The First House on the Left
October 2011 (10th Grade)
For Madeline

It's been a little over a week since I passed it. It was approximately 8:15 p.m, leaving the Varsity with my parents and kid brother. We were passing through Shadydale, a town I lived in for about a year. I glanced at my surroundings, and a feeling of Deja Vu flooded over me. Drenchedme with astonishment. Flashbacks zipped across my pupil as though I was watching a movie. A movie of myself in  younger years. Maybe I was about seven. Though it has been eight years since then, it felt like I relived it all in eight seconds. Then there it was. The dirt road that went on for minutes, containing about three houses. I never went all the way to the end before, but I knew about two minutes down the lane, lied an old, wooden house on the left. Oh, I remember. Flowers of various colors painted the side of the house. Petals would linger into the pond with about twelve tiny, orange fish. A worn out birdbath stood in the middle of the yard, strong as ever. I could remember running up the rocky driveway with my cousin, only a year older. Now, I can't even remember her last name. We spent our days hiding from Nanny and playing with Barbie dolls. Nanny's daughter rarely visited. She worked at the Family Dollar in Monticello. And her daughter was God knows where, doing God knows what. A little girl, estranged from her own mother by addiction. She didn't know it then. Everything was a secret, and secrets were sacred. Maybe a little too sacred. Nanny hid most things from me and Emily. Anything from the good toys to what life was like beyond that dirt road. All I can say I remember now, is that we all gathered there at Christmas. Where I ate all the macaroni and cheese. In that first house on the left. Looking back, I know that was the road. Though it was jet black outside, my head jerked around so fast, as if God were making remenisce. During those eight years, everyone went their own way. My "Family Dollar Grandma" is probably still there. My faceless mother spends her days behind steel bars, probably wondering where I am and what I'm doing. And Nanny? Her life was taken a few years from a Cancer I can't remember the name of. Sometimes, I wonder what it would be like to spend just one more Christmas at the house on the left.