Blame

It's late at night when the sound of yelling wakes up the sleeping five year old. She sits up in bed, her red hair a tangle of curls on her head, and sleepy green eyes look around her dark room.
Kicking back her blankets, she slips off her bed, bare feet making no noise across the horrible red and black carpet. As she peers through the open door, and around the corner, she can clearly hear her mum and dad arguing. At first, this confuses her. Her parents didn't argue, they loved each other, and they loved their kids.
Out loud, she calls for her mum, and the arguing stops and a tall woman with curly blonde hair comes around the corner, a small smile of her face. She picks up her daughter, asking what she was doing awake, then proceeds to tuck the small girl back in bed.
Every night for nearly four months, her parents argue until finally one day, her dad announces that he's got a business trip he needs to go on, and will be away for a while. When asked if she could go too, the five year old was told sternly, "It's only for a short while, Ellie, and I'll be home before you know it."
A week later, Ellie woke up to a loud crash. Thinking there was a monster, at first she cowered under her mum's blanket, but then her thought's turned to her baby brother. So forcing herself up, she marched into the living room, intent on protecting her brother. Instead of the scene she was expecting, what Ellie saw instead was her mother sitting on the floor, crying, a kitchen chair was thrown across the room.
Wrapping her small arms around her mum's, she realized the truth of what was going on. Her dad had lied. He was gone. He was never coming back. For weeks after, he mother constantly told her that it wasn't Ellie's fault. But it was. She didn't know how, just was. Maybe if she'd been good, and hadn't been such a brat, or maybe if she had done better in school, and not tried to get in trouble so much.
It was her fault her baby brother wouldn't have a dad.

NOTE:
Another thing that really happened. This is actually a memory of my own, I just changed the name. My parents divorced when I was a child, and I always thought it was my fault, that I didn't behave enough for my dad to still love me.

A teardrop is insignificant in a pool of water, but it can touch the soul as it runs down someone's face.

The funeral wasn't for anyone she really knew. It was for a girl at school who had fallen into a coma, and after forty-eight hours, her parents pulled the plug, knowing their daughter would never wake up.
Half the school were bawling their eyes out, less than a quarter of them knew the girl. The rest of the school were consoling their friends.
Sixteen year old Anna McLean was counted among the consoling friends. She's agreed to come to the funeral in support of her best friend, Samantha Rose. The church was full of people who were just sitting there quietly, people sniffling, and a few who were outright crying.
Beside Anna, with her mass of curly red hair blocking her face, Samantha was one of the few who were outright crying.
The dead girl, Jennifer, had been a very close friend of Samantha's, almost like an older sister. The two had spent most of their time together, until a year before, when Jen had started hanging around kids who smoked weed all day long.
The day at school, when they were told about Jen having a heart attack, and hitting her head on the ground, therefore going into a coma, Samantha had left her class, running to the bathroom to wash her red, splotchy face, make her skin go back to being normal. Anna had run into her on the way there, and the two spent ten minutes in the hallway, with Samantha crying into Anna's shoulder. Not even the principal told them to get back to class.
Two days later, they were told about Jen passing away the night before. Once again, Anna found herself consoling her best friend. The way that Anna acted, it seemed like she didn't care, but she did, but she didn't know how to react to this, and completely denied the fact that it was happening.
Samantha on the other hand, realized it was happening, and though she never cried in front of people, did so for the first time in ten years, she actually sat down and cried. With people in the room.
Four days later was the funeral. Samantha had begged Anna to go, because she needed the support, but while there, she rejected anything meant to be comforting. Throughout the entire funeral, she just stared at the pictures being projected on the wall, not paying attention to the people talking, not until Jen's niece and nephew got up.
The two had written a poem for their aunt, and read it out loud, whrn they were done, they went to sit down. You could see, Sarah, Jen's little niece, crying, and the sight of the four year old touched everyone's souls. It wasn't fair that a child that young should have to deal with someone so close to them dying.
Fate is cruel, forcing that.
The ending song, a hymn, that Jen had loved, set most people into tears, as the song was about love, and life.
Live. Laugh. Love.
That was Jen's favourite quote, Samantha's too, both girls adopted it the same day, years ago.
Death ends a life, but not a relationship.

NOTE:
This was actually based off something that really happened. One of my best friends, someone I considered an older sister, died of heart complications. Her parents had to make the hard decision to let her go, she had no brain activity while in her coma. There's now a tree planted outside the front doors to my school that's dedicated to her. And another one beside it dedicated to another boy who died that year.