The road was no longer part of my memory.
I couldn't remember the last vehicle.
I couldn't remember how long I had been lying beside the drainage ditch.
I couldn't remember what happened after the darkness took over.
There was a gap.
A frightening gap.
I would eventually have to rely on other people to understand what had happened during it.
But at that moment, I couldn't ask anyone anything.
I couldn't explain why I had been walking.
I couldn't tell them about my father.
I couldn't tell them about Karen.
I couldn't even tell them that I had been trying to reach a friend's house.
All of that remained inside the memories I had before collapsing.
At home, the unanswered questions were becoming harder to avoid.
Dad knew I hadn't taken a coat.
He knew I hadn't taken my phone.
He knew I had no money with me.
He also knew I had asked to go upstairs before leaving.
He had refused.
Those weren't details someone else had invented.
He had been there.
Karen had been there too.
She had seen the same things.
I wondered whether she had finally looked at the orange bottle differently.
Perhaps she noticed that her fingers had been covering the label.
Perhaps she remembered that she hadn't actually explained where it came from.
I couldn't know what she was thinking.
But I knew that her silence had played a part in what happened.
And I knew I had begged her to speak.
I kept remembering the porch.
It was such a familiar place.
I had stood there countless times before.
I had waited for rides.
I had watched the weather.
I had come home from school and opened the same door.
Nothing about it had seemed dangerous.
Until that evening.
The porch roof had offered some protection from the rain.
I had stayed there because I thought Dad might change his mind.
I had watched the door.
I had listened for footsteps.
I had waited.
Then I heard the lock.
I could still remember that small sound.
It wasn't loud.
It didn't need to be.
It told me that I wasn't welcome inside anymore.
At least, not while Dad was angry.
I had walked away believing I could manage.
I had been wrong.
The most difficult thing about remembering that night was knowing how many chances there had been to prevent it.
Dad could have listened.
He could have examined the bottle.
He could have asked me what I knew about the prescription.
He could have allowed me to get my coat.
He could have given me my phone.
He could have stopped me before I reached the porch.
Any one of those decisions would have changed the evening.
But he hadn't made any of them.
Instead, he had chosen to believe Karen without asking for an explanation.
And I had been left to deal with the weather alone.
I didn't understand all of this immediately.
I was still trying to make sense of the simplest things.
Why had my sister done that?
Why had Dad believed her?
Why had nobody opened the door?
Those questions stayed with me.
They were more difficult than the cold.
Click here to continue reading: PART 12: The Orange Prescription Bottle Had Started Everything, but the Questions My Father Ignored Were Still Waiting for Answers
The Orange Bottle My Sister Held Was Enough to Make My Father Forget Everything He Had Ever Promised Me
Part 11 of 20
