Tigger, feel free to play editor with your character so i can post it on fanfiction.
Chapter Twenty
*Abby*
At school I’m not the most popular, I get along fine with everyone and they aren’t mean atau anything, it’s just I keep to myself. I sit with the same group every lunch, it’s a large one full of it’s own little mini groups so it’s easy to just fade into if you’re not in the mood to talk, and when anda are it’s just as easy to fall into a loud conversation. Usually I stick closest to Hannah and Will. Hannah is a sporty and rambunctious girl in my class who plays sepakbola to my basketball, and is from a big family, she keeps us all entertained with her tales of getting revenge on her twin brother and the lengths she’ll take to get her hands on a mango. Will is the youngest of four boys, all who have grown to become Ravens, and he’s on my bola basket team and never likes to keep still. They’re best friends, I’m cool with that because outside of school and sports my group of friends revolves around my family, so I don’t mind feeling a bit like an outsider here.
Usually I don’t mind.
Today I don’t just feel like an outsider, I feel like I’ve been captured and locked up and put on display. Everywhere I go people stare at me and the whispers follow me. I hear what they say, these people who don’t know my situation, atau me, the ones who judge as if they have a right, so I lower my head and pretend I don’t notice the stares atau the words. It’s hard not to notice though, and it causes an ache inside me.
I’ve never felt so lonely as I do today, Hannah and Will avoid meeting my eyes in class and even the teachers seem to be avoiding me. I walk through the halls with my buku held tightly in my arms, hugging them to my chest, my chin down, all the way to my locker the eyes follow me. When I unlock it I stare into the cramped area and take a much-needed breath, it feels like my lungs have gotten suddenly too big for my chest.
“Everyone’s talking about you” A voice says selanjutnya to me, I can’t see Hannah because she stands the opposite side of the locker door and I have no desire to change that fact. I sigh. This is just great. She waits for a moment and then she says “they’re saying all sort of things, stuff like your brother needs a kidney and anda won’t give it to him, that anda are like suing your parents atau something”
Letting go of my buku I slam the locker shut and turn to look at Hannah, she just stares at me for a moment and then she straightens up, “I wonder what’s for lunch today” and she begins to walk away. I follow her with my eyes and she turns back when I don’t move, “you coming?”
She’s so blasé about it that I can’t help being shocked, for a detik I can’t even think about taking one step and then I rush meneruskan, ke depan to gabung her side, immediately Hannah loops our arms together like we’ve done in the past.
“You know what I feel like?” and before I can even answer she says “Something sweet, a-”
“Mango?” I cut in quietly, she winks at me and our steps quicken.
“You read my mind,” she says and I just shake my head. I forget sometimes, my family is so there I forget they aren’t the only ones I have to lean on.
It’s a nice feeling.
…
My hari doesn’t get easier, I want to crawl into a ball and just disappear, I don’t know how my parents deal with the attention they get, knowing people judge them when they don’t even know them. I hate it. I feel violated somehow.
It’s just not fair but I can’t say that, if I did it would make me appear like some little kid having a tantrum and that is far from what I’m doing.
For some reason I never really thought about everyone else finding out about what was happening, so focused on my family’s reaction it never crossed my mind there was an entire world out there that would care. If that is even the right word to use.
“I don’t know why she won’t give her brother a kidney, it’s not like she has a heart” a girl in front of me says to her friend, clearly not caring her response was loud enough for nearly the whole class to hear.
I glare at the back of her head and when the eraser makes contact for a detik I’m not even sure it wasn’t me who threw the object, and then I hear Hannah speak “shut it, Barbie”
“What? I’m not the one killing my brother, heartless much” Kat shoots back not even daring to look me in the eye before spinning back to the front of the class.
I just can’t take it anymore, pushing my chair back I grab my bag and run out as fast as I can, I can hear a set of feet following me.
“Abby!” Hannah calls after me and I stop to face her, tears streaming down my face, ashamed I wipe at them, “ignore that bitch”
“But that’s what everyone’s thinking” I scream back and then I shake my head, spinning back around I run as if demons are chasing me and I guess in a way they are. This time no one follows me.
Throwing the nearest bathroom door open I run into the closest stall and lock the door, before sitting down and putting my head between my knees. This is what I am reduced to.
When I have no lebih tears to shed I lean my head back against the dinding and look up at the ceiling, I might as well get comfortable, I don’t plan on going back to class. Call me a chicken; I just can’t face the stares anymore.
I can barely face my own doubt, let alone all theirs.
It would be so simple to wish it all back, but how far back do I go? This is been coming from the beginning, eventually someone was going to have to stop it all. That person has to be me.
…
It was a never ending circle, Keith gets sick, Keith gets treatment, Keith recovers, and then it starts over again. I remember the last time he came out of remission, it was nearly two years ago, I was ten, and we were all starting to get use to the way things were, and oleh that I mean aman, brankas and relatively healthy. Keith was regularly going to school, Sawyer was between her… antics? And I was throwing myself into my bola basket and Dad even had the time to be my team’s coach. Mom didn’t look like she was walking death and most mornings we woke to her and Dad laughing, she worked lebih but she wasn’t as stressed as before atau rushed, she could do it as she pleased and take time off to spend with us because she was ahead for once. All in all we were relaxing, slowly coming to believe everything was going to be okay. I guess that made the inevitable fall even harder.
When they came halaman awal from the doctors I didn’t notice anything at first, they were quiet but I was distracted. Sawyer could tell, I should have known oleh the sudden tension that filled my sister, I should have known when she slammed her door in my face and told me to go away, and then the selanjutnya hari Dad got Uncle Nathan to take over practice, even then it didn’t click. All the other kids had been nagging us to get Uncle Nathan to coach us at least once, the big ex NBA bintang teaching them his tips. In pohon bukit, hill Nathan Scott is a local hero, when he retired from his bola basket career he opened the Scott Rehabilitation and Recreation Centre, though kept alive oleh a healthy dose of donations the Scott family was the main benefactor. It has some of the best physiotherapist in the country and helped athletes from around America recover from their injuries, as well supplying a place for local teens to hang out and train, the number of teens Uncle Nathan has helped through the programs ran oleh SRRC is countless. So it wasn’t until after practice that it all started to click into place. I’d jogged up to the front porch and stopped, Sawyer stood leaning over the rail, a cigarette in her mouth, she’d glanced at me and I saw the tears, Sawyer doesn’t cry, she yells atau she kicks out, atau she goes cold. The blood inside my veins froze, a chill running down my spine, and as I stood there Sawyer glanced away, dropped the half gone cigarette into the rose semak, bush and started to walk away, down the path, in the opposite direction of our home, her words had reached me and I will never forget the way she berkata them, they were something that didn’t need to be spoken, “prepare yourself”
Inside the house was silent, too silent, never a good thing. I found dad in the dapur staring at the fridge, his expression heartbreakingly blank, and I knew then what it meant.
My reaction was to run, I ran up the stairs searching for something to tell me it wasn’t right, that I was wrong, at the puncak, atas of the stairs a let go of the ball in my hand and as I raced for my parents room I could hear the thump, thump, thump, as the bola basket fell from step to step, that final thump came as I stopped at the open doorway of my parents bathroom.
She stood, her shoulders slightly lower than normal, staring into the mirror at the reflection, to this hari I don’t know what she was seeing, but I knew she’d been crying but once she saw me behind her not one lebih tear fell from my mothers eyes. She’d span around, her posture gave off that she was in control, which was pointless because one look at her eyes and anda knew right away she was lost. And then she gave a shaky smile, one that gave false hope that everything was going to be okay, false because there is nothing true about hope. Hope is a wish, a dream, the thing anda have when everything else is telling anda to give up.
“Hey” she had stepped forward, “we need to talk”
“It’s back?” I had asked, not wanting to hear the words, not wanting to hear whatever explanation my parents could come up with.
I felt like a failure, I felt my world crashing around me. This wasn’t meant to happen, how come nothing we ever do is ever enough? Why must we suffer over and over again?
There were too many pertanyaan with no answers.
…
It is a never ending circle. I stand up and make my way over to the mirrors, my face staring back at me amongst the graffiti. I still feel like that girl from that day, and looking at my own reflection I see everything I feel stamped on my face. I don’t know how Mom does it; I wish I could have her grace, her strength.
All I see is kid, alone, scared, heartbroken, lost… guilty, and I know that is exactly what everyone else sees.
…
If I wanted I could leave, I could call Sawyer atau maybe even Ty, I’m pretty sure Dad would pick me up too, but something stops me. Instead I go to my selanjutnya class and then my next, I even make it through lunch, it gets easier as time goes oleh but I would be lying if I berkata I wasn’t waiting impatiently for that last siren.
In the end I don’t have to wait that long, fifteen menit before the school hari ends there is a knock at the door and the teacher calls me to the principal’s office, she tells me to take my bag. I highly doubt that I can get suspended over what has happened yet there is still this irrational part of me that considers it and isn’t exactly unhappy at the thought. The looks follow me until the teacher shuts the door between us.
oleh the time I reach the principal’s office my thoughts are lebih in place, this won’t be about what is happening in my personal life, and then I open the door and see Sam waiting for me.
“Abby, I’m here to bail anda out” she grins.
I look to the principal who frowns, “uh…” is all I can say.
“Just kidding, your mother has sent me to pick anda up early so we can have that talk” she’s overly cheerful in a dry wit sort of way, it reminds me of Sawyer when she loosens up, if only I didn’t know she was lying out of her teacher-slash-guardian-ad-litem-slash-whatever-else-she-is behind.
“Right?” I say almost cringing at how doubtful that sounded.
“Well, we’ll be off” Sam places a hand on my shoulder and starts to lead me away.
Leaning in closer I whisper, “so what is really going on?”
She takes a loud breath before getting out “the story has hit the media and your mom doesn’t think it’s aman, brankas for anda to walk atau to go straight halaman awal and my car won’t be linked with your family”
I say the first thing that comes to my mind, “how did she get your number?”
“You know what, I didn’t ask”
We didn’t say anything else at the school but Sam winked at me as we zoomed out of the teachers parking just as a news mobil van, van parked joined the other one waiting outside the school.
…
She asks me where I want to go, I want to go home, I want to see my family because unlike a lot of the kids in my class I enjoy spending time with mine. I like talking with my sister, playing pool with my mom, bola basket with my dad atau membaca with my brother, and I can do all that in the place I call home… atau the hospital now I think about it, but beside the point. It’s just at the moment halaman awal is the last place I can go to so other than the hospital I say the selanjutnya best thing.
The river.
We stop off and pick her daughter up from school first, Elena isn’t shy around me and she fills the silence of the car ride.
I don’t take her to the spot that is just ours, where I spent so many days with the others instead we walk along the bank with our shoes in our hands. I kick the sand as I go. Elena is a few metres ahead of us, laughing as she skips and spins with little care.
Sam asks pertanyaan after question, some are obvious while others seem almost random, and some are small while others are way too deep, but I answer each one as best I can.
There is just so much I can’t say so I find myself stopping a lot and restarting.
“So what do anda guys do as a family?” Sam asks after nearly two hours.
Tracing a long stick in the sand I send her a quick glance, “what do anda mean?”
“What does your family do together?” she repeats.
“Stuff” I shrug.
“Can anda add a few adjectives to stuff?”
“Lots of stuff” I smile, the stick swishes through the air as I whip it oleh my side, “I guess sports, Dad and Uncle Nate are pretty into teaching us sports, they take us to the SRRC courts to watch the games”
“You spend a lot of time with your dad?”
My dad has always been there for me, since I was just a little girl I’ve known he would take on the world for me, but it’s lebih than that, sometimes when I’m with dad I can just feel that we are a part of each other. We don’t need words. I have that with mom but not like I do with dad, it’s kind of funny because Sawyer use to have that with mom, atau that is how I remember it. There was a connection there that went beyond blood, and if Sawyer weren’t so damn stubborn she’d realise that it still does.
“He’s my dad” I shoot back as if it is obvious, like duh, “I kind of live with him it so we run into each other sometimes” I shrug.
“Wow, aren’t anda full of witty comebacks”
“I do my best” and I throw the stick aside and turn around to walk backwards, Sam is smiling and she rolls her eyes.
It’s another long moment before she asks too casually, “and your mom?”
“Yeah I live with her too” I purposely misunderstand her, she gives a little chuckle and I continue “she believes that a family should spend time together, there are rules, like makan malam is served at-”
“Seven o’clock on the dot” she cuts in and I grin and nod, Sam quickly takes a few steps meneruskan, ke depan so we’re lebih to the side of each other “breakfast too if things are the same” and for the selanjutnya few menit we’re silent. I’m sure she’s doing the same thing I am – remembering.
The hugs, the teasing, her putting me on her feet and teaching me how to dance, the first time I was allowed to use her makeup, the hours spent perfecting my pool shot, bernyanyi off tune to the latest pop song as it plays on the radio and so much more. Days, months, years worth of memories, so many I can’t count them, if I spread them out I think they would be endless flashes of my family and at the centre of them are always my parents because they are rarely apart.
Eventually Sam asks another question, “and your brother, how does he fit into your family?”
Where to start?
…
One night when I was six I was woken oleh a shake of the shoulder and the whisper of my name repeated over and over again. My room was pitch black except for where Keith stood, a torch in his hands, “come on, little sis” he berkata the moment my eyes opened.
“What?”
“Hurry” he’d pulled my blankets off me and threw my jaket on puncak, atas of me and when I slipped it on he handed me my boots. “What are we doing?”
“We’re going on an adventure”
“At twelve o’clock?” I’d asked too loudly looking at the clock we passed even though I couldn’t tell the time yet, it was dark and bedtime so I made a guess.
“It’s a secret, our secret” was all he berkata before leading me out the back. Keith had dragged me to the trampoline and then started crawling under it. It was cold, wet and dark, and I didn’t give following him a detik thought.
Under the trampoline with the torch propped up we sat with our legs crossed, Keith pulled out of his bag a small toy shovel from my sandpit and started digging a hole, then he pulled out a box and opened it up. It was empty, an old cartoon lunchbox he no longer used, but before my eyes he started filling it.
“This is our treasure box, so you’ll remember me when I’m gone”
“Where anda going?” I’d asked, still too young to fully understand death, and Keith had diberikan a little pout.
He’d paused what he was doing, “I’m not sure yet, far away maybe” he’d frowned, thinking hard and then started putting the box together. In went his favourite toy, photos, the book Mom gave him for Christmas, the mini bola basket Dad had diberikan him when he was born, piece after piece of his life. And then he grabbed something else, “that’s my Barbie!” I had protested, reaching out for it but Keith had pulled it to his chest.
“Can I have it?”
It was my turn to pout, “why?”
“So I don’t get lonely”
“Aw, I guess” but I’d pouted until I was back in bed. The last thing Keith did was put in a note, “it’s for you, but anda can’t read it, not til I’m gone” and then he’d put on the lid, sticky taped it up and then put it into a plastic bag. Then with my help Keith buried it.
“Promise” Keith had demanded, I had nodded and looped my pinkie with the one he held out, “best friends don’t break promises” he’d told me.
We crawled back out and went inside again, the selanjutnya morning I hid my dirty clothes in the washing basket and though Mom never questioned it she sent us strange looks that day.
After that night we never talked about it, if it wasn’t for those stained clothes I probably wouldn’t believe it ever happed, but ever since whenever I wake up in the middle of the night I think back to that box, sitting under the trampoline in the darkness with my best friend and brother. I didn’t understand it at the time, it was a lot of broken nights later that I finally realised what it meant. Even then Keith made sure he would get to say goodbye. We were just kids, that box is rotten now and I will never know what words were written on that note though something tells me I already know.
…
Avoiding the pertanyaan I start talking about anything but Keith, there is so much to say but like that note it will never be shared.
…
My mother calls me at six thirty, she asks me how my school hari was first and I lie and tell her it was great, then Mom tells me to be halaman awal for makan malam which I’m taking as it’s aman, brankas to come halaman awal now. There’s an awkward pause and I know she wants to know how things went with Sam but instead she tells me she loves me and says she’ll see me soon.
In front of the house Sam stops the car, “it was nice talking to you” she says and I look between her and the front door.
“You wanna come in?”
With a smile she shakes her head, “maybe another time”
“Kay, bye Sam, bye Elena”
Sam twists to look at her daughter, “say bye”
“Bye Abby” Elena calls loudly waving wildly, she’s still calling bye until I’m at the front door and the car is practically halfway down the street.
The cars parked tell me we have visitors, Gran as well as Aunt Haley, maybe even the rest of them. So when I walk inside it’s to a very warm, chatter filled home, makan malam is already being served and our meja is full. They welcome me as if it’s any other hari of any other week, and I’m sat between Ty and Uncle Nathan, it might be surprising to some but there is no awkward conversation, it flows between us all. The only time it does o quiet is when I ask about Sawyer, Dad says she must be busy but both him and mom look worried. It’s not the first time she’s skipped out though and she always comes back. That’s what family is, it’s home, it’s the place anda return to over and over again.
Still surrounded oleh them all I feel like a fake, who am I? How can I sit here when I’m going behind all their backs?
And then I get back to that question, who am I? And my mind wanders to what Sam asked, where does Keith fit, and right now I’m wondering where I fit. Do I even fit without Keith?
Can I go through with this?
Do I want to?
How can I answer all the pertanyaan that others ask when I don’t even know the jawaban myself?
They lingkaran in my mind, like an accusation screaming at me.
…
After makan malam I manage to escape, I don’t go to my room; instead I hide in Keith’s and sit on his tempat tidur with his bantal to my chest hugging it to me.
His room overlooks the back, I can see the trampoline standing tall, its rarely used anymore and rusted but it stays as a reminder of our childhood, of all the happy times flying in the air, for me it is a reminder of something else.
Unable to face it I close my eyes and lay down. I’m not sure I can do this anymore.
“You okay?” the pertanyaan shocks me, not so much that is was asked atau that someone had come looking, it was the who that was unexpected.
I open my eyes and roll my head to the side so I can see Ty standing at the door, his pale blue gaze looks right through me, those Scott eyes can read me so well. I wonder what he sees when he looks at me, is it what I see in my reflection, is it something else, worse atau better?
lebih questions, always lebih questions.
“I’ve been better,” I answer truthfully, and then I hiccup and quickly look away.
I know I can’t do this anymore.
Chapter Twenty
*Abby*
At school I’m not the most popular, I get along fine with everyone and they aren’t mean atau anything, it’s just I keep to myself. I sit with the same group every lunch, it’s a large one full of it’s own little mini groups so it’s easy to just fade into if you’re not in the mood to talk, and when anda are it’s just as easy to fall into a loud conversation. Usually I stick closest to Hannah and Will. Hannah is a sporty and rambunctious girl in my class who plays sepakbola to my basketball, and is from a big family, she keeps us all entertained with her tales of getting revenge on her twin brother and the lengths she’ll take to get her hands on a mango. Will is the youngest of four boys, all who have grown to become Ravens, and he’s on my bola basket team and never likes to keep still. They’re best friends, I’m cool with that because outside of school and sports my group of friends revolves around my family, so I don’t mind feeling a bit like an outsider here.
Usually I don’t mind.
Today I don’t just feel like an outsider, I feel like I’ve been captured and locked up and put on display. Everywhere I go people stare at me and the whispers follow me. I hear what they say, these people who don’t know my situation, atau me, the ones who judge as if they have a right, so I lower my head and pretend I don’t notice the stares atau the words. It’s hard not to notice though, and it causes an ache inside me.
I’ve never felt so lonely as I do today, Hannah and Will avoid meeting my eyes in class and even the teachers seem to be avoiding me. I walk through the halls with my buku held tightly in my arms, hugging them to my chest, my chin down, all the way to my locker the eyes follow me. When I unlock it I stare into the cramped area and take a much-needed breath, it feels like my lungs have gotten suddenly too big for my chest.
“Everyone’s talking about you” A voice says selanjutnya to me, I can’t see Hannah because she stands the opposite side of the locker door and I have no desire to change that fact. I sigh. This is just great. She waits for a moment and then she says “they’re saying all sort of things, stuff like your brother needs a kidney and anda won’t give it to him, that anda are like suing your parents atau something”
Letting go of my buku I slam the locker shut and turn to look at Hannah, she just stares at me for a moment and then she straightens up, “I wonder what’s for lunch today” and she begins to walk away. I follow her with my eyes and she turns back when I don’t move, “you coming?”
She’s so blasé about it that I can’t help being shocked, for a detik I can’t even think about taking one step and then I rush meneruskan, ke depan to gabung her side, immediately Hannah loops our arms together like we’ve done in the past.
“You know what I feel like?” and before I can even answer she says “Something sweet, a-”
“Mango?” I cut in quietly, she winks at me and our steps quicken.
“You read my mind,” she says and I just shake my head. I forget sometimes, my family is so there I forget they aren’t the only ones I have to lean on.
It’s a nice feeling.
…
My hari doesn’t get easier, I want to crawl into a ball and just disappear, I don’t know how my parents deal with the attention they get, knowing people judge them when they don’t even know them. I hate it. I feel violated somehow.
It’s just not fair but I can’t say that, if I did it would make me appear like some little kid having a tantrum and that is far from what I’m doing.
For some reason I never really thought about everyone else finding out about what was happening, so focused on my family’s reaction it never crossed my mind there was an entire world out there that would care. If that is even the right word to use.
“I don’t know why she won’t give her brother a kidney, it’s not like she has a heart” a girl in front of me says to her friend, clearly not caring her response was loud enough for nearly the whole class to hear.
I glare at the back of her head and when the eraser makes contact for a detik I’m not even sure it wasn’t me who threw the object, and then I hear Hannah speak “shut it, Barbie”
“What? I’m not the one killing my brother, heartless much” Kat shoots back not even daring to look me in the eye before spinning back to the front of the class.
I just can’t take it anymore, pushing my chair back I grab my bag and run out as fast as I can, I can hear a set of feet following me.
“Abby!” Hannah calls after me and I stop to face her, tears streaming down my face, ashamed I wipe at them, “ignore that bitch”
“But that’s what everyone’s thinking” I scream back and then I shake my head, spinning back around I run as if demons are chasing me and I guess in a way they are. This time no one follows me.
Throwing the nearest bathroom door open I run into the closest stall and lock the door, before sitting down and putting my head between my knees. This is what I am reduced to.
When I have no lebih tears to shed I lean my head back against the dinding and look up at the ceiling, I might as well get comfortable, I don’t plan on going back to class. Call me a chicken; I just can’t face the stares anymore.
I can barely face my own doubt, let alone all theirs.
It would be so simple to wish it all back, but how far back do I go? This is been coming from the beginning, eventually someone was going to have to stop it all. That person has to be me.
…
It was a never ending circle, Keith gets sick, Keith gets treatment, Keith recovers, and then it starts over again. I remember the last time he came out of remission, it was nearly two years ago, I was ten, and we were all starting to get use to the way things were, and oleh that I mean aman, brankas and relatively healthy. Keith was regularly going to school, Sawyer was between her… antics? And I was throwing myself into my bola basket and Dad even had the time to be my team’s coach. Mom didn’t look like she was walking death and most mornings we woke to her and Dad laughing, she worked lebih but she wasn’t as stressed as before atau rushed, she could do it as she pleased and take time off to spend with us because she was ahead for once. All in all we were relaxing, slowly coming to believe everything was going to be okay. I guess that made the inevitable fall even harder.
When they came halaman awal from the doctors I didn’t notice anything at first, they were quiet but I was distracted. Sawyer could tell, I should have known oleh the sudden tension that filled my sister, I should have known when she slammed her door in my face and told me to go away, and then the selanjutnya hari Dad got Uncle Nathan to take over practice, even then it didn’t click. All the other kids had been nagging us to get Uncle Nathan to coach us at least once, the big ex NBA bintang teaching them his tips. In pohon bukit, hill Nathan Scott is a local hero, when he retired from his bola basket career he opened the Scott Rehabilitation and Recreation Centre, though kept alive oleh a healthy dose of donations the Scott family was the main benefactor. It has some of the best physiotherapist in the country and helped athletes from around America recover from their injuries, as well supplying a place for local teens to hang out and train, the number of teens Uncle Nathan has helped through the programs ran oleh SRRC is countless. So it wasn’t until after practice that it all started to click into place. I’d jogged up to the front porch and stopped, Sawyer stood leaning over the rail, a cigarette in her mouth, she’d glanced at me and I saw the tears, Sawyer doesn’t cry, she yells atau she kicks out, atau she goes cold. The blood inside my veins froze, a chill running down my spine, and as I stood there Sawyer glanced away, dropped the half gone cigarette into the rose semak, bush and started to walk away, down the path, in the opposite direction of our home, her words had reached me and I will never forget the way she berkata them, they were something that didn’t need to be spoken, “prepare yourself”
Inside the house was silent, too silent, never a good thing. I found dad in the dapur staring at the fridge, his expression heartbreakingly blank, and I knew then what it meant.
My reaction was to run, I ran up the stairs searching for something to tell me it wasn’t right, that I was wrong, at the puncak, atas of the stairs a let go of the ball in my hand and as I raced for my parents room I could hear the thump, thump, thump, as the bola basket fell from step to step, that final thump came as I stopped at the open doorway of my parents bathroom.
She stood, her shoulders slightly lower than normal, staring into the mirror at the reflection, to this hari I don’t know what she was seeing, but I knew she’d been crying but once she saw me behind her not one lebih tear fell from my mothers eyes. She’d span around, her posture gave off that she was in control, which was pointless because one look at her eyes and anda knew right away she was lost. And then she gave a shaky smile, one that gave false hope that everything was going to be okay, false because there is nothing true about hope. Hope is a wish, a dream, the thing anda have when everything else is telling anda to give up.
“Hey” she had stepped forward, “we need to talk”
“It’s back?” I had asked, not wanting to hear the words, not wanting to hear whatever explanation my parents could come up with.
I felt like a failure, I felt my world crashing around me. This wasn’t meant to happen, how come nothing we ever do is ever enough? Why must we suffer over and over again?
There were too many pertanyaan with no answers.
…
It is a never ending circle. I stand up and make my way over to the mirrors, my face staring back at me amongst the graffiti. I still feel like that girl from that day, and looking at my own reflection I see everything I feel stamped on my face. I don’t know how Mom does it; I wish I could have her grace, her strength.
All I see is kid, alone, scared, heartbroken, lost… guilty, and I know that is exactly what everyone else sees.
…
If I wanted I could leave, I could call Sawyer atau maybe even Ty, I’m pretty sure Dad would pick me up too, but something stops me. Instead I go to my selanjutnya class and then my next, I even make it through lunch, it gets easier as time goes oleh but I would be lying if I berkata I wasn’t waiting impatiently for that last siren.
In the end I don’t have to wait that long, fifteen menit before the school hari ends there is a knock at the door and the teacher calls me to the principal’s office, she tells me to take my bag. I highly doubt that I can get suspended over what has happened yet there is still this irrational part of me that considers it and isn’t exactly unhappy at the thought. The looks follow me until the teacher shuts the door between us.
oleh the time I reach the principal’s office my thoughts are lebih in place, this won’t be about what is happening in my personal life, and then I open the door and see Sam waiting for me.
“Abby, I’m here to bail anda out” she grins.
I look to the principal who frowns, “uh…” is all I can say.
“Just kidding, your mother has sent me to pick anda up early so we can have that talk” she’s overly cheerful in a dry wit sort of way, it reminds me of Sawyer when she loosens up, if only I didn’t know she was lying out of her teacher-slash-guardian-ad-litem-slash-whatever-else-she-is behind.
“Right?” I say almost cringing at how doubtful that sounded.
“Well, we’ll be off” Sam places a hand on my shoulder and starts to lead me away.
Leaning in closer I whisper, “so what is really going on?”
She takes a loud breath before getting out “the story has hit the media and your mom doesn’t think it’s aman, brankas for anda to walk atau to go straight halaman awal and my car won’t be linked with your family”
I say the first thing that comes to my mind, “how did she get your number?”
“You know what, I didn’t ask”
We didn’t say anything else at the school but Sam winked at me as we zoomed out of the teachers parking just as a news mobil van, van parked joined the other one waiting outside the school.
…
She asks me where I want to go, I want to go home, I want to see my family because unlike a lot of the kids in my class I enjoy spending time with mine. I like talking with my sister, playing pool with my mom, bola basket with my dad atau membaca with my brother, and I can do all that in the place I call home… atau the hospital now I think about it, but beside the point. It’s just at the moment halaman awal is the last place I can go to so other than the hospital I say the selanjutnya best thing.
The river.
We stop off and pick her daughter up from school first, Elena isn’t shy around me and she fills the silence of the car ride.
I don’t take her to the spot that is just ours, where I spent so many days with the others instead we walk along the bank with our shoes in our hands. I kick the sand as I go. Elena is a few metres ahead of us, laughing as she skips and spins with little care.
Sam asks pertanyaan after question, some are obvious while others seem almost random, and some are small while others are way too deep, but I answer each one as best I can.
There is just so much I can’t say so I find myself stopping a lot and restarting.
“So what do anda guys do as a family?” Sam asks after nearly two hours.
Tracing a long stick in the sand I send her a quick glance, “what do anda mean?”
“What does your family do together?” she repeats.
“Stuff” I shrug.
“Can anda add a few adjectives to stuff?”
“Lots of stuff” I smile, the stick swishes through the air as I whip it oleh my side, “I guess sports, Dad and Uncle Nate are pretty into teaching us sports, they take us to the SRRC courts to watch the games”
“You spend a lot of time with your dad?”
My dad has always been there for me, since I was just a little girl I’ve known he would take on the world for me, but it’s lebih than that, sometimes when I’m with dad I can just feel that we are a part of each other. We don’t need words. I have that with mom but not like I do with dad, it’s kind of funny because Sawyer use to have that with mom, atau that is how I remember it. There was a connection there that went beyond blood, and if Sawyer weren’t so damn stubborn she’d realise that it still does.
“He’s my dad” I shoot back as if it is obvious, like duh, “I kind of live with him it so we run into each other sometimes” I shrug.
“Wow, aren’t anda full of witty comebacks”
“I do my best” and I throw the stick aside and turn around to walk backwards, Sam is smiling and she rolls her eyes.
It’s another long moment before she asks too casually, “and your mom?”
“Yeah I live with her too” I purposely misunderstand her, she gives a little chuckle and I continue “she believes that a family should spend time together, there are rules, like makan malam is served at-”
“Seven o’clock on the dot” she cuts in and I grin and nod, Sam quickly takes a few steps meneruskan, ke depan so we’re lebih to the side of each other “breakfast too if things are the same” and for the selanjutnya few menit we’re silent. I’m sure she’s doing the same thing I am – remembering.
The hugs, the teasing, her putting me on her feet and teaching me how to dance, the first time I was allowed to use her makeup, the hours spent perfecting my pool shot, bernyanyi off tune to the latest pop song as it plays on the radio and so much more. Days, months, years worth of memories, so many I can’t count them, if I spread them out I think they would be endless flashes of my family and at the centre of them are always my parents because they are rarely apart.
Eventually Sam asks another question, “and your brother, how does he fit into your family?”
Where to start?
…
One night when I was six I was woken oleh a shake of the shoulder and the whisper of my name repeated over and over again. My room was pitch black except for where Keith stood, a torch in his hands, “come on, little sis” he berkata the moment my eyes opened.
“What?”
“Hurry” he’d pulled my blankets off me and threw my jaket on puncak, atas of me and when I slipped it on he handed me my boots. “What are we doing?”
“We’re going on an adventure”
“At twelve o’clock?” I’d asked too loudly looking at the clock we passed even though I couldn’t tell the time yet, it was dark and bedtime so I made a guess.
“It’s a secret, our secret” was all he berkata before leading me out the back. Keith had dragged me to the trampoline and then started crawling under it. It was cold, wet and dark, and I didn’t give following him a detik thought.
Under the trampoline with the torch propped up we sat with our legs crossed, Keith pulled out of his bag a small toy shovel from my sandpit and started digging a hole, then he pulled out a box and opened it up. It was empty, an old cartoon lunchbox he no longer used, but before my eyes he started filling it.
“This is our treasure box, so you’ll remember me when I’m gone”
“Where anda going?” I’d asked, still too young to fully understand death, and Keith had diberikan a little pout.
He’d paused what he was doing, “I’m not sure yet, far away maybe” he’d frowned, thinking hard and then started putting the box together. In went his favourite toy, photos, the book Mom gave him for Christmas, the mini bola basket Dad had diberikan him when he was born, piece after piece of his life. And then he grabbed something else, “that’s my Barbie!” I had protested, reaching out for it but Keith had pulled it to his chest.
“Can I have it?”
It was my turn to pout, “why?”
“So I don’t get lonely”
“Aw, I guess” but I’d pouted until I was back in bed. The last thing Keith did was put in a note, “it’s for you, but anda can’t read it, not til I’m gone” and then he’d put on the lid, sticky taped it up and then put it into a plastic bag. Then with my help Keith buried it.
“Promise” Keith had demanded, I had nodded and looped my pinkie with the one he held out, “best friends don’t break promises” he’d told me.
We crawled back out and went inside again, the selanjutnya morning I hid my dirty clothes in the washing basket and though Mom never questioned it she sent us strange looks that day.
After that night we never talked about it, if it wasn’t for those stained clothes I probably wouldn’t believe it ever happed, but ever since whenever I wake up in the middle of the night I think back to that box, sitting under the trampoline in the darkness with my best friend and brother. I didn’t understand it at the time, it was a lot of broken nights later that I finally realised what it meant. Even then Keith made sure he would get to say goodbye. We were just kids, that box is rotten now and I will never know what words were written on that note though something tells me I already know.
…
Avoiding the pertanyaan I start talking about anything but Keith, there is so much to say but like that note it will never be shared.
…
My mother calls me at six thirty, she asks me how my school hari was first and I lie and tell her it was great, then Mom tells me to be halaman awal for makan malam which I’m taking as it’s aman, brankas to come halaman awal now. There’s an awkward pause and I know she wants to know how things went with Sam but instead she tells me she loves me and says she’ll see me soon.
In front of the house Sam stops the car, “it was nice talking to you” she says and I look between her and the front door.
“You wanna come in?”
With a smile she shakes her head, “maybe another time”
“Kay, bye Sam, bye Elena”
Sam twists to look at her daughter, “say bye”
“Bye Abby” Elena calls loudly waving wildly, she’s still calling bye until I’m at the front door and the car is practically halfway down the street.
The cars parked tell me we have visitors, Gran as well as Aunt Haley, maybe even the rest of them. So when I walk inside it’s to a very warm, chatter filled home, makan malam is already being served and our meja is full. They welcome me as if it’s any other hari of any other week, and I’m sat between Ty and Uncle Nathan, it might be surprising to some but there is no awkward conversation, it flows between us all. The only time it does o quiet is when I ask about Sawyer, Dad says she must be busy but both him and mom look worried. It’s not the first time she’s skipped out though and she always comes back. That’s what family is, it’s home, it’s the place anda return to over and over again.
Still surrounded oleh them all I feel like a fake, who am I? How can I sit here when I’m going behind all their backs?
And then I get back to that question, who am I? And my mind wanders to what Sam asked, where does Keith fit, and right now I’m wondering where I fit. Do I even fit without Keith?
Can I go through with this?
Do I want to?
How can I answer all the pertanyaan that others ask when I don’t even know the jawaban myself?
They lingkaran in my mind, like an accusation screaming at me.
…
After makan malam I manage to escape, I don’t go to my room; instead I hide in Keith’s and sit on his tempat tidur with his bantal to my chest hugging it to me.
His room overlooks the back, I can see the trampoline standing tall, its rarely used anymore and rusted but it stays as a reminder of our childhood, of all the happy times flying in the air, for me it is a reminder of something else.
Unable to face it I close my eyes and lay down. I’m not sure I can do this anymore.
“You okay?” the pertanyaan shocks me, not so much that is was asked atau that someone had come looking, it was the who that was unexpected.
I open my eyes and roll my head to the side so I can see Ty standing at the door, his pale blue gaze looks right through me, those Scott eyes can read me so well. I wonder what he sees when he looks at me, is it what I see in my reflection, is it something else, worse atau better?
lebih questions, always lebih questions.
“I’ve been better,” I answer truthfully, and then I hiccup and quickly look away.
I know I can’t do this anymore.
