Life's A Cappella

by Smith, Yessi

  Gonz nodded. “There’s some stuff you’ll have to take care of so you can become her legal guardian, but yeah, they wanted you to go over there soon as you could. The man I spoke to, Miller, is worried about Shayna and thinks her being with family will be better for her.”

  Family? I wanted to laugh. Family, like I had any idea what that meant. And now I was supposed to take care of a child? Who’d probably been exposed to the same bullshit I had gone through. But worse, she’d been locked up with her dead mother for days. Shit.

  Camilla and Trent tried to speak to me after Gonz left, but I didn’t hear them. I only had one thing on my mind; escape. I had to leave. They’d have too many questions, none of which I had the answer to. Already I felt my restraint begin to waver. I had to get away from them. From myself.

  As much as I hated my mother, I hated myself more. This life I had created had all been an illusion, and I should never have allowed myself to feel anything for anyone. Now I felt too much.

  Trent grabbed my shoulders, a far distance embrace that made my heart hurt.

  “What’s going on Erin? Jordyn?” He shook his head at me in disbelief. What must be going through his head? He had opened himself up to me and I had thrown my lack of trust in him in his face. “Whatever.”

  “Let me go, Trent,” I told him and he did, so I made my way to the door so I could leave.

  “Wait, you’re leaving?” he asked, but I ignored him. “No explanations?” he yelled, but I didn’t stop, so he got in front of me. “I deserve better than this. Fuck, Cam deserves better than this.”

  The truth of his words hit me like a punch to the stomach. But with my own survival at risk, I squared my shoulders, knowing he was right, but ready to fight nonetheless. It would be easier if we fought. He would hate me and my leaving would be less painful. “You deserve better?” I asked mockingly, but wrapped my arms protectively around my own waist, knowing how badly I was about to hurt myself. “Screw you, Trent, and your stupid holier than thou notions. You deserve nothing more than I’m willing to give you and I’m not giving you a damn thing.” I tried to brush past him, but he wouldn’t let me. “I’m leaving while your ego is still intact,” I told him levelly, hating myself for the venom I spewed out of my mouth.

  With my arms crossed, I stared at Trent defiantly. I didn’t want to leave, but I couldn’t stay.

  Finally resolved, he asked me, “Will you call me later?”

  “No,” I responded, because I wouldn’t. I saw the confusion and hurt in his eyes and was grateful when they turned to anger. He walked me to his door and slammed it as soon as I passed.

  Once I was in my car I plunged into a state of depression so quickly and overbearing I could hardly breathe. I reminded myself to inhale and exhale, repeatedly inhale and then exhale, while I grabbed my phone to play Eminem’s Rock Bottom. And that’s what it all came down to; my life was nothing more than desolate promises and shattered dreams.

  Chapter 14

  Erin

  Somehow Camilla made it to my apartment before me and was waiting for me at my door. I stared at her, focusing all my energy on her, willing her to leave while wishing she’d stay.

  “I’m not leaving,” she told me with more determination than I’d ever heard from her. “I can wait outside your apartment until you feel sorry for me or you can just let me in now.”

  I walked past her, unlocking the door and leaving it open for her. She followed me in quietly and watched me pour myself a glass of water. I sat on my couch, feeling aged.

  “What’s going on, Erin?” Camilla sat next to me. The tenderness in her voice almost undid me.

  With my spine stiffened, I let out a sigh. What’s going on? Oh, you know, the regular shit storm I call life. I almost laughed at the thought. Camilla continued to look at me, confused and eager to help. On a sigh, I broke the silence between us. “You know my real name. You heard my mom overdosed while my sister watched. What else do you want to know?” I asked desperately. “I’m backwoods red neck white trash,” I tried to laugh, but failed. “My life was shit and I wanted a new life so I made one.

  “I never wanted to see my mom again or even think about what I left behind. I was doing a pretty damn good job at it too,” I faltered. “My mother didn’t care about anything but her drugs, whether it came from a prescription bottle or needle, it didn’t matter. That’s what she lived for, what she’s always lived for. She’d sell her daughter for her next fix.”

  “Erin—”

  “No, you wanted to know,” I interrupted. “I’ve lived on the streets, alone in strange apartments with strange men. I’ve been hit with fists, beer bottles, you name it.” I saw Camilla inch towards me, probably to hug me, and I put my hands up to stop her. “Don’t you do that. Don’t you dare. I am not broken.” I shook my head vehemently at her, not wanting to acknowledge my own lies. Not broken, I almost laughed. I was broken beyond repair.

  “No, not broken,” she agreed, looking at me squarely in the eyes. “Brave, yes. And a bit too pig-headed and proud for your own good though,” she said, and I smiled, a sad, sloppy smile. “Let me and Trent help you.”

  “Trent?” I asked, and she nodded. “You saw him when I left. He hates me.”

  “He doesn’t hate you, dumb ass.” She smiled at me, a smile that radiated all the goodness that was Camilla. “He’s angry or all butt-hurt you pushed him away when you needed him.”

  “I don’t need him.”

  “No me jodas,” Camilla said, the equivalent of saying don’t bullshit me in Spanish. I tried to disagree again, but Camilla continued, “Who doesn’t need people in their lives that love them?”

  “Trent doesn’t love me.”

  “Ha! Chewey doesn’t love you as much as you don’t love him.”

  I did love him. But I couldn’t face his knowing eyes. I never wanted anyone to know who I used to be or what I left behind. But none of that mattered anymore; my mother made sure of it. I only had one choice; to move forward with the same stamina that had brought me this far.

  “Cam,” I started, “I don’t want Trent knowing any of this.”

  “Your decision, but as your best friend, I’m telling you that you’re a stubborn pain in the ass,” she told me, and I agreed. “Fine,” she over-dramatically sighed at me. “I’m gonna go buy us some deliciously greasy Cuban food. When I get back we’ll figure this shit out.”

  “You’re coming back?” I asked, hopeful, and Camilla, my best friend, nodded.

  It wasn’t until I was alone that I allowed my bitter heart to shed a tear. One single tear that screamed louder than a torrential downpour of tears.

  I needed to change my frame of mind from despair to anger. I was familiar with anger. Anger I could deal with. With that in mind, I turned on Metallica and let the words from So What envelop me; a form of meditation I hoped would settle my distraught heart. With each word, I replaced the morbid thoughts of plunging from my balcony to the reasons I left Alabama.

  Because I couldn’t think of anything else to do, I took a shower. I stood under the water, letting it pound on my back and face, hoping for some clarity. I wanted, yearned, to go back to yesterday or, at the very least, to give up. Just throw my hands up and admit I couldn’t do it. Life with its twists turns and inevitable drops were too much. Let someone else deal with it.

  But I wasn’t built that way. No, I was built to fight. I may never win, but I’d try.

  I reminded myself that I had the galls to not only leave everyone and everything I knew, I had also managed to make a life for myself. I had graduated college, a feat in and of itself. I didn’t just have a job, I had a career. I had an apartment that had become my home. I could extend it and make it Shayna’s home too.

  Shayna, my little sister. My little sister whose eyes had seen too much. My little sister who had in her short life already endured too much. I hadn’t been there for her from the beginning, but I would make sure the rest of her life wasn’t so heinous. I’d take care of my litt
le sister.

  As soon as I got out of the shower, I could smell the food Camilla had bought us. Croquettas, white rice and beans. My stomach grumbled and demanded, and once again I found myself grateful to have Camilla in my life. She hadn’t fled like I hoped and expected she would. She had stuck it out with me, for me. For now.

  Before serving myself, I shoved a croquetta in my mouth. “Ugh, good,” I told my friend as I rolled my eyes to the heavens in pure enjoyment. And I realized things couldn’t possibly be that bad if I could still find pleasure in something as simple as food. Granted, it was one of my favorite foods of all time, but it was still food. Deliciously, greasy food.

  “Thanks for everything, Cam.”

  “Oh, bite me, Erin,” she said casually and took a bite of the Milanesa steak she had ordered for herself. “So, when are we going to Alabama?”

  “We?”

  “Yeah,” she said, tossing her napkin at me. “You think I’m gonna let you go by yourself?”

  Well yeah, I had thought that. “I haven’t looked at flights yet,” I confessed.

  “No worries. We’ll look at them after dinner. And we have to get in contact with the guy in charge over there.”

  “Tomorrow,” I told her. “I can’t tonight.”

  “Tomorrow,” she agreed.

  “I don’t know if I can do this,” I confessed. “I mean, I’m gonna do it, but what if I can’t? What if I suck at taking care of a kid?”

  “Pfft.” Camilla shrugged off my worries. “You’re a perfectionist. You don’t know how to suck at anything. Plus, your mom is a good example of the type of mom you don’t want to be.”

  “Yeah,” I laughed. “At least she was good for something.”

  It felt good to laugh, especially at something I hadn’t thought was funny less than an hour ago.

  “Wine?” she asked me, and I nodded my head. She filled up two of the glasses Trent had bought me with red wine and handed one to me. “So good,” she whispered into her glass before enjoying her next sip.

  “Hmm,” I responded as my mind drifted to Trent and the day he had bought me the glasses and my first bottle of wine. It seemed as if years had passed since that day.

  Camilla could see my mind had drifted elsewhere, and thankfully did not push me to find out what I was thinking about. I watched her shift through her phone till she put on T.I.’s album Paper Trail. She took me by my arm and demanded I dance with her. So I did.

  We danced as if we didn’t have a care in the world. And drank as if we had something to celebrate. And maybe I did.

  Camilla, typical Camilla, always looking out for me, offered to stay the night.

  “Nah, I’m good,” I told her, ready for whatever lay ahead. “You should head on out. I’m ready to call it a night.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes, dear,” I told her jokingly, and hugged her on impulse. Probably the first hug I had initiated.

  “Okay, but call me if anything,” she told me as she headed towards the door.

  I promised I would and then headed straight to bed but wound up lying in place with endless thoughts circling my brain. On a sigh, I reached for my phone, half hoping to see a missed call or text from Trent. I didn’t allow my heart to fall when none appeared. Instead I shifted through my music till I reached my Skylar Grey folder and hoped the darkness I felt would open itself up and invite the promise of dawn.

  Chapter 15

  Shayna

  She had a sister, an older sister, Nate told her. Her sister lived far away, but she would come to Alabama to get her so they could live together. They’d live by the beach together and play in the sand and the water. Her sister would teach her how to make sand castles and how to swim. Even to a four year old, it felt unreal.

  But Nate told her it was real. And soon it would be her real life. It reminded her of the fairy tales the nice woman she lived with read to her at night. Despite the unease she felt in the pit of her stomach, she wanted so badly to believe in happily ever after in a faraway places. She wanted to believe that one day soon, she’d have a sister who would chase away the ugliness that lived inside of her. The ugliness that made Momma hate her. The ugliness that had driven Momma away from her.

  Chapter 16

  Erin

  Hung over and groggy, I had zero desire to get out of bed. But whoever was at the door was relentless, the knocking like a sledgehammer to my head. Probably Camilla. I looked at the clock and saw it was already past nine. How had I slept that long?

  I opened my door, and without a word, let Tonya and Brianna in. I needed to shower or, at the very least, wash my face and brush my teeth, but rather than let me go about my morning ritual, Brianna grabbed me and held me in a fierce hug.

  I immediately woke up, eyes flaring in fury and pushed Brianna off of me. Camilla had betrayed my trust. She knew I didn’t want anyone to know, but no, she took it upon herself and told Brianna and Tonya anyway.

  “The fuck?” I shouted at them, barely able to hear my own voice over the ringing in my ears.

  “We tried to call you,” Brianna explained. “But you didn’t answer.”

  “No shit?” I retorted. “Could I have turned my phone off because I didn’t wanna talk to anyone?”

  “You know?” Tonya asked me, her eyes wide, questioning. She was probably curious about my sanity. Which I was on the verge of losing.

  “Of course I know,” I said angrily. “I just wanna know why the hell Camilla told you. It’s not your concern.”

  “What? No?” Brianna shook her head at me.

  “I appreciate the concern,” I told them, “but you need to leave.”

  “Wait, stop!” Tonya shouted at me. “You don’t understand.”

  “Oh, I understand,” I said evenly.

  “She’s gone, Erin!” Tonya shouted at me, stopping me mid-thought. “She’s gone,” she repeated, causing Brianna to start crying.

  Confused, I looked at my friends and finally noticed that something was wrong. Their eyes shone red with tears not yet shed brimming over. Something was very wrong.

  “Who’s gone?” I asked, not wanting to hear the answer.

  “Cam.”

  Cam? Gone? Where? I couldn’t remember asking any questions or who responded, but I remembered the answer. Cam left my apartment last night but never made it home.

  She was gone. Dead.

  The remainder of the day passed me by in a blur. No, days. Days seemed to come and go in a haze, none of them making any sense. People, my friends, visited me and left. I had conversations I couldn’t recall and nights that didn’t end. I didn’t go to work and only half hoped I had called in sick.

  Somebody had left me a bottle of Xanax, which I eagerly combined with a couple of shots of Patron, only making the nights and days blur together as one. I wasn’t sure how much time had passed, or how time could pass at all, when the day of her funeral, Camilla’s funeral, finally arrived.

  Trent woke me up early that morning, refusing to let me take any pills or alcohol. It didn’t matter. Nothing could ease the pain I felt. It was embedded in me, a permanent limb I could neither live with nor without.

  I didn’t speak to him as I got ready, nor did I think about the fact that Trent, the man I was sure hated me, was in my apartment. I couldn’t remember if I had spoken to him or seen him since our fight. I guess it didn’t really matter. He was there, but he might as well have been a galaxy away.

  I sat on my couch, feeling my chest constrict with every beat my heart took, and Camilla’s didn’t. We had drunk too much because of my stupid life. If I hadn’t been so damn stubborn, those were her words, right? Stubborn. If I hadn’t been so stubborn and let her stay, let her help me like she wanted to, this wouldn’t have happened.

  I grabbed my stomach, rocking back and forth on the couch. This was my fault. Me and my stupid useless pathetic life.

  Trent sat down next to me but, I quickly got up and ran to the bathroom where I dispensed my anxiety into the toil
et. And started to moan, an uncontrollable moan that made my shoulders shake and my stomach hurt worse. I felt Trent put his arms around me and I leaned into him, seeking comfort that didn’t exist.

  Trent eased me back into the couch and left me to bring me a glass of water and my little white, bitter pill. I swallowed the pill greedily and hoped for calm, knowing one pill wouldn’t do much, but knowing Trent wouldn’t give me another.

  As we were leaving, I made an excuse to go back to the apartment and dashed away from his car so I could take another pill. I then hid an extra in-case-shit-got-really-bad pill in my purse.

  I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready for any of it. To see my dead friend, our friends, her family. I wasn’t ready to make it any more real than it already was.

  I twisted my hands and worried my skirt until little threads started to come out. Without a word, Trent grabbed my hand and squeezed. I tried to find comfort in his strength, but still, there was no comfort for me to find.

  I held onto Trent’s hand as we got out of the car and walked into the funeral home. I held even tighter as a wave of nausea overtook me. And nearly collapsed when Sofia, Camilla’s mom, held me in her arms, speaking words to me I’d never forget.

  “She loved you like a sister,” Sofia whispered in my ear.

  I nodded my head at her, unable to speak, willing myself to stay upright and not crumble at this woman’s feet.

  Camilla was my sister, the only family I’d ever had. And selfishly, I thought of only myself and my pain, not realizing how everyone in that room had also lost someone special. But I was indifferent to their pain and could only focus on my own loss.

  With Trent by my side, I walked towards Brianna, Jermaine, and Tonya and let them hug me, returning an indifferent hug. Tonya said something to me and I nodded my head politely, hoping a nod was the response she had been looking for, but I couldn’t hear her. The words she spoke were lost in the abyss I was trapped in, an abyss that was becoming a part of who I was. I couldn’t hear her; all I heard was the damn ringing in my ears. I felt the weight of Trent putting his arm around my shoulders as he spoke on my behalf.