripped once more. I finally stopped when the letter was a pile of pieces so small they could’ve been ash. And then I got up from my seat and went into the cupboards. I found a lighter.

As I approached the letter my heart slowed. I wanted to enjoy this. I wanted to be turned on by it. I lit it on fire.

As it burst into flame and spread, I stood back. Amazed. I wanted to see it grow more and more. I wanted the entire house to burn around me. Everything my parents had been would be in pieces at my feet. I wanted to destroy them, but I only destroyed the letter. It was a small triumph that was empty. I knew my parents would never care. If I mailed the letter back to them, they would only throw it out. Nothing touched them anymore. Ethan’s death had done that to them, it was now done to me.

Nothing would touch me again.

Eric rushed into the kitchen, panicked. When the fire alarm had gone off, he ripped himself from the doorway. He then dumped a bucket of water on the small fire. As he did and a cloud of gray smoke filled the kitchen, he fell against the wall. “Jesus,” he cursed.

“Don’t curse.”

“What?” He gaped at me, pale and sweating from the smoke.

I didn’t answer him. I didn’t care to answer anyone anymore. Everything changed that night. I changed that night. I never did anything different, but I knew I wasn’t right anymore. People grew scared of me. Eric stopped spending time with me. I never heard from Marissa again. Even Ben asked when I was quitting the coffee hut. He sounded like he couldn’t wait for my resignation. The only one I saw two more times was Angie. She came over to say goodbye the day she and Justin were leaving for college. Both of their cars were packed. Justin waited in his truck, parked behind hers, as she came into the house.

I looked at him from the doorway, but he averted his gaze. I still saw it. Fear.

I didn’t blame him for staying in the truck. I even understood it. I understood why everyone stopped visiting me. Something wasn’t right with me anymore. I knew that, but all I felt was the cold. And rage. I now had so much rage in me, too much to control at times. The nights were the worst as I stayed in my home. I had been abandoned. I was haunted. And all I wanted to do was destroy everything.

So it made sense why Justin stayed in the truck. Even Angie couldn’t hide how her arms trembled or the nervous twitch in her eye. As she said her goodbye, she couldn’t say it fast enough.

I stood and watched them go. They all left.

And then I turned back to the house to finish my own packing. I was leaving for Grant West University the next morning.