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The ice-cold water hit my lungs like a ton of bricks. A fire exploded in my chest and the shock of the water almost knocked me unconscious. I scrambled around feverishly in the darkness and reached for anything, anything at all that felt like human flesh. Panic filled my lungs and inside my head I was screaming. When I could no longer stand being submersed and my body started screaming for oxygen, I pulled my self up onto the bank of the lake, and tried to muster all the remaining strength left in my body. It was the most difficult thing I had ever done in my entire life. My legs felt as if there were a million weights tied to them, and running was by far the last thing they wanted to do.

I must have been screaming as I was running up the hill. I cannot remember what I was screaming but it got the attention of the grounds keepers that lived around my house. I watched in a daze as they ran down the hill and dived into the lake. It was the middle of the winter and snow blanketed the ground. I fell to my knees and the snow sent chills through my body. I watched them pull her body out of the lake. She looked like a lifeless blue rag doll. It was the last thing I saw, before my head hit the ground, and everything went dark.

No one ever told me that I was my mother’s daughter, we where complete and total opposites. My jet-black stringy hair and emerald green eyes were nothing like my mother’s blonde hair and sky blue eyes. I was the spitting of my father and I never complained about it. My mother never had much to do with me, our interests differed so much that it was almost impossible for me to hold her attention.

It was my father’s attempts to turn me into the son he never got that kept me entertained. He was the most typical father you could probably find on the face of the earth. He spent most of his days in the garage the noises, clanks, and sounds emitting from outside were him working on his cars. He tried to busy me, teach me to change the oil and the tires. Teach me how to make the cars “purr,” but I was never that interested. I merely hung around him for the first ten years of my life to keep myself from being lonely. Don’t get me wrong, I love my father very much and for the longest time he was my only friend. His interests just didn’t suit a little girl.

My mother often went out on social events. She always wanted to be seen as wealthy, happy, and well liked in the community. It was only shortly after she realized she was pregnant when I was ten that she was home more and more. The more she was around the house with my father and me the more I realized why she never stayed at home. My father and her were more different than her and me where. They rarely ever talked to each other. I’m surprised they where even able to stay in a room together long enough to conceive a child.

My mother was the princess of our household, anything she wanted she got it the second she asked for it. My father tended to her as if she where the most precious thing around. When you watched him look at her, you could tell he loved her, I just wasn’t so sure that she loved him.

The arrival of my younger sister Annabelle caused me to receive even less attention from my mother than before, much to the credit of the fact that Annabelle was the spitting image of her. You wouldn’t hear me complain though, I’d much rather watch my mother and sister play together, it entertained me. I loved my little sister very much from the time she was born to her growing up. For the first time I had someone younger to keep me entertained, and someone to play with. I never resented her for the way my mother acted towards her. It wasn’t her fault, in some small way I was glad that she got a relationship with our mother that I never had.

My mother and sister were inseparable from the moment she was born to the moment she was old enough to be put into pageants. It was soon known in the house that mothers rank had changed from princess to queen. There was a new princess in the house and everyone was aware of it.

By the time she was five, pageant ribbons, sashes, and crowns littered the hallways of our house. It was amazing that with everything she got, she didn’t even act slightly like a spoiled brat. She was the sweetest little girl you could ever find and the whole room light up when she walked through it. She was the pride and joy of our family.

The only sound that went through my head was a steady beeping noise that annoyed me rather quickly. My forehead crinkled and I slowly opened my eyes and was met with such a violently bright light I forced them shut again.

“Hallie?” my mother’s soft voice called out to me. It was then that the memories flooded back into my brain, the screams, the cold, the ice, my sister.

“ANNABELLE!” I screamed sitting up tears trickling down my face. The room was so bright and unfamiliar that it scared me. It only took me a second to realize that I was sitting in the middle of a hospital room, my mothers red eyes and forlorn face sitting next to me.

“Mom?” I croaked hoping that it was the single word I would have to say to get my answers. The palm of her hand made contact with the side of my face and I was thrown back in shock.

“YOU STUPID LITTLE BITCH!” She screamed, as she pounded her fists into my chest.

“HOW COULD YOU LET THIS HAPPEN?” I shielded my face with my hands and curled into a ball trying to protect myself from my mother’s heavy blows. For what seemed like hours but was in reality only seconds she threw every bit of anger she had in her body onto me and beat me as she screamed a series of unrecognizable words. The only thing that stopped her was the hospitals staffs’ restraint. They removed her from my room, and I was left alone to sob into my hands.

I did not understand why my mother was reacting so violently towards me, I didn’t understand what I had done. The last memory I had was screaming for help, hoping that someone could drag my sister from the depths of the icy murky lake that sat in the back of our home.

When I could no longer hear my mother’s screams from the hallway, the door pushed open and a doctor walked through it. She was rather beautiful, her auburn hair was tied back tight into a ponytail that hung just below her shoulder blades. She had beautiful green eyes, and a sympathetic smile. She made me feel warm, and only in her presence did I finally start to relax

“Annabelle,” I choked before she could say anything. My bruises and pain were nothing to me, not as long as I couldn’t see my little sister. The doctor sat down on my bed and reached out to grab my hand.

“Hallie, sweetheart, I need to know what happened today down at the lake. I need to know what happened to Annabelle.”

My eyes narrowed “Where is she? Tell me. now.” The doctor shook her head.

“I’m not telling you anything Hallie, not until you tell me what happened.”

“IT DOESN’T FUCKING MATTER WHAT HAPPENED WHERE THE FUCK IS MY LITTLE SISTER!” Tears sprang to my eyes and I started sobbing. I already knew where my sister was, yet there was still hope in my heart, that maybe possibly the got her out in time. After all she was only seven, and much to young to be taken away from the world.

The doctor took a deep breath and looked me dead in the eyes, “Hallie, the water was too cold, she was too little, and there was nothing anyone could do. One of your grounds keepers tried to resuscitate her, but when they finally got her out, it was just to late.

They say that certain moments in your life freeze and time stands still. It’s like there is nothing but you and the thoughts that the seconds of that moment bring. That’s what it was like to sit there in the hospital bed and listen to someone who I’ve never even met tell me that my baby sister was dead. Seventeen years of your life can’t even prepare you for something as harsh as that. The only thing I knew was I didn’t save her like I should have. I wished with every inch of my being that I was dead instead of her.

“Hallie this is really important,” the doctor whispered, gaining my attention. “ I have to know what happened. Your mother was out in the hallway raving and ranting screaming about how all this is your fault, how you didn’t save her because you where jealous. Hallie, listen to me, do you understand what I’m saying to you? Your mother is blaming you for the death of your sister, she’s making it seem as if you murdered her.

My eyes instinctively rolled and I let out a small laugh. It was completely like my mother insinuate something that ridiculous. I would never lay a hand on my little sister. Annabelle was the most important thing in my life. I would never do anything to harm her, and everyone around us knew that.

“I didn’t murder my sister doctor, you know that as well as I do. I don’t have anything to prove to anyone. Now when can I leave?”