Disconnected

by Lisa M. Cronkhite

  We’d just got out of the hospital. She promised me it was going to be the last time. Just one more, I need the release, she told me. I didn’t want to, but she coerced me into it. We went to the orchard together, Amelia and I, just beside Aunt Rachel’s house. It was just too inviting not to go. Come on Milly, you said you would, she whispered in my ear, you can do it.

  I walked over to the budding rose bushes, growing wild behind what seemed to be an abandoned garage, a brick structure with blackened walls. As I walked among the overgrown bushes I grazed my hands across the thorny branches. Then crushed them, clamping the sharp needles into my fists. At first it felt good, the warm rushing sensation burning within the palms of my hands. But then as I looked, blood dripped down my arms. I hadn’t realized the thorns cut so deep. You went too far, Milly. Now they will all know, Amelia said to me that day.

  I look at my palms now, see the sores, and ball my hands into fists. Amelia was wrong; no one saw that I mutilated myself again. I did it to ease her pain, but the more I give in to her, the more she wants of me. She stills yearns to go back behind the garage and perhaps do it again. She’s urging me to explore the grounds a little more, but I worry about what she’s up to.

  As I continue to unfold my clothes and hang them up, I hear a knock at the door.

  “Amelia? It’s your Aunt Rachel,” she says from the other side. “I need to speak with you.”

  I go to the door and open it. She is standing there, with her long brown hair pulled back in a bun and dressed like she just stepped out of a meeting, with her black knee-length skirt and white buttoned-up blouse. It reminds me of the one I used to have. Thank God that’s gone. Regardless, that is how she always looks, ready for something, yet she rarely leaves the house. I suppose when you write as much as she does, you become a bit of a recluse.

  She stands there for a moment or two as I ask, “What is it, Aunt Rachel?”

  “Well, Amelia, if you’re going to live here for a while, I expect you to obey the rules.” Her stern face says it all. Why does she hate me so much? What have I ever done to her?

  I watch her forehead wrinkle, squeezing both eyebrows together so that they almost touch each other. She’s only in her early forties and quite striking to look at—soft olive skin, green cat-like eyes, yet acts like she’s as old as Grandpa George.

  “Yes, Aunt Rachel, I understand.” But I don’t think she believes my sincerity.

  “I don’t think you do, Amelia.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask, with a puzzled look on my face.

  “Well, I told you not to enter the library. It seems to me you’ve refused to comply.”

  “Aunt Rachel, I swear, I was never in there.” I try to plead my case, but in the back of my mind I wonder if Amelia did have something to do with going into the library.

  “I know you went on my computer and opened my files.”

  “What?” I ask, still looking confused.

  “Amelia, don’t play dumb with me. Only my father and you are here in this house with me. It’s not Grandpa George, so it must be you.” She stands with her fists on her hips and her legs spread apart like some kind of super-hero, yet so far from it.

  You’ve done it Milly, you snuck onto her computer, remember? I struggle with Amelia as I stand there dumbfounded, glancing down at the hardwood floor, trying to think. I don’t know if I actually did that, or if Amelia’s taunting me again. Why would I want to read her writing anyway? What would I get out of it?

  “Amelia, look at me. I know it hasn’t been easy for you, with the incident and moving here. But you need to understand. Those files are important.”

  “But I didn’t read anything, you must believe me, Aunt Rachel,” I say, pleading with her. And honestly I don’t think I did. Yes, you did. “Stop!” I yell out. You know all about it. “Please, just stop,” I cry again, holding my hands up to cup my ears as if that’s going to help shut Amelia up.

  “What is it?” The lines in Aunt Rachel’s skin wrinkle between her eyebrows, giving me that look again, but this time her voice is strangely concerned. “Is everything okay, Milly?”

  I suddenly calm down when I hear my name for the first time in a while. Ever since we moved in, all I hear and feel is Amelia. I was beginning to wonder if I had disappeared completely and Amelia had taken over.

  “Umm…yeah, everything’s okay. Just got a lot on my mind.” Something I’ve said that is truly an understatement.

  “I’m sure you do,” she says, giving me a worried look, like she’s trying to take back that she snapped at me. “Listen, forget about the computer. I’m sorry I came down on you like that. Why don’t you join Grandpa George and me downstairs? He made his famous meatloaf.”

  “Thanks, Aunt Rachel. I’ll be down in a minute.”

  After she leaves, I close the door behind me, run to the bed, and sink myself under the soft cotton sheets. I could just die this minute. Milly, you silly stupid thing, you almost blew it. You want them to know?

  “Know what, Amelia? Tell me,” I say to the empty room. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  I don’t think you can handle the truth.

  “What? What is it, please! Stop torturing me and just spit it out!”

  I look from across the room to the old-fashioned mirror with gold-painted trim and lock eyes onto Amelia dead in the face. It’s been days since I’ve looked directly at her like this.

  “Why are you doing this to me?” I softly mouth to her in the mirror.

  She doesn’t tell me straight out. Instead she whispers in my mind, Read what Aunt Rachel writes and you’ll find out soon enough.

  Chapter Five

  My first day back to school meant my first experience with public transport. Throughout the whole bus ride, Amelia complained. I should have been the one who was nervous. But Amelia’s thoughts overrode mine, saying things like, gonna be late, and, not gonna make it. Let’s face it, Milly, you’re gonna get lost. The entire way there, she just kept it up. And for a while there I started to believe her.

  Nothing looked familiar. We passed by this old Victorian mansion, very similar to Aunt Rachel’s house. In fact the long and winding roads were sprinkled with them, each new one set far apart from the last. But as we passed into a different neighborhood, I noticed the houses were set closer and closer to each other. That was the only way I could tell we were heading into the city.

  An older man with salt-and-pepper hair sat opposite me on the bus, practically throughout the whole ride. I still have the vision of him staring at me blaring in the corner of my eye. He looked like he wanted to talk to me, glancing my way every minute. At one point I thought he was going to get up and say something.

  Throughout the bus ride Amelia muttered, He’s staring you down Milly. He’s gonna follow you after you get off. You better watch your back. But she was wrong, wrong like usual.

  But luckily that’s all over with now. The bus stops near the school, and I get off, crossing to the other side of the street. And on time too. After I get inside, I head down the hall and go straight to my locker.

  “Milly!” a voice says from behind me. “You’re back.”

  “Hey, Beth,” I say, turning around to face her as I quickly shut my locker.

  I suddenly realize how skinny Beth looks. And to think she harps on me for losing weight. I’ve always been fond of her freckles and flaming red hair that sticks out like a huge weed in the middle of a field. The uniquely red tones and voluminous bounce look like she’s in a shampoo commercial. Amelia doesn’t say much when Beth’s around. I get the feeling she’s quite jealous of her. Amelia remarks sometimes that I will lose Beth someday and have no one, no one but her to deal with. Beth doesn’t know everything like a normal best friend would. She only knows just a part of me. If I ever were to tell Beth about Amelia, then Amelia’s predictions would come true.

  “Did the police ever find out who started it?” she asks.

  “Who started what?”

  “The fi
re, silly. You could have been killed,” she says, turning her head to the side to face me again.

  “It was just a freak accident.”

  She gives me a puzzled look, like she wants to say more, but doesn’t. “So how’s living super far away?” She gives me a look like “Thank God I’m not her.” Beth has lived in the old neighborhood all her life. She doesn’t know any different. And doesn’t seem to want to know, either.

  “Well it took me forty-five minutes to get here, and I had to share a bus with this weirdo. You shoulda seen him. But I made it,” I say, following her down the hall. We walk through the sea of kids, heading to homeroom.

  “How’s it going with your aunt?”

  “It’s okay.” I hug my books tightly within my arms, wishing I could magically transport myself somewhere else. Just the thought of Aunt Rachel’s constant disapproval makes me not want to be there.

  “Then what was that weird text you sent?” she asks.

  At first a wave of shock runs through me. How in the world? Then my mind scrambles to remember the last time I had my phone. It was before the fire. I thought it was long gone. How could this be?

  “When did I text you?” I ask.

  “The day before yesterday, Saturday I think it was, why?”

  I was home and doing nothing but unpacking all day Saturday from what I remember, and I most certainly remember I did not have my phone. I start to panic a little, like the world is closing in on me. I feel faint.

  “Are you okay?” Beth asks. “You don’t look so good, Mill.”

  I take a deep breath like I’m going to go under water, then exhale quickly. “Beth?”

  “What, what is it?”

  “What did I text you?” I urgently ask.

  At this point we are both running a little late and need to catch up if we’re going to make it to class. Beth starts to get impatient.

  “Why don’t you just read it yourself?”

  “Umm…well, my phone’s…well I lost it.” Which isn’t really a lie. “So I don’t think the text could be from me.”

  “Oh, wow. Okay. I’ll show it to you later,” she says, as she starts to walk in the opposite direction.

  The first period bell rings as I’m standing in the doorway of homeroom. I stagger a little, then look back down the hall and see that Beth has already gone. Whatever the case, it’s going to have to wait.

  My thoughts run wild as I try to figure out who could have my phone. Amelia’s voice interrupts. Milly, you don’t know anything. I texted her remember? Remember what I said?

  My upper lip starts to sweat as I take a seat in class. The teacher is already talking but Amelia’s thoughts override his words. I start arguing with her in my mind, but she won’t tell me what she supposedly texted. Neither will she tell me where my phone is. I ask her, did I lose it in the fire? For a while she’s silent. Then finally she answers me. You remember where you put it, don’t you?

  Great! So in other words, Amelia is talking to my best friend via texting and won’t tell me where she’s put my phone. Now I have to worry what she says about me? What if she’s already said something? Even though it’s late morning and the sun is bright, I feel so in the dark right now.

  ***

  The day drags on like a bum leg, but finally it’s over. Yay me! I get to ride the bus again with a bunch of weirdos.

  I stand here at the bus stop, wondering what happened to Beth. I look around the football field and then to Weenie’s Hot Dog Shop across the street where the high schoolers often go, but I don’t see her anywhere.

  As the wind picks up, ruffling my hair around my face, something catches my eye. Across the street there’s a girl about my age, all dressed in black, standing and waiting for the bus that goes in the opposite direction. It’s hard to make out her face. Her hair is strikingly similar to the hair of the girl I saw on the day of the fire, and the time before that at the mall. I don’t know, this odd feeling of having seen her years ago floods my thoughts. But how can that be? She’s the same age as she is in my memory.

  I watch the flecks of blue in her black flowing hair as it blows around. I wonder for a moment where she’s headed. She has nothing with her, which I find odd—no purse or bag or anything. At first I think she’s got shoes on, but when I look closer, bringing my eyes into focus, she has dirty bare feet. How could she go anywhere like that?

  I am drawn to her like an artist is to her sketch pad. Am I imagining all this? Is she even real? I want to cross the street and talk to her. Where is she going without anything? How could she just roam around like that? I just don’t understand.

  When the bus stops on her side, she enters and I watch her take a seat. When the bus is ready to go again, she turns her head and looks straight at me, holding her hand up to the window as if waving good-bye. Is she trying to tell me something? Why do I keep seeing her?

  “Milly! Milly! Wait!” Beth yells out from down the block, breaking my trance. She’s running toward me, holding something in her hand. It’s her phone.

  “Beth! Did you find that text message?”

  I’m glad to connect with her before heading home. I wait as she tries to catch her breath. She’s taking big gasps of air in between the words, “I have…” then more deep breathing “…to show you.”

  “What?”

  “Here, look.” She hands the phone over to me to look at. “It reads ‘The fire changed everything,’ then the letter A and what looks like a date: 3.21.2004. It’s exactly ten years ago.”

  Dear God! Not that date! And the letter A? What could that mean? I try to calm my thoughts to not look so stunned. “Yeah, that is weird,” I reply back at her. But in my mind I am speechless. And for once Amelia doesn’t say anything either. Beth just looks confused and a little annoyed at my lack of an explanation. But she doesn’t know how devastating that date is for me. She doesn’t know the horror that happened that day—the day of the accident—the day my parents died.

  Chapter Six

  I step onto the crowded bus, walk all the way to the back and try to find a spot there, but they’re all taken. Either that or some people have their bags on empty seats beside them.

  I decide to stand; I have no choice at the moment. For a while, as the bus travels down 95th Street, I glance at the old neighborhood. I miss it—now more than ever. I just don’t understand why all this is happening to me. What really started that fire? Was the fire really an accident, or was Grandpa George just trying to protect me? What if someone was after us? You did it, Milly, remember? It’s all your fault, like everything else is in your life. Like I told you, you are nothing.

  I am letting Amelia get the better of me. I try to think of good things—things that will get my mind off all this turmoil. Trying to still hang on to the good memories I have—mainly of my mother. Although they seem to be fading fast these days with all that’s been happening. I can’t seem to hold on to the good memories since Amelia’s been crowding my mind.

  My mom—again I will myself to think of her. She was an angel to me, and I loved her so. I stand there looking out the bus window, remembering all the good times we had together. Every morning before school started she’d take me to Al’s Doughnut Shop and I’d order the same thing every time—a jelly doughnut with chocolate milk, while my mom just had coffee. She’d let me put in as many creams and sugars as I wanted, and she still drank it, whatever overdose I would put in.

  As my eyes flutter across the moving vehicles, I spot a travel agency with a huge beach poster on the window. My thoughts shift to the times she’d take me to the beach downtown. She’d sit there, shaded by an umbrella, as the white foaming water rolled in at our feet. She was always reading. Many of the books were Aunt Rachel’s. She was so proud of her older sister, I don’t remember how many times she said that—countless. Even though I never met her until just recently, Aunt Rachel looked exactly how I pictured her. I see my mom in her face and mannerisms.

  “You’ll love her,” my mother had said, closing
the book as she grazed her fingers across the thick embroidered cover. “Just wait till you meet her. Someday Milly, someday I promise you will.”

  But that promise never came to be when she was alive. So many times she tried, but my father always talked her out of it. I remember him often referring to Aunt Rachel as a cowardly bitch. To this day, I don’t know what the reason was. But it kept Aunt Rachel away, that’s for sure. It’s weird that I haven’t met her until now.

  I cling to the pole inside the bus and realize that I am now at my stop. Every time I think of my mom, time seems to be erased. I don’t worry in those moments. It’s like I escape to my past. Yet just when I start to feel good as I step off the bus, Amelia settles in my thoughts again, twisting and turning my memories around. None of this really happened, Milly. You know this. You’re just making everything up. She was never there for you, nor will she ever be.

  I struggle deeply with the thought that Amelia may be right. Maybe I thought everything up in my mind and wanted it to be like that even if it really wasn’t. Maybe all the things that really happened are so far in the recesses of my mind that I developed this fantasy, this place that feels good but it isn’t real.

  Yet something deep inside me tells me it was real and that I should hold on to that—and I do.

  ***

  It starts to rain a little, but I don’t want to go inside, so I take cover in the gazebo in the backyard. I sit at the picnic table and place my book bag beside me. I’m worn out from the bus rides. I don’t want to be here, but I have no choice. All I have for family is Grandpa George, who took me in after the accident, and now Aunt Rachel. My dad grew up in foster homes, because his parents died when he was young.

  I look around, captivated by all the greenery. The magnolia trees have already shed some of their soft pink petals. And the buds on the rose bushes are starting to burst with life too. I imagine them being in full bloom by mid April. The rainbow of reds, pinks, and yellows in the coloring flowers is so intoxicating it makes me feel hopeful again, like there’s a start to a new season—a new beginning. And in this moment, I am safe.