The Rose

• Jessica Colgan, Grade 11
• Short Story
• 2022

On my thirteenth birthday, my grandparents died, and I felt nothing. Not a single feeling of remorse or sadness. While everyone around me fell apart in grief, I stood there motionless. They cried, I didn't. They screamed, I didn't. They supported me, I pushed them away. The isolation of the cemetery was my only escape from the haunting thoughts. A red rose lay next to me, it was found next to their bodies, and I couldn’t bring myself to part with it.
When my parents died on my fourteenth birthday, I felt nothing once again. No more lectures or someone to care about me. A leaf fell from the rose. My parents had left me with an aunt who cared even less than I did. When she died around my fifteenth birthday, I felt nothing. The rose wilted a little more.
“Skye?”
My social worker Lexi stood in front of me with a hesitant smile. She had always been kind to me, always there like a buzzing bee that never leaves my orbit. From Lexi, I learnt that sometimes all it takes to change your life is someone that really cares about your wellbeing. I learned that family – true family – is not blood and DNA, but the actions the person portrays. The rose mended a little more when Lexi was around. The impenetrable boundaries protecting my mind melted, yet no matter how hard I tried, I could not care at all. They said it was Schizoid Personality Disorder but all I understood was that I was different.
It was a clear crisp morning as the sun dawned over the horizon. A book sat in my lap as the kids in my group home clattered around getting ready for the day. Lexi was coming today, her one visit a week. As she walked toward me an hour later, I noticed something. She looked happy – genuinely happy – and I felt the dangerous creeping in of emotions. She greeted me with a hug and started rapidly talking about how she got an offer at the most prestigious social working office. My stomach sunk and an unknown feeling consumed me. My hands shook. She was leaving me.
Everything suddenly went white as I blacked out.
“Ma’am?”
I opened my eyes wearily and was horrified at the sight in front of me. Lexi – in a pool of blood – was looking at me with wide lifeless eyes. A rose laid on her stomach not tainted by the blood. A scream lodged in my throat as I looked down at my hands. They were stained red. I came to the horrifying realization that I was the killer. I had killed every person in my family without even realizing it. A cruel trick played by my mind. I wondered what my grandparents would think of me now. As handcuffs trapped me again, I gripped the rose and crushed it between my fingers.
The rose was exanimated and so was I.