by Trish D.
“Ok, I won’t hold you up. Do you want to sit in the food court and talk for a minute?”
“No, I really don’t have time for all that. I have ten minutes and I really have to get going.” I really had an hour before work and the food court was right behind us where I was headed to get a milkshake, but I didn’t want to be that nice to him. Being nice to him had cost me my relationship with Jason.
In those ten minutes that I talked to him, history repeated itself and I learned a lot about what was going on with Eric. Come to find out, he had flunked out of school at the end of fall semester and was basically hopping from couch to couch of friends. He was having a hard time keeping low paying jobs and though he didn’t say it, I was pretty sure it was related to his alcohol abuse. His mom would not allow him to come home until he got treatment for his alcoholism, but he was pretty adamant that he didn’t have a problem. He was there in the mall hoping to pick up a second job so that he could get a place of his own and lastly he wanted to let me know how very sorry he was over what had happened at Dockside. He had dropped the charges against Jason and they never had to go to court, which was news and a great relief to me. I felt like Eric wanted me to feel sorry for him and was once again looking for me to save him. I couldn’t do that though and didn’t even want to try. I listened to him and when he was done and I had heard enough I wished him all the best and said good-bye. I was done.
The second session of summer school went by extremely fast. My classes were harder than first session. I managed to stay busy with studying, working, and some leisure activities. Thankfully, loneliness was not an issue. The only down part of the session was the 4th of July holiday when the family was once again headed to Chattanooga just as we all did the previous years. I chose not to go even though I could have stayed in the hotel with my parents. I felt like the tension between me and Shanna would put a damper on the vacation and I didn’t want to risk running into Jason while there. When Daddy asked, I told him that I had decided to end our relationship due to the distance between us. I still missed him like crazy and even though I spent the holiday at the beach with April and her friends, it was very hard not to think about my family and Jason. Several times I had to fight back tears wondering how long it was going to hurt.
∞∞∞
My junior year of college started before I was ready for it. After spending the whole summer taking classes, I definitely felt like I needed at least two more weeks out to catch my breath. The good thing that I had going for myself was that was I on track to graduate on time with a psychology major provided I did summer school again before my senior year. The sting from not getting into the nursing program was still very much there especially when I would see people that I had classes with in preparation. I had learned to accept it though and devote positive energy towards my new major. I still had my job from the summer that I very much hated. My co-workers were the most annoying and childish high schoolers I had ever been around, but I continued to tough it out since it served its purpose of providing some extra money. April and I still talked but with classes it was harder to find time to for us to get out. Life was peaceful and I learned to be content instead of looking for more.
There wasn’t much excitement going on for me until right before fall break when my cell phone kept ringing late at night. The fact that the person kept calling was odd to me but I didn’t want to answer, I wanted to continue to think that it was someone dialing the wrong number. It was only when my home phone started ringing that I finally decided that it might be someone really trying to reach me. When I answered, I could tell someone was on the other end but I couldn’t hear him or her saying anything. I wasn’t sure if it was due to me being half asleep or if someone was really getting a kick out of playing on my phones. Just as I was about to hang up, I heard a voice that sounded vaguely familiar.
“Cheryl, can you hear me?”
“Shanna?” I could tell it was her but why did she sound so weird and why was she whispering?
“Yeah, it’s Shanna, please don’t hang up.”
“Shanna, are you in the library or something? Why are you whispering?”
“No, I’m not at that library. I’m in the hospital.” She started to cry, which confused me even more. What in the world was going on?
“The hospital? Were you in an accident? Are you hurt?”
Between tears I made out that she was there related to drug use and really needed me to come. The rest, I decided didn’t need to be discussed over the phone. I just needed to get to Chattanooga. I packed in record time, stopped at the closest gas station to get a couple of red bulls and hit the road not knowing what to expect. I was so intent on getting there as quickly and safely as possible, that I didn’t have time to react to the fact that she was really in the hospital. She had pleaded with me not to call our parents and as much as I felt like we both needed them to be there, I respected her wishes. The good thing about driving during the middle of the night was that there was virtually no traffic. The drive to Chattanooga that usually took over seven hours only took just over six even with my two stops for bathroom breaks from drinking the red bulls.
It was just after 7am when I walked into the hospital I had spent a whole summer volunteering. It felt eerie not being there as a volunteer, but as one of the many people coming to see their sick loved one. It hit me when I was in the elevator that my sister who for so long I had viewed as a bully was in the hospital. I could remember thinking that nothing could hurt her; she was too tough and mean. The person I saw in the hospital bed was not my mean bully of a sister. It was a pale skeleton with black sunken eyes and numerous bruises. She started to cry immediately when she saw me and I wanted to cry but the shock of how bad she looked kept the tears back. Between sobs, Shanna told me what I already knew that she had been doing drugs for a while now. Her drug of choice was cocaine. It was the same drug that had killed Jackie. What was she thinking? She and Craig fought constantly over money to buy alcohol and drugs. Since he always had more money than her, what he said went as far as how much he was willing to spend daily on their habit. Their fight the night before had started when she flipped on him for lying about having cocaine. The fight had gotten out of hand and resulted in him being arrested and her in the hospital. The worst thing about this whole ordeal was that she was defending Craig’s actions to him being high and not realizing what he was doing.
Though Shanna initially demanded that I not involve our parents in this, I was later able to convince her that this whole thing was bigger than what we could solve alone. Finally, she agreed and as I went back to the ground floor to get some breakfast I made one of the hardest phones calls home. I was hoping that Daddy would answer the phone knowing that it would break Mommy’s heart, but just my luck she answered on the first ring. She fell silent as I tried to sum up the situation in just a few words but I knew she was stuck on the words that Shanna was in the hospital. Daddy had to take the phone from her demanding that I give him more information, since the story didn’t make sense to him. I didn’t want to be the one to tell him about the drugs or alcohol, especially over the phone, but my hands were tied. He sounded absolutely devastated by the information I gave and it made me feel even worse. It had to finally make sense to them why she didn’t graduate like she should have and why Craig had to move in together over the summer to help her out financially. Still, I could only imagine how heart breaking it was to hear.
Back in the room, Shanna was asleep as I ate my breakfast. I made myself as comfortable as possible as I waited for my parents to make their long drive in. At some point I fell asleep myself and woke up feeling like I had been asleep for weeks. I had missed a few calls from Daddy and his voicemail said that they were able to find plane tickets instead of making the drive down. I was glad they were coming, but since I was the one that had to pick them up from the airport, I was the one who would have to answer more of their questions. I was not looking forward to that. I had a little over an hour before their flight ca
me in so I took a trip to Wal-Mart to pick up some toiletries for Shanna and a few things for myself that I forgot in the haste of packing. Since I had time to kill, I decided to pick Shanna up a card for all of us to sign and some flowers. As I was going through reading the hundreds of cards, I heard someone come up behind me.
“Cheryl?”
The voice alone made my stomach drop. It was Jason. With everything going on I didn’t even consider the possibility that I could run into him. It felt like it had been years since we had talked and with the way things had ended, I wasn’t quite sure what to say to him or how to act. I turned so that my back was no longer to him, but I didn’t say anything still not knowing what to say. He looked exactly the same except instead of a smile his face had an expression of shock that he had happened to run into me.
“How have you been? You are the last person I expected to run into here.”
It was at the tip of my tongue to ask him how he thought I was after he dumped me, but I played it cool. “I’ve been good. I’m here visiting my sister.”
“Gotcha. How long are you in town for?” The fact that he was talking to me like an old friend he had just happened to lose contact with was surprising to me and a bit offensive. I really just wanted to get away from him quickly.
“It’s my fall break, so a few days.”
“Well, give me a call if you have any free time. I’d love to catch up with you.”
“Ok, well I guess you’d have to unblock my number first.” I wanted to kick myself for that snide response, but I couldn’t help myself. He didn’t have a response. “Well, I have go, my parents’ flight will be coming in soon.”
“Ok, well hopefully, we will talk soon.”
I gave a half smile as he walked away. As I dropped the card I had been reading in my basket I mumbled to myself, “yeah right.” There was a time when I would have done anything for him to want to talk to me. I wasn’t sure what happened, but seeing him and his whole nonchalant attitude towards me pissed me off. I had spent months mourning the end of our relationship and he had seemed to move on with no problem. After months, he wanted to “catch up?” That was not likely to happen. I was sure I was forgetting items from my mental list but I just couldn’t risk running into him again. I was also annoyed that I was leaving the store earlier than I intended. What was I to do now until the plane came in? Going back to the hospital would be backtracking and there wasn’t anywhere for me to park and sit at the airport without paying. My options were limited. It was likely related to my lack of sleep and the stress of everything that was going on, but I felt so irritated.
Once I calmed down, I remembered that there was a shopping center not too far from the airport. There weren’t any stores that I would have even considered going in on an ordinary day but at that time, they fulfilled my purpose of wasting time. Fortunately, the flight arrived on time and I didn’t have to spend too much time wandering around the shopping center. Daddy and Mommy were waiting outside with their luggage when I pulled up. They both looked disheveled and drained. It was also obvious by Mommy’s red puffy eyes that she had been crying. Seeing them like that made me angry with Shanna. She was putting me in a position to be the middleman for the situation she had created. Again, I blamed my irritation on my lack of sleep. All I wanted to do was get to the hospital as quickly as possible without having to answer too many questions. The car ride to the hospital was in complete silence, which I thought was what I wanted. Instead, it was pretty uncomfortable to the point that I dropped them off at the front of the hospital while I parked. I just needed a minute to breath.
When I got back to the room, I set the card and flowers on the table beside Shanna. She was so caught up in answering my parents’ questions that she didn’t even realize they were there. Daddy was pretty calm as Shanna explained the whole situation to them, but Mommy was pretty torn up which made Shanna cry more. Seeing them both so upset made me want to cry and I didn’t want to cry. I relocated back to the cafeteria where there was a large TV playing CNN. It wasn’t anything I wanted to watch, but it was better than being in that room. I was down there for at least an hour before Daddy called my cell to tell me that they were ready to go. We were going back to sleep at Shanna’s apartment until the morning when Daddy could call around to rehab centers suggested by the social worker. Shanna seemed sad to see us go and I knew she probably wanted me to stay, but I felt like I had to get away from the hospital. As we made our way back to Shanna’s I couldn’t help but feel nervous of what condition we would find the apartment in. I was pretty sure it wasn’t anything I hadn’t seen before, but I wondered how my parents would react. I truly hoped that by some miracle it would be in some type of order.
At worst, I expected a dozen of beer cans, a few liquor bottles, and maybe old food containers to be littering the living room and kitchen. As we got closer to the front door, the smell seeping out the cracks of the front door made it obvious that we were in store for much more. We all gasped as we walked in. Where the coffee table used to be was a pile of shattered glass, old Chinese food containers, around 8 beer bottles, and a half finished bottle of vodka. Clothes were scattered all over the living room and the kitchen was absolutely disgusting. The trash was piled up, dishes were overflowing, and the floor so gross that I didn’t even want to walk on it with shoes on. No one said a word. We all just looked around in disgust trying not to gag. It wasn’t long before mommy started doing what she did best. While she started in the kitchen, I tackled the living room and daddy started getting all the trash down to the dumpster. It took us nearly two hours to get the apartment clean and even though it still smelled, we decided to call it a night. It was when I lied down that I remembered that Craig had a key and could come in at any point during the night. We had no clue where he was or if he had gotten out of jail, but to be on the safe side I got out of bed and made sure the deadbolt lock was on.
Thankfully, the night went by without incident. I woke up the next morning feeling refreshed after sleeping like a log. There was absolutely no food in the house, so we went out for an awkward breakfast at IHOP. It wasn’t unusual for Mommy to be quiet but Daddy barely said two words. There were no stories from work trips or corny jokes. It was just silence with an occasional “pass the syrup” or “how’s your meal?” I hated what this was doing to our family and I wondered how much they blamed me for not saying anything earlier. I couldn’t say that I didn’t feel some guilt for keeping quiet. I knew she was in need of help and I let it go on. Looking back, I wished that I had handled it differently from the moment I realized there was a drinking problem. I could have sat there and mentally made up dozens of excuses as to why I didn’t say anything, but it all came back to the same result, I was wrong.
The rest of the day was spent at the hospital finalizing plans for Shanna to go into rehab. Daddy was able to find one in Charlotte that was willing to take her immediately and Shanna was released the next day. The last two days there were a whirlwind of packing and cleaning to get everything set for Shanna’s move. The events of the past week had taken quite a toll on her both physically and mentally as would be expected. She barely said anything as we packed up the apartment and constantly checked her cell phone for messages. It was hard to tell if she was more hurt by the fact that she and Craig were over, that she had pretty much hit rock bottom, or that she hadn’t heard from him since the fight. It irritated me each time I saw her check her phone, which seemed like every five minutes, but at the same time I knew the feeling of wanting some closure. All of Craig’s clothes were still at the apartment along with his documentaries that he treasured and other various things. Daddy’s plan was to bag it all up and donate it all to the Salvation Army, but Shanna would hear nothing of it. With the little money that she had left, she boxed it all up and paid for it to be shipped to his parents’ home in Virginia.
In just two days we got Shanna in enrolled in rehab, broke her lease, and got her apartment completely cleaned out. It was just in time to turn in th
e keys and for us to make our long drives back to Charlotte and Wilmington. Shanna’s car was loaded top to bottom with her stuff and barely room for Mommy to ride in the back seat. Daddy hugged me extra hard as we said our goodbyes. He didn’t say a word out of his mouth, but his hug said it all, “please take care of yourself.” What Daddy said with a hug, Mommy said with tear filled eyes. In that moment I was glad that they didn’t know why I didn’t get into nursing school. I knew it didn’t compare in magnitude to what was going on with Shanna, but I didn’t want them to be any more disappointed in their children.
Fall was upon us, but it was still warm enough to ride with the windows down as I hit the highway. About 45 minutes into the ride my cell phone started to ring. As I dug my phone out of my oversized purse, I fully expected it to be Daddy telling me to drive safely and not to speed. The ringing had stopped by the time I got the phone out and on the screen it read that I had indeed missed a call but it wasn’t from Daddy or any of my family. It was a missed call from Jason. With all we had going on, I had forgotten that I had run into him and that I was supposed to call him. Still not really feeling up to talking to him, I put the phone back in my purse, set my cruise control, and cranked up the music.
∞∞∞
After all the drama from fall break, there wasn’t much excitement and I had deemed that my junior year would be the most uneventful year of my college experience. I was OK with that though. Shanna and I had mended our relationship and kept in contact as much as was allowed when she was in rehab. The rehab center she was in had strict guidelines on phone calls, but we still talked regularly throughout the week when she alternated between calling our parents or me. She seemed to be doing well and to be getting better. I just hoped that it would stay that way once she got out. Mainly, I wanted her to stay far away from Craig. April and I also kept in contact but between classes, both of our jobs, and her boyfriend, there wasn’t a lot of time for us to have girl time. I was content with how things were though. There was no stress or drama and I realized that boring wasn’t such a bad thing.