What my Heart Desires

7 Years ago "Gabriella! You are going to be late for your own graduation if you are not down here in five minutes!” My mother yells. “Shit.” I mutter to myself as I make some last-minute touches on my appearance. Looking in the mirror I see my long brown hair, the curls I spent 2 hours on are already starting to lose their shape, my pale skin, the stress induced zip on my forehead that I try to hide behind my hair, and a half assed make up job. “Good enough.” I tell myself. I grab my maroon cap that matches my gown and rush down the stairs. Nearly falling flat on my face as I trip on the last step in my speedy decent. “Whoa there!” My dad exclaims as he steadies me. I smile up at him, “Thanks Dad.” I kiss him on the cheek. “Wouldn’t want to add a trip to the ER to today’s agenda.” I chuckle. He looks at me with a mischievous look, “No ER today, your mother would have our heads.” “I heard that. And No, we will not be adding the ER to today’s events.” My mom walks into the room looking like an older but more put together version of me. “We have much more exciting things to do today, like watch my only child get her diploma and then your party afterwards.” She comes over and gives me the biggest hug. “I can’t believe you are graduating! In a couple of months off to college! My baby girl is all grown up.” She pulls away with tears in her eyes. I love my parents. Being an only child has made us all really close. They gave me a wonderful childhood and I can’t wait to get out on my own to see what the world has in store for me. “Mom, you promised me no tears. Remember?” I wipe away a stray tear before it can smudge her makeup. “Right, right. I know, sweetheart. Now, lets be on our way before they start without us.” We all get into our designated cars and drive over to my high school. We decided to take two cars since right after the graduation ceremony my parents wanted to go come back to the house to finish setting up for my party and I wanted to spend some time with my two best friends, Olivia and Natalie, before it started. My party was only going to be a small gathering of friends and family. While Olivia and Natalie had these big parties planned for their celebration. I don’t like having all the attention on me, so a smaller party was more than fine with me. We parked and made our way into the auditorium. I helped my parents find their seats before walking backstage where they were having the rest of my class line up. I looked for Olivia and Natalie and saw that they were already in their designated spots. “Gabby! It’s about time you got here!” Natalie states as she grabs my hands, pulling me towards her before I could hurry past. “Can you believe it?! We are almost done with this hell hole.” I giggle and was about to respond but my name was called for attendance. I hurried over to my spot in line and called, “Here!” It went by in a blur. We filled the front rows and listened to speech after speech. Olivia and Natalie kept me from falling asleep by making funny faces and silly noises. They are the rambunctious ones of the group. I try to smother my laughter at their antics, but we still got death glares from our surrounding teachers. Before we knew it, they were calling our names and we were accepting our diplomas. With a cheer we all celebrated the ending of our High School experience. There were tons of pictures taken with my friends’ parents and group photos. My face hurt from smiling so much and I’m a little scared that my face might be stuck that way. With promises that I will see Natalie and Olivia at my party, I make my way to the car. My parents left a while ago to get a head start. I am just getting to my car when my phone goes off. “Hi mom, I just got to the car. I’ll be home soon.” I tell her. I hold the phone to my ear with my shoulder as I try to unlock my car door. “Oh! I’m glad I caught you! Could you do me a favor and stop at Gilbert’s? I forgot to pick up your cake!” she said frantically. “I can’t believe I forgot! Of all things.” I can hear her stress through the phone. “Mom, it’s fine. I don’t mind picking it up. I’ll be home in 15 minutes tops.” I chuckle. “Thank you, sweetheart! I love you and I’ll see you soon!” I tell her that I love her too and hang up. Sighing, I shake my head as I back out of the parking lot and head over to our town’s small grocery store. I’m in and out quickly. Mrs. Gilbert was waiting for me in the baking section. The best thing about living in a small town, is pretty much everything if family owned. Mrs. Gilbert does all the baking while Mr. Gilbert runs the rest of the store. They are a cute older couple that got bored in their retirement. Most of my graduating class has worked here at some point. I’m back on the road, about 5 minutes away from the house when I hear sirens behind me. I pull off to the side of the road as an ambulance, fire truck and a couple cop cars speed by. “What the hell is going on?” I mutter to my self. I all of a sudden have this pit in the bottom of my stomach, like the feeling of foreboding. I look to make sure there are no vehicles coming and pull onto the road. I pull onto my road and the emergency vehicles that just past me were parked in my driveaway. My heart stopped, the pit in my stomach got bigger. “No, no, no, no.” I’m out of the car before I can properly park and I’m running towards my house. “Mom! Dad!” I scream “Woah, ma’am I’m going to have to ask you to stay back!” an officer caught me before I could make it up the front walkway. “That’s my house! Mom! Dad! What’s happening!?” Another officer came over to help, he ushered us off to the side. “Ma’am I need you to calm down. This is your house? Who else lives here?” “Just my parents and I. Please tell me what is going on!” I scream at him. I wanted answers. I shake off their hands. “Ma’am, I’m sorry there has been an accident…” I didn’t hear anymore. I see someone coming out of the front door and turn. The image will forever haunt me. EMT’s are rolling out two gurneys’, both with sheets covering who was on them. Instantly I knew, who they were even if my brain didn’t want to register it. I don’t remember much after that. I just remember watching them being escorted to the ambulances, the officers are still trying to talk to me. It was like being underwater, everything was muted and going in slow motion. I’ve been told that I started screaming for my parents. That it took three officers to keep me for running to them. An EMT had to sedate me before transferring me to the hospital. My parents were dead. Happy f*****g Graduation to me.