"Mom! Where's my scarf, I've been looking for it everywhere." I say as I'm raking a brush through my hair.  I'm usually very good at remembering where I put things but with end of year finals coming up my brain has been a jumbled mess. "Try under your backpack on the dining table, you know the one we don't use but your father insists on keeping." She says from the kitchen. As I round the corner and place my brush on the table and move my backpack she was right, it's there. "Sweetheart, why don't you let me and your mother drive you to school today instead of taking the bus, we could stop by that coffee place that you always love." He says. "Oooh, are you talking about the one that sells those super super yummy chocolate croissants." I cram out without taking a breath. "Is there another one that you obsess over or is that the one I'm thinking about?" "Daaaad, come on you know which one I love and you're just taunting me." I reply sarcastically. "We will meet you in the car Evie. Make sure you're down in ten." My dad hasn't used my childhood nickname in what feels like forever, or maybe a day, or maybe I'm just being dramatic. I throw on my coat, winter boots and grab whatever I can stuff into my book bag and I race out the door. My parents are waiting in our Mercedes-Benz GLB, my dad in the drivers seat and my mom in the passenger seat. It's cold in Early November and the snow has just begun to fall, and stick. As I take one foot off the steps I slip and catch myself on the railing before falling on my butt. As I right myself I look up and wave to my parents to let them know I'm okay.

Our town is small, roughly 15,000 souls in it. Gravemire is probably one of the quietest places to live in the country if not the world. Pine trees and mountains with snow caps on them surround the horizon. From our house to the local high school there has to be twenty houses tops and the ride through downtown is short. Shop fronts line both sides of the streets with elegant black-metal street lamps on both sides. The buildings are like an iridescent blue, with faint dull lights in each one of the windows. Some of the shop keepers are flipping their open signs and sitting up for the day. We stop in front of my favorite coffee place that has the greatest ambience in it. The way it smells, like an open book and Colombian coffee beans, down to the pictures with their thick brown frames. It's perfect, their coffee is to die for and it's always perfect every time I come here. "Evelyn, make it quick and grab me and your mother a coffee, you know what we like." He reaches around the seat and hands me thirty bucks. As I step out of the car and grab the money I say " Two dark roasts, large. Mom likes cream you like it black, I got it." Before he responds I shut the door and hurry inside before the heat of the warm car starts to dissipate. Once inside the guy behind the corner greets me, "Evelyn great to see you this morning will it be the usual?" "Actually, my parents are with me today. I want the usual and then two dark roasts one with cream. Can you make them a large please and fast. I'm gonna be late for school." I say as I walk over to the glass counter and pull out parchment paper to grab two freshly made that morning chocolate croissants. I shove one in my mouth and wrap another in a napkin and pull the money from my pocket to pay. The cashier takes my money and gives me change. I head over to the bookshelf to see if they've got anything new that has been brought in. They have a sharing shelf, bring a book take a book. Some are children's books, magazines, books with their covers ripped off and some I've never heard of. "Two large Colombians, black one with cream, and a large blonde roast with two pumps of vanilla." A girl with green hair says behind the counter that I've never seen here before. I stroll away from the bookcase and grab my coffees and head out the door as the cashier tells me to have a good day at school. Outside in the car my parents are listening to some classical jazz song that's on the radio. Frank Sinatras Fly Me

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

 To the Moon is serenading us through the speakers. My mom mouths thank you in the rear view mirror since the music is drowning out any other noise. I sip my hot coffee and my dad drives off. 

The snow it thicker and making it harder to see. As we finally get out of the awakening downtown, we cross the bridge around Gravemires cemetery and come into the last stretch of road before school. My dad turns down the music and says "Do they have a term for when it's snowing so hard you can't see? When it's raining they say 'it's raining cats and dogs outside' I wonder what they say when it's snowing." I roll my eyes and my mother remarks, "I'm not sure, but I'm sure that baby it's cold outside is a perfect song for right now." Gross, that song is a perfect example of toxic masculinity. "Why do you guys have to be so stuck in the ages? There is never a time that you guys act you're ages, I mean you're in your early forties for Christ sake." I mean come on their parents were born in the days of the song they're talking about. I wish they would get with the ages. "Evelyn, calm down, me and your mother were-" he gets cut off as bright headlights and a horn sounds. He swerves away and the car starts sliding, it goes to slide right into the guard rail but he spins the wheel and narrowly misses a tree. "Oh my god, is everyone okay?" My mother says out of breath. Her and my father turn around to face me and I see it. It’s too late to scream, a semi truck slams into the front of our car and everything in that minute goes mute.