Chapter 29 #2
I expected a lot more to happen. I don’t know what I thought it would be, but the day just continuing on as normal with Alyssa on her way out of Vermont felt like a slap to the face.
Was that how it was supposed to be? Time just carrying on like I hadn’t watched a piece of my heart drive away in that Toyota Camry?
Like it was business as usual and now I was back to my regular life?
I definitely expected people to talk to me about it, to try to say something to her, to do something.
But maybe she was right that Drew and Charlie had already done their thing and that nobody gave a shit, because dead silence was all I got.
A whole day just drifting around like I barely existed—I wished it were a workday, because spending a weekend in this state was soul-crushing.
I’d have done anything for a distraction, but all I could get, sending out job applications, was rote enough it did nothing for me.
I lost track of how many I sent—probably way too many, given I was applying to just about anywhere in the country.
Anywhere for a chance to get out of here, away from where every building and every street would remind me of her.
Where every blue flower would break my heart.
Wasn’t until I got an autoresponder email in Spanish that I realized I’d accidentally applied to one in Mexico. Whatever. Maybe I’d learn Spanish. Buenos días, soy estúpida. I could make it work.
Turned out a workday wasn’t any better, though.
I managed to fall asleep somewhere around one in the morning, and I was a zombie getting to work, not just because of sleep deprivation.
Wasn’t even enough to distract me from the churning abyss in my head, still circling the drain as I circled the town in my car and marked down the location of fallen detritus from the rain, surrounded by the detritus of my own life.
I was dramatic, needless to say, and I felt like I’d throw up from overthinking by the time I finished and got back to a quiet home and sat down in front of my candle station.
Had an order to fulfill. But all of a sudden I hated making candles, at least now while there was a box of scent samples on the shelf that I knew were supposed to smell like Alyssa.
And that none of them were quite right, and that I’d never get it right, because the reference was gone and I’d never see her again.
Was she okay right now? Back at her mother’s house? She hadn’t talked much about her parents… it hadn’t been the healthiest place for her, from what I could tell, but it was a hell of a lot healthier than Sawyer. How long would it be before she decided she didn’t deserve that either?
I moved in a thrashing anger I didn’t even recognize, everything a blur until I wound up with the box of scent samples flung out with the trash cans at the end of the driveway, slamming the door shut.
The dried flowers I’d prepped, as well, flung off the back deck for nature to reclaim them, and I was still riding that flush of anger when someone knocked at the door, and it was like gasoline on the fire.
So now they came around to ask about her?
I stormed through the house, and I flung the door open, not surprised to find Daniela there with Cat at her side, both of them flinching back from the way I opened the door. Daniela recomposed herself, steeling against me with an even expression.
“Hey,” she said, signing as she spoke. “I get you’re pissed off with me right now, but we should talk.”
“About what?” I signed the words hard enough that I hit the side of my hand on the door, and I would be embarrassed about the pain, but in my current state, it just pissed me off more, and I kicked the door open wider.
“If you want me to leave town, I’m already on my way out.
So let’s just settle there and all be happy. ”
She frowned. “You’re leaving? Is it because of…”
Cat shook her head. “She was already planning to. I only found out recently, too. From all the Birdhouse drama around… well, me.”
Daniela looked wildly between the two of us. I leaned against the doorframe. “Guess Alyssa kept my dark secrets to the bitter end, huh?”
She pinched the bridge of her nose, taking off her glasses and wiping them anxiously on her sweater before she put them back. “Okay,” she said. “One thing at a time. Is Alyssa here? What’s happening with her?”
“What’s—” I dropped my arms by my sides, briefly forgetting to even sign. “What?”
“She came here, right?” she said. “She ran out after we had an argument, and I figured she went here…”
“You don’t know?”
Daniela flicked her gaze to either side. “Know what? What happened?”
I broke, slumping against the doorframe. Nobody knew how to fucking communicate anything around here. Myself included. Daniela and Cat were trying to give her space? And it should have been me saying something? But how was I supposed to know?
No wonder they hadn’t come around. Maybe if I’d reached out, we could have had an intervention and convinced Alyssa to stay. Maybe I should have done everything differently, from beginning to end. From the moment we first met, and when she first slapped me in the face.
My hand hurt. It was going to be embarrassing if it bruised. My brain fixated on that, because it was a hell of a lot easier than grappling with everything else.
“Alyssa left,” I said, finally, my voice hollow. Daniela blinked fast, and Cat was the one to respond, practically lunging forward, speaking without signing.
“She left? Where to?”
“Her mom’s. Told me she’d been on the verge of self-sabotaging by going back to Sawyer, and managed to stop herself in the last minute to talk to her mom instead. Spent the night with me and then drove off yesterday morning.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Cat said, and I groaned.
“I thought you knew. Why didn’t you say anything?
Why didn’t she say anything? Why didn’t any of us say anything?
” I shook my head. “I tried to talk her out of it. But she was intent. Said there was no place for her here. Apparently she’d talked to Drew, and he’d made it clear he and Charlie had been spreading rumors behind her back, drumming up a whole fuss about how annoying she was, couldn’t mind her own business.
Thought you two hated her and that everyone else would soon too, so she left.
And I thought maybe she was right, because nobody even came once to check in on her, to ask after her. ”
Daniela pushed out a shaky breath, looking like she was about to fall over on the spot. “Shit,” she said, at length. “I didn’t mean… I wasn’t trying to… god, I didn’t want to drive her out of town altogether.”
“Where does her mom live?” Cat said. “We’ll plan a road trip.”
“I don’t know. Indiana. Somewhere with cornfields. She made me promise not to uproot my life and go after her.” I rounded on Daniela, something hot bubbling up in my chest. “So what was it? You didn’t want her to be with anybody? Or do you just hate me?”
“I don’t hate you, or—it’s not like that,” she protested.
“I just wanted to know the truth! She was lying about where she was going, what she was doing, with who, when, where, and why, when she could have just told me and I’d have supported her the whole time—and you were planning on leaving and didn’t tell me anything, and she had this whole thing with Drew and Charlie and didn’t tell me anything, and I just want people to tell me the truth.
I’m sick of trying to play nice and make everyone happy!
Are we going to just step back at some point and admit it never makes anyone better off? ”
“Daniela,” Cat said, a hand on her arm, calming her. I didn’t care, though. The two of them could work it out. I was suddenly on the verge of tears, even though I didn’t know whether it was from anger, frustration, or heartbreak, and I shook my head, stepping back into the house.
“Well, here’s the truth, then,” I said. “I’m on my way out of town. Been doing job applications for a while, and I don’t think it’ll be much longer. So… thanks. It’s been real. Hope things work out better here for you than they did for me.”
“Jade, wait,” Daniela started, but I didn’t give her time to finish—didn’t have the mental space for it myself, and I kicked the door shut, turning the lock and ignoring their voices from outside, trudging back into the other room and dropping onto the couch.
Shit. My hand was still throbbing. I’d get ice for it, but my pride wouldn’t let me admit I’d actually hurt myself on my fucking door, so I just lay there thinking about how it hurt, which was objectively stupider and more humiliating, but what did it matter now?
I had a great, productive evening. Once Daniela and Cat left, I got plenty done, ranging from kicking myself to crying, to staring vacantly out the window, to eating half a bag of chips and not even noticing I was doing it until I dropped one down my shirt and had to take my shirt off to get it out of my bra.
I was shirtless wiping salt off my chest when I got a phone call, and my heart jumped into my mouth vividly imagining fantasy scenarios—Alyssa calling me and saying she missed me and wanted to come back and stay with me and everything would be okay—but it was Chad.
I didn’t know who the fuck Chad was, but that was his caller ID. I picked up the phone.
“Hi, Jade speaking.”
“Hey, this is Chad from the San Antonio city commission. I’m calling about your job application. Is this a good time?”
Had I applied to a job in fucking Texas? With fucking Chad? Kill me. “Now’s a good time, yeah,” I said, standing shirtless with a bag of chips in a bathroom crying over a girl.
“We’ve reviewed your application, and we think you’d be a good fit for the team. We’re looking to start hiring as soon as possible, so do you think you’d still be interested in taking the job?”
Well, there it was. Texas, though? Really?
I couldn’t wait for endless stretches of dusty terrain with cookie-cutter houses in rat-race suburbs, each with their HOA-approved crabgrass lawn doused with unsustainable amounts of water.
Maybe I’d swap the Jeep for a fuck-you huge-ass pickup truck with a don’t mess with Texas bumper sticker, go to tailgate parties, and drive into the fucking Gulf of Mexico.
“Yeah, I’m interested,” I said, sounding about as interested as if he was offering for me to swallow a cactus and pull it back out. “I’ll just have to check some things and make sure I’m available.”
“No problem. I noticed your address is listed in Vermont, so I understand it’s a big move. We’ll just need to hear back on your availability before the end of tomorrow, if you can do that for us.”
Whoop-de-fucking-doo. Get my ducks in a row. In a row like a firing range, and then one by one, shoot them in the head executioner-style, and go to meet my new buddy, Chad in Texas. “Yep, sounds great. Thanks, Chad.”
We exchanged pleasantries that were as pleasant as pulling off my fingernails, and then we hung up, and I crashed on the couch, staring up at the ceiling.
My hand still hurt. Fuck me.