“Do you share your work with others, or do you prefer to keep them to yourself?” Ms. Salvatore asked.
“I guess I keep them to myself. But I’ve written silly ones that rhyme that I’ve read to other people. Those were on the spot though and not really meaningful” I explained.
Ms. Salvatore took in a rooted breath, “Sometimes writing things that are funny for your friends can be a lot of fun, but I have also found that writing for yourself is what tends to be the life-changing magic of poetry. When I was eleven-years-old, I was going through an especially difficult time. I was a foster child. While I had spent most of my years lucky enough to live with only two families by that age, the one I knew best had grown too ill to take care of me. They were much older than the other foster parents, I believe they were in their late 70s and both suffering from different ailments. I was sent back living in a crowded foster center awaiting my next family” she looked around the room, making eye contact with each student “and once you’re in the double digits, your chances are less likely of getting a permanent home. This was the time I decided not to let my feelings fester but to make them into something. I found that poetry gave me a way to not only vent my frustration but also made me feel less lonely. I was not alone because I had words. Some people only think of language and the written word to be a form of communication on the most minor level. It is, but it could be so much more. It can be the one thing that saves you from the dark thoughts, unwanted thoughts, and the disappointment of life. How lucky are we as humans to have this beautiful tool?”
Ms. Salvatore looked at us expectedly. She was searching for approval or just agreement. I remembered that feeling. I too felt so many of those things after losing my dad, and I would write them down. I was so desperate to wash away my thoughts and not allow my mom to see them that I forgot that the reason I wrote them down in the first place was to make sense of them. One of the things I needed to make sense of most was letting my mom know how I felt about the whole thing. Ms. Salvatore, or Astrid and she kept insisting we call her throughout the class period, gave us our first assignment. It was to observe our surroundings and write down what we see. It was an assignment I had plenty of experience with.
Chapter 9
After school, I decided to grab something to eat. Since I wasn’t working that day, I decided to hit up Bernie’s Burgers. It was one of two hamburger joints in Manere. Typically, having two restaurants dedicated to burgers in a town with a few hundred people would probably mean getting an order would be quick and easy, but it never was. Even the fact that Bernie’s was the only business in the town that had a drive-thru didn’t help matters. It was always too crowded to utilize, anyway.
I walked into Bob’s to order. I would either eat in my car and start poetry observing or just find a seat. I was in no hurry to go back home. Before leaving for school, I noticed that my mom had left me a note on the refrigerator. It said ‘Should be back tomorrow. There is emergency money on the top of the fridge. Be smart and safe” I had no idea where she went off to this time. She did spend a lot of time at Peter’s house which was just weird that he still had a house.
After my mom married Peter, he decided to keep his house. My mom didn’t want to move out of our house either. It was probably a stand-off of sentimentality. So many memories from their respective first spouses and the children they raised. Having two houses worked well for a while. When Peter’s daughters would stay with him for a visit, it would usually be at their house. I appreciated having the house to myself so many times.
After the first year of the arrangement, things became less convenient and quieter and lonelier. My mom spent so much of her time at his house to give me a break. She knew I was upset about her remarrying, but if the choice was to have a pseudo-replacement for my dad and occasionally his daughters in my home or not seeing my mom regularly, I would have chosen a house full of strangers every time. It also seemed that once school ended, my mom drifted away even further. Was she pushing me away because I would be leaving soon? The same thing happened to right before Rachel Duke left town. We were close, but a week before she left, she put a wedge between us. I was furious at the time, but after she had been gone a while, I started to realize she was only doing it to make herself feel better. If she left feeling indifferent, the pain wouldn’t be so spectacular.
“Angela?” a towering man asked. I turned to see a lanky, agile guy, with broad shoulders, shaggy dirty blond hair, and a familiar grin. I fixed my eyes on him a bit too long trying to pull something from my memory, but it wasn’t quite forming.
“Hi?”
“Angela Abrams. It’s me, Troy Duke. Rachel’s brother” as the words left his mouth, he instantaneously appeared younger to me. I never expected to see Troy again. The last time I did see him, he was at least six inches shorter, had hair that went down to his back and looked like the boy who would get picked last for the team.
“Troy? You look so different” I extended out my arms, and he went in for a hug. He smelled like a mixture of saltwater and strawberry. His washed hair was a welcome change.
“You too. I mean you look mostly the same just much more beautiful and grown-up” he said.
I blushed. I rarely received such compliments. I thought I was reasonably attractive but compared to the sun worshippers or meth heads in Manere, it wasn’t difficult to look healthy and glowing. Troy used to be more reserved with Rachel’s friends. He appeared to have grown out of that.
“Did your family move back to town or are you just visiting? I would love to see Rachel,”. I said.
Troy knitted his brows.
“What do you mean? We didn’t move anywhere. Rachel left,” he said.
“She left? Where did she go? I thought you guys moved out of town, so Rachel could go to a better high school or something,”. Troy took in a breath and carefully chose his words. “I’m not sure what she told you before she left but we never moved out of town. I woke up one morning four years ago to see if she wanted a ride anywhere since I was headed to work, and she wasn’t there.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I guess I don’t either. She told you we were moving?” he asked.
“Yeah. She had said it like a week before she was gone. I thought you were all gone. You guys live on the other side of town, so I just assumed that when she said you were moving, you were moving,”.
“That’s Rachel for you. She could convince anyone of anything.”
“So, she ran away, or she disappeared?” I asked nervously. I had heard so many stories of disappearances that were never solved in the desert that thinking about Rachel being one of those people made me feel sick to my stomach.
“That’s the tricky part,” he said as he led me to the side of the restaurant to take a seat. It wasn’t a conversation he wanted to share with the prying ears. He continued, “After she was gone, my parents didn’t freak out. I asked them if she ran away, but they did little more than shrug about the whole thing. It was like they didn’t care. I don’t think she disappeared. I mean, she did but I think she left on her own. I don’t think she was anyone’s victim.”
“I can’t imagine Rachel being anyone’s victim.”
“Since she apparently told you ahead of time that she was moving, she obviously had a plan.”
“How come I don’t know about this? Your parents didn’t call the cops or call around to her friends to see if she was staying with them?”
“That’s the worst of it. They went through the day like nothing happened. They never called anyone. I think they may have informed the school she wouldn’t be attending in the fall and that was it. That’s why you didn’t hear much about it.”
“It’s just so strange. How have we never run into each other all these years? Your parents too. I haven’t seen them since I thought you guys moved.”
“Not sure. I guess we keep to ourselves. I’ve been working at the resort on the outskirts of town. I have a trailer with a buddy of mine in the desert right n
ear there. I rarely come to this part of town”.
People who lived in Manere would often say they were ‘Going into town’ when all they meant was leaving their somewhat rural street to get to Main Street. Since Main Street had most of the businesses, it was the only place to go. Though Manere was small by any standard definition, it was spread out. Going to town or across town sounded like an effort only because of the tumbleweed, cactus, and sand that separated things made the trek feel so much longer.
“I just had no idea about this. I wish I had known. You probably thought I was ignoring you. I had no idea. Your parents are okay though?”
“Angela. It’s fine. You didn’t owe me anything. You were my little sister’s friend. We are five years apart, there wasn’t much of a chance of us hanging out in the same circles, anyway. As for my parents? That’s just how they are. They don’t want to question things. They don’t want to make a big deal of our family issues.”
“She was only fourteen though. Had they given her money to live somewhere else? Was there a big fight before? This is all too much” I said as I searched his face and looked around us to see if the building had cleared out or if it just felt like it did. Troy’s face was calm. I was reacting to something he had known for years. Even though it must have bothered him still, the initial sting had become numb long before.
“There wasn’t a fight that was bigger than any fight they had before. Rachel was always arguing with our parents. She found something wrong with the way we lived our life almost every day. If she wasn’t complaining, she was openly defying the rules my parents set for her.”
“I know she could be a bit of trouble sometimes. She was like that at school too.”
“Right. I don’t blame her for it. If anything, I blame my parents for being so strict about everything. She tried Eastern Manere for a short time, but the reason she wasn’t in school before you met her was that my parents didn’t trust her to be away from home.”
“I remember she said you guys were homeschooled. I also remembered that she told everyone at school that her family traveled the world and that was why she was new.”
“That’s Rachel,” Troy raised his head with a grin. I could tell he missed her. “She told a lot of stories. It did make life a lot more interesting,”.
“Have you spoken to her since she left?”
“No. I haven’t,” he put his head down in shame and continued. “I feel terrible that I never went after her or tried to find her, but I was just worried,”.
“Worried?”
“That I wouldn’t be allowed back in. I don’t know how she did it. I don’t. She somehow managed to breach the system and leave this town. I was old enough to leave but if I did, what would happen to my parents?”
“They’re not doing so well then?”
“I think the secrets have beat them. They’re just tired, Angela. I think we all are.” I nodded. I wasn’t entirely sure what he meant. It was such a loaded statement. For some reason, I agreed with him anyway. There was something unbearably tiring about living in a world with so many rules and restrictions.
“I would like to see her again though. Soon. I don’t want to get into it here,” he looked around for eavesdroppers. “I just need to get my shit together and decide how I’m going to do it.”
“And you don’t know how Rachel did any of it?”
“Nope. I know she had planned to leave but whether she had a plan beyond getting the hell, out of here is anyone’s guess. That was just Rachel though, she didn’t need a safety net. She would make her own fate and take the fall no matter how much it hurt.”
“And get right back up to do it again. I know.”
“So now that I know you didn’t move away. What have you been up to?” I asked trying to lighten the mood.
“I work for the resort as I mentioned, and the town’s septic company.”
“Like a plumber?”
“No. I, um, well I pump waste. I’m a shit pumper, to be honest.”
“Oh, that’s cool.”
Troy laughed “It’s really not but what can you say about it? It’s a job. I’ve been there since I graduated.”
“Well, I’m glad you have a stable job. Do you have a girlfriend or anything?” I asked trying not to blush again. Troy was always cute, and his attractiveness only improved over the years.
“Not right now. Tawny and I had a long run but broke up a few months back. Do you remember Tawny?”
“Yeah. Wow, so you guys were together for a long time.”
“We were. Six years. It was a good run.”
“Why did you break up?” I asked instantly regretting such a personal question.
“I think she may have been ready to have kids. I like kids, but I think that’s kind of the problem with this town. People just run out of things to do after high school, and if they don’t get out, they just start getting tattoos and then start having kids.” He lifted his shirt to show me a tattoo of a sword on his side from his ribs to just above his hip. “I got one of them. I’m not ready for the next step. What about you Angela? You have a boyfriend?”
Nervousness started to radiate through my face. It wasn’t atypical for me to become nervous around a good-looking guy, but it was worse with Troy because the friend’s older brothers are always a little hotter. Probably because they’re off-limits no matter what.
“No. No boyfriend,”
“Not that guy you used to spend all your time with. Leo or something?”
“Milo?”
“Right Milo. I knew it was something I would name a cat.”
I laughed “we never dated. We were just friends.”
“Were? Did he make it out of this place?”
“No. It’s just complicated. We aren’t really friends anymore. Grew apart I guess.”
“I see. It sounds like you decided to break it instead of bend it.”
“What does that mean?”
“When you’re young and you’re friends with someone of the opposite sex, or any sex you're attracted to for that matter, something changes. One person starts to fall in love with the other one. Sometimes both people feel the same thing but aren’t sure what to do. You must decide to either bend the relationship beyond the rules of friendship and see if there’s anything else there or you just decide that you can’t handle all that romantic shit, and both walk away.”
“It’s not really like that.”
“That’s what everyone says. With that response, I’m going to guess it was Milo who was in love with you.”
“No. He’s not. I think we just stopped liking the same things or just getting along was too much of a challenge.”
“You miss him though.”
“I do. He was my best friend for years.”
“So, go tell him you miss him. If you guys were really that good of friends, you’ll find your way back to each other.”
“Maybe, we just weren’t that good of friends.”
“You were. Trust me. I noticed. I am a whole five years older than you Angela, I was like mature and stuff,” he smiled.
“I don’t know if it makes much of a difference. I’m leaving soon, anyway.”
Troy raised an eyebrow
“I’m going to Carnegie Mellon in the fall.”
“Really? That’s like far away.”
“It is. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I can’t wait.”
“What are you going to be when you grow up Angela Abrams?”
“That’s the best part. I have no idea. I thought I would dabble in Architecture or Philosophy. I just can’t wait until I have all of those doors open so I can choose once I’m there,”.
“That’s great. I’m happy for you. Maybe once you make it out of here, you can find Rachel. Make sure she’s okay. I know she wouldn’t have gone all the way to Pittsburgh, but I have a feeling you have a better shot at finding her than anyone here would”. There was the silence that sat uneasily between us. There wasn’t much more to say.
“I better get goi
ng. I got to get home and feed my cat.”
“Leo?”
He laughed, “No. Southpaw because he leads with the right but maybe that will be the name of the next one”.
Troy grabbed his bag of food that had no doubt gone cold and walked out of the two swinging doors. It was troubling that such a beautiful person was in so much pain. When I first looked at him, all I could see was how handsome he was but once we started talking, I could see the sadness in his eyes, the slouched shoulders of someone who had felt too much. I wasn’t sure what to do with the new information about Rachel. Or was it old information that was clarified? I figured the only thing to do was relay the information to my group of friends.
Chapter 10
Lucy was the first person to come over. I had left a message with one of her brothers that she never returned but when she knocked on my door, I knew it would be her. “Hey what’s going on?” she asked as she pushed her way through the entryway.
“Hi to you too.”
“Angela, it’s me. We don’t do formal.”
“Right. Okay, so I have something weird to tell you. I don’t even know how to go about it because I’m not even sure if you would care.”
“Is this about Milo?”
“Why would it be about Milo?”
“Isn’t it always?” Lucy asked with an exasperated sigh.
To be fair to Lucy, it did seem like most of our conversations somehow led to Milo, especially after the dissolution of our friendship. She could never understand why I couldn’t accept losing him as a fixture in my life. “It’s not always about Milo,” I said trying to sound sure of my own words, but Lucy simply rolled her eyes the way she always did.
“Lucy, if you and I just stopped being friends suddenly. Wouldn’t you miss me? Wouldn’t you think about me a lot? Because I would think about you constantly. I would do anything to get you back into my life,”.
“That’s the thing, Angie. You aren’t doing anything about getting Milo back in your life. You just stew in your self-pity. Sitting in your room listening to tapes you guys made together, or completely spacing out during conversations is not exactly doing something. I would hope you wouldn’t be such a miserable grouch if we stopped being friends”.
All That Remains (Manere Book 1) Page 5