He laughed, and a little bit of the tension inside the room ebbed. He got up and opened the living room window, and the air in the room grew lighter with the smell of rain. “Why’d you drive off when I saw you outside the garage?”
I shrugged. “I still hate you.”
“No, you don’t. If you did you wouldn’t be in my living room.”
“Nowhere else to go.” I let that sink in for a moment. For both of us. The temperature dipped and I shivered. “I don’t have anyone left here. I might hate you, but I trust you more than anyone else in this fucking town.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “About everything that happened. I never meant...” He looked serious, and I realized, that was the first time he had ever apologized. Of course, I hadn’t spoken to him since the fight, so it wasn’t like he had many chances to apologize. “I’m sorry.”
I bit my bottom lip to hold in the words I had practiced for so long. Every time I got drunk enough to wallow in self-pity and row down that shitty river of memories. If ever given the chance, how I would let him have it. Three hundred words or less on how much I hated him. How he ruined everything. Not just my chances, but his own. He wasn’t doing anything with his life; living in his dad’s trailer, working at the garage, living with his brother. Nothing changed, and every glimpse into the future ruined.
There was more. So much more. And it changed every time I drank. What pissed me off that day. That year. How my life should have turned out. Should have gone to college, or gotten married, or I don’t know... Opened a chain of flower shops. Not that I particularly liked flowers, nor did I want to run a shop. But...the flowers would have a long life with me.
The point was there could have been more if I hadn’t been ripped away from my only true friend. If I had someone to talk to. If Aunt Dee hadn’t killed herself. If I hadn’t given my virginity to Diego Vasquez so stereotypically under a set of bleachers while his friends watched. If I wouldn’t have gone through high school drunk, stoned, and hiding from life.
I watched him grow popular, one of those who had both teachers and other students pushing for his future, sure it had been me holding him down. Once he cut the rope that was me, the kids forgot he was the reason for my attack. His good looks, kindness, and athleticism skyrocketed him to stardom in high school.
When had everything changed? When had he given up on his plans? Sitting in the house that his daddy broke his arm in, I really let that sink in. He hadn’t just screwed me over. He screwed both of our futures over that day. One thing was certain, there could be no more if, if, if. Not if I wanted to give in and accept defeat like he had. Live in my hell house, never live again. Not really.
So, instead of verbally listing for him every single grievance that I accumulated in my mind for years, I said something else.
“I know you’re sorry.” I took in a deep breath. Maybe it wasn’t what he wanted to hear, but that was as close to I forgive you Jordan was ever going to get from me. “But you ran away and left me.”
“I didn’t know what they were going to do. They came after us, and they said...” He stopped and cleared his throat.
“I remember what they were saying. I remember every day.”
“I didn’t think they’d go after you. You remember homeroom news?” he asked, and I stared blankly, until I realized what he was talking about. The TV in the corner of the classroom, mounted high where no one could touch it. Every morning we got watered down world news.
“Yeah.”
“Always another kid killed at school back then, and they’d show it on homeroom news. Stuffed animals and letters. Girls holding hands and crying. They killed them, then celebrated them like they were gods. They killed kids for being gay. They didn’t bully them until they committed suicide. No joke of a choice. And the killers didn’t always pay for it either.”
“They didn’t know.”
“Who didn’t?”
“The kids that came after us. They heard rumors, but didn’t believe them. They just wanted to start a fight.”
“They did. Jay Miller?” he said the name like it was a question. “We kissed.”
“Shut the fuck up. Asshole Jay Miller? Like football Jay Miller?”
“The same.”
“I thought you kissed Aaron Rose at the skating rink?”
“Yes.” He shrugged. “Jay was at the park.”
“Kiss whore. Well, Jay Miller got Lea Michaels pregnant.”
“And?”
I gave him my best duh face. “Why would he kiss you if he got Lea Michaels pregnant?”
Ease crossed over his face. “I think that happened a few years later.”
I snorted.
“Anyways, he told his friends I tried to kiss him. It happened a few days before...before all that other stuff happened.”
“Before I got beat up. Say it, it’s an event many people got to witness. It wasn’t all that other stuff.” I couldn’t forgive him, but I was tired of it all. Because he ran. Because our dads were assholes, and we found each other in all the chaos. Because he been more like a brother growing up than any of my real brothers had been. Because other kids, who we didn’t even know or care about, took all of that away from us. I wanted to pretend like those years didn’t happen.
We would never be what we once were, but we didn’t have to be what we weren’t anymore. A little of me wanted to forget, simply because I didn’t want to go back to Dad’s house.
I stayed home the second half of ninth grade, refusing to see Jordan, promising myself I would never talk to him again. And now I sat on his couch, watching him pinch tears away from his face. I traced my forefinger along the tiny scar on my bottom lip.
“I was scared,” he said. “My dad already called me a fag, made me sleep on the porch if he thought I looked at a guy on TV too long. You guys took me in half the time because of him. I was scared what he might do if he found out the kids at school knew. If those kids didn’t kill me, he would. I never thought in a million years, they’d do what they did to you. You were so tiny, so blonde. I thought, they only wanted me. If I knew they were going to do that to you, I never would have run. I swear.”
His voice was thick and clammy. Broken up in my head. Like Legos that used to make up a voice, ripped apart. All the bits of sound lying, separated from each other.
I crawled over to him on the other side of the couch, stupid wet clothes, bandage and all, and fell against his shoulder. All those years, all those moments of hate and angry words I saved up for him, fell away.
“I’m too tired of being mad at you to keep being mad tonight.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I sat in Dad’s driveway the next morning, rubbing my stiff neck. The sharp pain that had almost healed from sleeping on a real mattress, no matter how lumpy, returned after one night on Jordan’s couch. I pushed my jaw to the right until my neck popped, then to the left.
How long had I waited to get out of the car? I ticked off at least three songs that had played on the classic rock station since pulling into the driveway. I couldn’t sit in the car forever.
Option one: Go inside, finish the organization list Jake had left with me after the walk-through. Ignore ghosts. Make money and get out of this town.
Option two: Drive as far as a half-tank of gas would take me, and hope I ended up somewhere where no one knew my name. Where no one called Dad a good guy. Where a dirt-cheap apartment appeared next to my broken-down car, and a tall, dark and mysterious man offered me a job that required zero skills. I had enough cash to get started. The only catch? The money was in the kitchen.
You can’t do this.
“Yes, I can, Dad.” He wanted me to fail.
You’ll screw it up, same as always.
I don’t screw everything up.
You’re going to leave, crying. A screw up. A loser. Your sister will be done with you. Your family will disappear on you. We aren’t much different, you and I.
“We are nothing alike.”
Really? Tell me how mu
ch you don’t drink to forget. Tell me about how your family relies on you. Calls you on the holidays? Includes you in their plans. Tell me how much they don’t take you for granted. Tell me about how you don’t forget the events of the day as soon as clock passes midnight. Tell me. Tell me about how they’ll let you walk away from this, and they’ll still be there for you. Go ahead, tell me how they’ll give you another chance after you screw up.
“I screw up. Mistakes, I try to do the right things. That’s the difference. You do it all on purpose,” I said, clenching the steering wheel. “Did. You did it all on purpose. You don’t do much of anything now, do you?”
I waited, but he didn’t speak again.
Not much of a decision if there was only one choice that wouldn’t leave me homeless and forgotten. If I wanted to keep my relationships with Angela and my brothers, I needed to finish the job.
“Fuck!” I punched the steering wheel and the horn blared. “Ouch.”
I rubbed the back of my knuckles. Face the house. Face it. I would be ready for Aunt Dee if she waited for me inside the door. Jordan was probably right. It was all in my head, following me even to Tracy’s couch, a hotel room, or my childhood bedroom. My stomach lurched, butterflies battling to the death.
The daylight had quieted most of my nerves on the drive over. The daylight and a family with red-headed, ice cream eating children, standing by a farm stand. All those happy faces convinced me I was crazy, because monsters can’t live in a world where people can be that happy. Seeing the house, and realizing my only option, reminded me that joy like that didn’t exist in my world.
Push through. Sell Dad’s stuff and get out of here. Figure out where the start over space on the gameboard waited for me. I’d have to do the work anyway.
“Everything’s fine.” I turned off the engine and forced myself out of the car. No sooner had I shut the door, I heard the howl. I stared at the forest, remembering the nightmares and realities of this world. Even in the middle of the day, the darkness ate at me from between the large trunks. Clawing its way out. Branches reaching for me, tearing at the air, the darkness between like eyes, mouths calling me in. I closed my eyes. “All in my head. All in my head.”
I opened my eyes. The forest was made of only trees again.
“Fuck you.” I turned my back on the woods and stomped up the steps with determination, it would take more than this to frighten me out of my money. The animal howled again, and I pivoted towards the sound and screamed, shaking my head, my hair whipping around my face. Nothing answered my scream, though it seemed loud and feral enough to wake even the heaviest of day sleepers.
The house loomed over me, as dark and angry as it had been in the late hours of the night before. “I’m getting my money. You won’t scare me away.”
Hours passed in comatose like silence as I sifted through years of collections and stockpiles. My eyes darted at every creak and crack, anticipation filling my gut with each pile of junk I organized. An animal appearing and biting me felt more of a threat at that moment than any ghost. Small droppings confirmed my suspicions, but I didn’t see any animals that morning.
The only thing that kept me moving while worrying about small creatures, was the search for valuables. Would I find something hidden behind the years of hoarding that would scream money? Maybe an heirloom I could take downtown and sell. Make money to take me straight out of Oregon, forgetting my plan to be a responsible sibling for once.
If something worth obvious cash ever existed, it vanished years ago.
Instead of getting rich quick, I spent the morning peeling dirt and grime from counters and walls as I boxed items into groups for the auction. Under the sink in the kitchen, I found a few cans of wood stain and carried them out to the deck. They might be the right color that I would need to touch up the deck before putting the house on the market. I placed them on the iron butterfly shelf by the wood pile. The last can fell as I slid it onto the top shelf, as though an indivisible force shoved it. It hit the deck, the lid popped off and with a splash spread across the deck, a trace landing across my jeans and shirt. The rest poured in a river down the sloped side of the deck and out into the dirt.
“Well, that’s fantastic,” I said, looking at the odd design the stain had made on the porch. More work. My clothes hadn’t taken too much of the paint, and I decided not to change since I would be spending the day cleaning and sweating.
Around noon, a vehicle pulled part-way into the driveway, and I found myself excited to see if it was Cecelia. An old blue station wagon with brown plaid siding, pulled into the driveway, and I waved. From the porch, I made out several heads moving as the vehicle backed out and drove back into the direction it came from. It was a long way to come for a wrong turn. The forest on the other side of the road looked like it had grown thicker since morning; but odder than the woods, had been my thought about Cecelia.
“Excited to see Cecelia? It’s official, I’m past the point of crazy.” There was now an anticipation inside me to see Cecelia, but there was something else new. Something that gave me goosebumps, like she was a welcome part of my nightmares. She was part of them after all, her and her two heads over by the bar.
“I was drunk.” See, Dad? I didn’t drink to forget, I remembered. Every weird little thing. I turned the radio up, rocking out to the claim that I was not a fortunate one, and dropped random paper trash into the burn barrel.
After the song ended, a few local ads came on, slowing my pace. When a sad Hank Williams Sr. replaced the quick classic rock, I became sluggish. Dad’s favorite singer made it seem like he was still here, picking out the radio station on the weekend when there was nothing to do but yard and kitchen work. We only ever got three stations out here, and none of them ever played songs the kids at school were listening to.
I scrubbed at sticky stains in the refrigerator as songs changed from one country blended classic rock band to the other.
A female DJ interrupted my rhythmic scrub. “We’ve had a nice break from the heat this summer with these storms, but with rain comes a baby boom in our mosquito population. Make sure you’re spraying those bodies down with bug spray, especially kiddos, the elderly, and anyone with a compromised immune system. You wouldn’t believe all the diseases those blood suckers carry these days. Check out our booth at Flea on Main Friday, the first fifty people to say hi will get a free keychain bottle of Lady Luna’s Organic Squito Repeller. We have another big storm coming in this weekend, all the way in from the coast, promising to be the strongest we’ve seen this season. You’re going to need that spray next week.”
I thought about planning a sleepover at Cecelia’s the following weekend, in case we lost power; she seemed like the type to have a guest room.
Around three o’clock, sweat soaked and sore, I helped myself to the last cold egg roll, then made my way back to the bedroom for the first time that day. I wasn’t avoiding it, but there was nothing that needed tackling that wasn’t more important than scrubbing years’ worth of muck off kitchen counters.
I pushed the door open. Dread filled my stomach, like it was the middle of the night and the nightmare waited with quiet infused patience for me to return, perching on the corner of the mattress.
But the room sat still, silent and visibly empty of living, or… unliving things. Taking a deep breath, I stepped in. I hadn’t passed the threshold when the temperature dipped and a finger-trail of goosebumps crept up my arm. An invisible, icy hand grabbed mine.
The presence felt angrier in the daylight than at night and I pulled my hand free, shooting out of the bedroom and slamming the door.
I ran across the hall into Dad’s room and shut the door firmly. Tripping over a pile of clothes, my toe banged into one of Dad’s boots. “Fuck.”
My toenail cracked; a sharp pain moved deep into the flesh. I sank onto my heels, covering my eyes with my hands. My parents’ bedroom should have been a source of comfort, a place to run when scared. At least, that is the way the movies made it s
eem, and I ran there now.
The air felt heavy, as if some of his dark presence stayed behind even after his body had taken the ride to the morgue. Blankets were pulled back on one side of the otherwise perfectly made bed. The cheap paintings Aunt Dee collected from the thrift stores over the years, nameless rivers, mountains and castles, decorated the walls.
A thriving plant and blinking alarm clock sat on Dad’s nightstand, while Aunt Dee’s nightstand was cluttered with dust, scraps of paper and cough drop wrappers. The tall bookshelf housed random magazines and angel figurines. The angels didn’t seem to be gathered from a specific collection, but each had its own design, size, shape and qualities. They didn’t look familiar. Most could be straight from Hallmark and Avon catalogs, porcelain blandness, but two on the top of the shelf were different. Wooden, they were crude where the carving knife marks were still visible.
“When the hell did Aunt Dee collect those?”
I couldn’t stay in there. The thick energy weighed on me and the room slipped into darkness at the edges, my vision funneling to a fine point at the end of a tunnel. My arms moved with their own mind, picking up a nearby ashtray and hurling it at the wall. An anger awoke in my belly that didn’t belong to me. It belonged to Dad. I grabbed the tall black lamp from the corner of the room and dragged it across the hallway, and back into my bedroom.
“Don’t fucking touch me,” I announced as I replaced the faulty lamp with Dad’s. The room lit up brighter than it ever had with the tiny brown light Angela and I had inherited. “I don’t know what you want, but you need to stop grabbing me. Or I swear I’ll drive to the first church I find and drag a priest in here to kick you straight to hell.”
I opened the curtains and the window to let the fresh air in and the nightmares out. It would be a good idea to do the same in Dad’s room later. For a few seconds, I needed deep breaths of air through the window.
The trees grew thick not thirty feet from my window. The tire swing began to sway, small at first, then higher and higher, as though someone sat on it, pumping their legs. The room melted away.
Going Home (Cedar Valley Hauntings Book 1) Page 13