The birds are chirping from the branches above. I don’t seem to hear them. My hand continues to move swiftly across the page. I’m bringing to life the scenery before me. I’ve already brought the trees to life on the no-longer blank sheet of paper, and now I’m working on the smooth creek that flows through them.
It’s a peaceful memory. One that isn’t tied to the two people that have left me forever.
“Tay-Tay? Hello? Anyone in there?” The sound of my nickname snaps me out of the memory, and I’m immediately annoyed.
I blink as the memory disappears back to where it came from. “Sorry.” I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. “I just spaced, I guess.”
He nods slowly, keeping his eyes locked on me. I flush with embarrassment, looking down at my hands. “What are you scared of?” My head snaps up in reaction to his question. The question is so blunt that, at first, I don’t know how to respond.
Of being alone forever, my mind answers, but I keep my lips pressed together tightly. “I don’t know,” is the answer I voice. We sit quietly as we stare at each other. He seems to be searching for something. I decide to distract him from his search. “Do you read?”
He doesn’t answer for a moment, his eyes skeptical and inquisitive. “Yes, when I have to. Why do you like to read so much?”
“When you live alone, there isn’t much else to do. It’s a nice distraction.” When I can get my mind to focus on the words on the page.
“How can you sit there all day and just…read?”
“How can you sit all day and just play video games?”
He smirks. “Fair enough. What’s your favorite book?”
“I have too many.” He raises his eyebrow at this. Now he’s raised them five times since we’ve been sitting here, I count. “There are many good books, and they can be good for different reasons.” It’s the honest answer. I have a favorite series, a favorite action book, a favorite classic, a favorite sci-fi; the list goes on and on. “I’d ask you what your favorite video game is buuuut I don’t think we’d get anywhere, seeing that I don’t know any.”
“Then I get to ask you another question.” He pauses, pondering what to ask, before settling on, “If you could go any place in the entire world right now, where would you go?”
I shake my head, leaning back again. I know exactly how to answer. I don’t even have to think about it. Being here, or there made no difference to me. “Nowhere.”
“That’s not a place.”
“I don’t want to go anywhere.”
“Why?” he asks, clearly perplexed by my answer.
I shrug. “I just…don’t. I don’t have anywhere to go. I don’t have anywhere I want to go. Being here or there; there really is no difference. I’d just be alone in another place.”
Sadness reflects in his eyes and I immediately regret my answer. I obviously shouldn’t have been so honest. I wouldn’t go home because there is no one to go home to. No one I would want spend the remaining few months I have before I turn eighteen. What would be the point? It’s been a year already, whatever family I have left has already forgotten about me. If I even have any remaining family.
And I wouldn’t go anywhere else in the world because I wouldn’t want to go to see and experience the wonders of the world alone.
“I said I wouldn’t ask anything too personal,” Nathan suddenly says, breaking me from my thoughts. “So, I won’t and let that comment slide, but I do want to ask something else.” He waits for me to give him the go-ahead. “Why do you keep running from me?”
“Because—like you said—I’m unsocial.” I lean back, hoping he’ll take the answer without digging deeper.
Though, of course, he doesn’t.
“No, no, it’s something else. Tell me.”
I sigh heavily, leaning forward so that my elbows rest on the edge of the table. I move back when he moves forward; I move forward when he moves back—it’s like we’re a seesaw. It’s a subconscious movement but it’s one I take notice to now. I don’t want to get too close to him. “I just—I don’t want to know you. I don’t want to get close to anybody.”
“But why? I won’t do anything to hurt you—”
He’s already hurt me, unknowingly. When he told me his last name. It wasn’t purposeful; how could he have known it would send waves of pain through me? And he’ll hurt me in the future—when his father takes everything I have left. “Isn’t your father planning on destroying my apartment complex?”
He flinches at my words. “That isn’t me, and I can’t do anything to stop it.”
“Can’t you talk to your father?”
“And tell him what? That a girl is living in the abandoned apartment building he wants to tear down? He wouldn’t listen to me anyway. He doesn’t care about what I have to say; he doesn’t care about what I think.” Sounds just like my dad. After what I had seen today, I knew that his father wouldn’t listen. “Let’s not talk about this now. We can talk about it another time—”
Not ready for this conversation to be over just yet, I quickly interrupt before he can change the subject. “When does he plan on having it torn down?”
He sighs quietly in defeat. “I don’t think there’s a set date yet, but I’ll let you know if he says anything about it.”
I bite the inside of my cheek. Do I want to see this boy again? Do I want to get to know him further? Do I want him to get to know me? I look across the table at the brown haired boy that seems so determined to get close to me (for reasons still unknown to me). I just don’t understand it. Why would he want to know me? What makes me so interesting to him? I don’t understand what he could see…
I’d have to think about this. I’d have to think before deciding whether or not to see him again.
“And now,” he begins, taking in a slow, exaggerated breath for show, “the most important question…If you could be any superhero, who would it be?”
“Batman.”
He grins. “This is the start of an excellent friendship.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Like a Flame
I stare up at the ceiling, still groggy with sleep. My mind is in a whirl; my thoughts unable to slow as I replay yesterday’s events over in my head. The whole day felt like a dream. When I first opened my eyes, I questioned if yesterday was even real—if it really happened—or if it was just a dream.
I remember waking from a dream sometime last night, but I can’t remember what it was about. I just know that it felt like my heart was breaking when I snapped out of it. With a sigh, I roll onto my side, though I do not move to get up. What would be the point? I have nowhere to go; no one to see; no one to be with.
It feels like someone is gripping my heart and twisting it. It feels like I can’t breathe. I shut my eyes tightly against the memory that is threatening to surface. I can’t breathe. Can’t breathe. Can’t breathe!
∞
A door slams, jolting me awake. My eyes fly open, and I find myself facing my bedroom door. Staggering steps make their way up the stairs. I can hear him clearing his throat loudly, oblivious to his loud disturbance throughout the house.
My parents’ bedroom door creaks open. My heart falls, and I shut my eyes as my mother loudly whispers my father’s name. “Parker? What are you doing?” Realization seems to dawn on her then. “You’ve been drinking.”
“Don’t be silly; I just had a sip.”
“You’re unbelievable.” I can hear the whispered disapproval and outrage from my bed. She is disappointed and annoyed as well as angry. “You can spend tonight on the couch.”
The door slams shut, followed by Dad’s drunken, slurred objections. Half an hour passes before Mom finally opens the door and yells at him to stop his whining. She slams the door shut again.
There’s a minute of silence before I hear stumbled steps again as Dad heads downstairs to his spot on the couch.
He’s drinking again.
∞
I take in a slow breath as the
memory fades to the back of my mind—where I hope it stays.
The hours tick by as I lie in bed. Memories keep surfacing, tormenting me into unbelievable sadness. I can’t bring myself to move. I can’t fight the memories that keep filling my thoughts. I stay curled in the fetal position as each memory plays out. I can’t stop them from coming. I can’t make them go away. Nothing can distract me. I can’t block the memories, so they continue to come.
∞
I’m staring down at a blank sheet of paper with a pencil in hand—a powerful tool if only I could muster up words. The paper is due tomorrow, and I’m supposed to turn it in with more than zero words on the page—but I can’t seem to find the words to fill the page.
The sound of clanking heels makes me look up as my mother walks in. She smiles, but it seems forced. “How was school?” she asks as she opens the fridge.
“Fine,” I reply with a sigh, hoping she’ll take the bait.
She does.
She takes her eyes off the fridge’s contents to look at me over her shoulder. “Everything okay?”
I set my pencil down with a frown. “I have a paper due tomorrow, and I can’t figure out where to begin.”
She shuts the fridge and leans against it so she can look at me, giving me her undivided attention. “What’s the paper on?”
I bite my lip as I tell her the touchy, controversial subject that my paper is supposed to be on, “Suicide.”
“Oh.” She pauses, looking concerned as the wheels in her mind turn. “Well, I can’t say I know how to begin.” There’s another long awkward pause before she finally breaks it by asking an awkward question to make it all better. “Uh, why does your teacher want you to write a paper about suicide?”
“Um,” I hesitate, “because Ryan Jones, uh, died last week.”
Her forehead wrinkles in despair and motherly concern. “Oh, that’s terrible. His poor family.” I nod in agreement, hoping she won’t want to talk about it further. I didn’t want to think about Ryan—the boy that had gone unnoticed to me even though he’d sat behind me in Biology—and how he took more than one-too-many pills.
Mom opens her mouth to say something further, but the front door opens before she can get anything out. She quickly closes her mouth as footsteps echo down the hallway, heading in our direction. We both stare at the open kitchen door, waiting for him to pass by or enter the room. We’re both hoping the same thing; that it’s the man without alcohol on his breath.
“How are my two favorite ladies?” he slurs as soon as he walks in. Disappointment swells in my gut to see that it is the man that I despise. How can he do this? He’s resorted to drinking again after all these years of being stone cold sober. I was five when he first began drinking heavily and still haven’t forgotten all of the yelled arguments between my parents.
Now that he’s drinking again, it’s going to weigh on all of us. We’re all going to pay for his carelessness.
“I was just helping Taylor with her homework,” Mom tells him, looking at him with sad, disapproving eyes. “How was work?” He grumbles an answer as he walks out of the kitchen and up the stairs.
We seethe in silence, both of us deep in thought. Mom finally sighs and turns her attention back to my homework by coming to sit with me. I try to focus on what she’s saying to distract myself from our family drama. It works some, but my mind is still on the alcoholic who’s probably passed out upstairs.
Two weeks go by. Dad keeps coming home drunk and irritable (more so on the weekends because he can’t go to work with a hangover), and Mom and I handle it by not talking about it. I don’t say anything to Dad about it either. I keep my mouth shut.
But Mom, she lets him have it every time he comes home. We’re both angry, but she’s the only one that has the courage to say anything. He sleeps on the couch most nights. I stay in bed and listen to Mom condemn him to the couch while throwing pillows and blankets at him.
Another two more weeks of this goes by before Mom finally drags him to an alcoholics anonymous meeting at our local church. She tells him to either clean up his act, or she’ll clean out her stuff. This makes me a little nervous because it’s a threat of divorce, and I don’t want to be one of those kids that get passed back and forth between parents. I worry that he won’t sober up. I worry that Mom will keep her promise and take me along with her. I worry about our family being separated.
I don’t know what to do about any of it.
All I can do is wait and hope he stops drinking, for everyone’s sake.
∞
I stare blankly up at the ceiling with my arm draped across my forehead. Light is pouring into the room, making me sweat, but I don’t push back the covers. I stay perfectly still as I process the feelings and memories.
I hadn’t even lost them yet, but I was already missing my parents before everything happened—before we ever came to Paris. Dad was too busy drinking and arguing to take notice to his only daughter. Mom was too busy trying to save her marriage and arguing with Dad to spend much time with me outside of helping with homework.
Had they missed me during this time? Had they been too consumed with each other to think about me? Because I had missed them then. I miss them now.
My thoughts turn to Ryan—the boy who had gone unnoticed to me in Biology. Suicide. An overdose on prescription painkillers.
How could he just leave everything behind like that? His family, his friends, and everyone else he knew—how could he do it? Didn’t he know that he’d have people that would miss him? Didn’t he know that even the girl that sat in front of him in Biology would notice he was gone? Total strangers noticed his absence.
Ryan had people that missed him after his death. At least he had that—whether he knew that would be the case or not. At least people still miss him now.
I have no one. I’m missing, but no one misses me, and no one will miss me. No one would notice that I was gone because they already think I’m gone.
They don’t care. No one cares that I’m missing. Because, as far as they’re concerned, I may be missing but not missing from their lives. I wasn’t a big enough piece of their puzzle to bother searching for.
I can’t fade from life like Ryan by taking pills because I don’t have any—but there are other ways. I don’t want to fade. I want to be blown out like a candle—a flame. I want to go out like a flame. The flame would be extinguished, but the smoke from the flame would linger for a while. It would give me the time to think over everything.
CHAPTER NINE
The Past Cannot Fade
∞
“Why don’t we all take a break?” The sound of forks and knives scraping against plates suddenly pauses. I look up at my father, who sits across the table from me. A break. My stomach drops. Does he mean what I fear he does?
Mom must be thinking the same thing because her voice is very quiet as she asks, “A break?”
My eyes shift between the two of them until Dad answers, “Yeah. A vacation. Let’s go on a family vacation. See the world, forget about work and school for a little while.”
We’re all silent as we try to process this. A vacation? Why? So he can drink somewhere else? He’d miss his meetings, I would miss school, and Mom would miss work.
“Where would we go?” Mom finally asks, breaking the silence.
“I was thinking Paris.” His tone is casual as if he were suggesting we take a walk around the block, not fly halfway across the world.
∞
My shoulder. Something is on my shoulder. I try to brush whatever it is away, but it doesn’t go away. I sigh heavily, not ready to wake up. I hadn’t realized I’d even fallen asleep. When did I? How long have I been lying here?
My shoulder shakes. I still don’t move, only groan. “Taylor, wake up.” I peek out of one of my eyes to see Nathan beside my bed, lightly shaking my shoulder to wake me. I didn’t think he’d show up today.
As he leans toward me, I suddenly find myself wondering how I look. My hair must be a knott
ed mess. My breath must be awful considering that I haven’t brushed today. I wonder if I look just as horribly shattered as I feel. I hope I don’t.
My hope is shattered when he asks, “Are you okay?”
Both my eyes are open now, and my eyebrows are knitted together. “Yeah. Why?”
“You were crying in your sleep,” he tells me, slowly reaching out. My eyes want to follow his hand, but I keep them focused on his face. His finger lightly brushes my upper cheek, just under my eye. He is closer to me than he’s ever been. Close enough that I can see how vibrantly striking his gray-blue eyes are. Close enough that he could kiss me if he wanted to. His eyes are on my face, watching me carefully. “Your eyes are red.”
His breath brushes across my skin, sending tingles dancing over my skin. I sit up suddenly, pushing his hand away. “I’m fine.” I avoid looking at him as I move to the edge of the bed. I don’t want to see the concerned, yet knowing look in his eyes. The bed shifts as he takes a seat beside me. I keep my eyes locked on my hands.
“When a girl says ‘fine,’ she doesn’t normally mean it. What’s going on? Why do you look so…” he trails off, never finishing the sentence. My mind finishes it for him, now knowing that I look as horrible—shattered—as I feel. Shattered. Like the glass in my memories of that day—the day I should have died.
∞
“How are things?” Emily asks as she flops down on my bed, looking like she belongs on the cover of some beauty magazine as she lies on her stomach with her elbows digging into the mattress.
“Dad has been sober all of four weeks and now he wants to take us all on vacation to make up for everything.”
“Is that what he said?”
“Not exactly, but I know that’s why he’s offering a vacation. It’s a stupid bribe.”
“So things are still drama-filled. Where does he want to take you?”
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