Prologue

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Callum (One year and a half year earlier)

I was riding down the road in my 2018 Challenger, nodding my head to Drake’s God’s Plan. I was floating on a natural high after leaving football and weightlifting practice. I was a rising athlete at Glen Oaks High School where I played football and ran track while maintaining a 3.0 GPA. I was labeled the number one wide receiver in my district. I’d only just turned sixteen-years-old more than a week ago and I was damn proud of myself. My parents were proud as well, especially my dad. Football was his passion just as much as it was mine. Everything that I knew and loved about the game came from him. I was anxious to get home to tell him about practice and my upcoming game. I parked my car in the driveway and pulled my six feet two-inch frame from my car. I grabbed my duffle bag from the backseat and nodded at Tasia, my next-door neighbor before heading to the front door. Before I could even stick the key in the lock, I could hear the loud yelling coming from inside the house. Every other week, I would come home to my parents fighting and yelling about God knows what. Instead of staying around to listen, most times I would just leave then ride around the city, go to the park, or find myself in Santa Monica at my best friend BJ’s house for hours just to escape the noise. 

I lived in Compton which was about twenty-seven minutes away from where BJ lived. My mom a drug addiction, among other things, and sometimes my dad had a hard tome coping with it. Much to my disdain, instead of leaving her, he struggled to help her get clean and kick her habit. It also didn’t help that she was diagnosed with bipolar schizophrenia and borderline personality disorder. She would manage to clean up her act for a few weeks, maybe a month, and then she would start some stupid ass fight with my dad because he wouldn’t give her money to buy drugs. She would even disappear for days at a time and then come back high and sometimes irate. Sometimes, she wouldn’t come back at all, and we would have to leave to find her. At the age of fourteen, I had seen the inside of more trap houses and drug houses, and the activity that went on inside, than any person or child my age should have seen. There were people on our block that looked down on us because of my mom’s drug habit. The police were always being called to our house because of their constant fighting and arguing. We didn’t live in the best neighborhood, but I can say it was somewhat peaceful before my mom became an addict. She started using drugs after my baby sister was killed in a drive by two years ago. She couldn’t cope with losing her baby and things just got out of control. 

Shaking the thoughts from my head, I finally stuck my key in the lock and pushed the door open. I dropped my bags at the door and slowly made my way down the hall and the shouting got louder. I could hear my dad yelling and cursing at my mom as they argued back and forth. I got closer to the bedroom door and as soon as I pushed it open, gunshots rang out. I stood frozen in shock as my dad’s body fell to the floor. Just as I was about to my dad, my mom took the gun and aimed it at me as if she was going to shoot me before turning the gun on herself. 

“Ma, no! Please!” I pleaded with her before she pulled the trigger and blew her brains out in front of me. As her body and the gun dropped to the floor, I ran over to my dad and kneeled next to him as he lay on the floor, struggling to hold on to his life. “Dad, hold on. Please, I’m gonna get you some help. Just hold on.”

He had three gunshot wounds to his torso: two in the chest and one in the stomach. He had a calm look on his face, but I could see the fear in his eyes. “I—I’m sorry, son. I love you, Callum.” He said with his last breath.

“D—dad…” was all I could manage to say before the tears fell from my eyes and I laid my head on his chest, crying like a fucking baby. My dad and I had always had a close bond and relationship than I had with my mom even as a baby. I loved my mom, but my dad was my idol. Never in my life would I have ever imagined that I would experience a scene so fucking horrible and traumatic as witnessing the murder and suicide of my own parents. I really witnessed my own mother kill my dad, then turn the gun on herself. 

Apparently the neighbors heard the commotion and gunshots because they came rushing into the house and made their way to the horrid scene in my parents bedroom.

“Oh my God!” I heard Tasia’s mom, Tania gasp before she called out to her husband. “Tommie! Call an ambulance now!” she yelled as she slowly walked over to me.

With in minutes, the police and forensic investigators along with a coroner invaded the house. One of the officers had to force me away from the scene because I couldn’t bring myself to let go of my dad’s lifeless body. For a moment, I contemplated picking up the gun and killing myself because I wasn’t ready to live my life without my dad. For the past two years, I’d seen my father suffer every day as he dealt with the love he had for my mother who had completely succumbed to her drug addiction and mental illness. I tried so hard to love and respect my mom because my dad always told me that it was the right thing to do even if she wasn’t perfect. I hated her for how she had destroyed our family and for the woman she allowed herself to become. No matter how many times I had begged my dad to just let her go and chase her addiction so me and him could move on with our lives, he just wouldn’t let her go or give up on her.

They tried asking questions and asked if I needed to call anybody, but I didn’t answer. Shit, I couldn’t answer. I was lost, confused, shocked, angry, numb; I literally couldn’t feel shit. To be honest, I didn’t want to feel anything at that moment. Tasia took my phone and called BJ to let him know what happened. Tasia knew BJ well because she’d seen him at the house a few times and we’d all kicked in together. Within thirty minutes or less, BJ showed up at the house with his mom, dad, and older brother Brandon following him. They all stood silently around me as I stared off into space, trying to make sense of this shit. I was only sixteen and was now left in this cold ass world alone without my parents. How the fuck was I supposed to handle that shit? I didn’t have family in California because most of my family lived in the south and had no real relationship with me or my parents for whatever reason, so I technically had nowhere to go. How the fuck was I supposed to survive on my own as a sixteen year old with no job? I needed some fucking answers because this shit wasn’t fair at all.

“They want you to come down to the station to answer some questions, but Brian and I told them you probably wouldn’t be up for it right now. Whenever you’re ready, they want you to give them a call.” Mrs. Wallis spoke as she placed a card in my hand. “Callum, sweetheart, I—”

“I’ve been trying for two years to get my dad to just let her leave so we could move on with our lives. I kept telling him that it was worth it because she didn’t want the love or help the he was trying to give her. They had been arguing every day for the past two years, but I never expected to come home and see what I saw. She looked him dead in the eye and shot him three times then pointed the gun at me before turning it on herself and blowing her brains out right in front of me. I watched my mom kill my dad then take her own life. That’s going to haunt me for the rest of my life.” I said as I stared at them blankly.

“Oh my God!” Mrs. Wallis gasped in horror and hugged me as tears fell from her eyes. “I am so sorry that you had to witness such a horrific crime.”

“If this is the kind of stuff that drug addiction makes you do, I hope I never fall into addiction. What I saw and the reason behind it just destroyed my life forever. I don’t ever want to form a habit that I can’t control.” I said as a tear dropped from my eye. “I don’t even know what I’m going to do now. Both my parents are gone.”

“Do you have any family you can contact?” Mr. Wallis asked and I shook my head.

“We didn’t really have much of a relationship with any of our family. They all live down south. I don’t even have contact information for them. I’m just sixteen; I don’t have a job and I’m still in school. I’ll probably be on the street or living out my car.” I sobbed. I was fucked up in too many ways.

“Son listen to me,” Mr. Wallis said, lifting my head up. “I’ve been knowing you a long time. Your father was a good friend of mine so I’ll be damned if I left you here to fend for yourself. I want you to go and clean your face up, then I want you to pack up and many clothes and whatever else you need because you’re not going to be able to stay here, especially since it’s now a crime scene.” 

“I appreciate it, Mr. Wallis, but I don’t want to be a burden on you and your family. I mean I can just go—” I started before Mrs. Wallis raised her hand and stopped me.

“You won’t be a burden to us, Callum. We know how close you and BJ are; you two have been good friends since you were five, so it is no problem opening our home to you. Go ahead and get everything you’ll need or want to take with you while Brian and I make a few calls. Everything is going to be fine, sweetheart.” She hugged me again as I nodded and thanked her.

I got up and slowly made my way down the hall past my parents bedroom. Just looking inside the room made my fucking heartache because I had to live with the fact that I’d be scarred forever after witnessing what happened in that room. I honestly didn’t have much remorse or sympathy for my mom because she was a drug addicted, mentally ill coward and I knew there was a special place in hell for her. My heart ached for my dad and for myself. He did everything he could to protect me and help my mom get better, but in the end it cost him his life. Now, they’re both gone and I’m left in this world to navigate through life alone.