Chapter Twelve
…seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty…
If Audrey could do it right, do it enough times, everything would be okay.
Except it wouldn’t. Not really. She knew that. She knew her hands ached from the hours of tapping she’d been doing, but she couldn’t stop.
Terrible thoughts attacked her already exhausted mind. She tried desperately to zip them into folders and file them away inside a million overfilled and locked cabinets. But they wouldn’t stay put.
Her mind was spiraling, struggling, and she didn’t know what to do.
The radio was playing softly, and she was grateful they weren’t sitting in silence, but she was trying to do better, trying to be able to hold a conversation—to say anything at all.
The familiar blockade between her brain and her mouth had sprung up once they’d settled in the car, their wet pants hung over the back seat, and she’d been trapped inside her mind ever since.
She knew what she was supposed to do, and she was trying to look fine, look unbothered, look normal.
She hid her hands between her knees and she fought every wince that rushed through her when she moved.
The muscles of her shoulders pressed oppressively against her, begging her to curl in on herself, to lie down, to cry, to sleep.
Just to make it go away. But she couldn’t do that.
It wasn’t right. Her family already thought she was terrible. She had to be okay for Hallie.
Hallie had been driving for a while now. Audrey wasn’t sure how long, but definitely more than an hour. They were still in Michigan, but, judging from the dropping temperatures and increasing snow coverage, they were heading north.
Audrey would take it. She didn’t know where they were going but all that mattered was that they were going away.
Her stomach ached, feeling like it was clenching to vomit. She didn’t have much in her to expel, but that was little blessing.
Hallie glanced her away, not needing anything from her but seeming to notice the way she was collapsing in on herself. She reached to flick the heated seats on—her own too, as if it was merely because the day was colder up here.
Audrey could have cried as the warmth slowly penetrated her clothes and seeped into her screaming muscles.
She pressed back into the seat, desperate for more of it.
She almost wanted it to burn, to strip away the scorched layers of hurt, of trying to connect with her mother and having the same thing as always happen again, to burn off the need to be around them.
She tried to zip all of those thoughts up. They weren’t helpful now. There was nothing she could do. She had to be okay before they got where they were going.
Outside the windows, the snow was thick on the ground and something about that felt right, gentle, clean. Pristine blankets of untouched nature. Nothing that could hurt her.
Well, so long as she didn’t ingest it because—no. She cleared her throat, forcing those thoughts away. They kept going in the back of her mind.
Hallie drove them up a quiet road. Snow-capped trees surrounded homes with their Christmas decorations up. And Audrey still didn’t know where they were going but she looked at the GPS and realized they were in the Traverse City area. They’d been driving longer than she realized.
She sucked in steadying breaths, slow, measured. She got the feeling they were almost there and she’d need to be able to speak.
They took another turn.
Finally, Hallie pulled into a driveway and smiled. Wherever they were, it was someplace she liked, and that told Audrey it would be safe.
She left the car running, likely because of the cold, and turned to face Audrey.
Audrey looked up at the house. Number thirty-one. They weren’t on, but strings of festive lights lined the roof and the bushes in the garden. It was beautiful, homely, welcoming. And she was too far gone to even worry about who might be inside.
“Are you okay?” Hallie asked quietly.
Now, Audrey had to speak. Her body needed to remember how.
She nodded, swallowing convulsively. This was a silly reaction to her mother being the same way she always was.
She was being a baby. She needed to grow up and learn how to cope with things.
Instead, she’d freaked out and forced Hallie to drive them hours across the state.
“Hey,” Hallie said, carefully pressing a hand to Audrey’s shoulder, “you’re safe. I’m here.”
Audrey coughed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you bring us here.”
She smiled. “It is absolutely no hassle coming here, I can promise you that. And I’m hoping you’ll enjoy it.”
“What is it?” She looked up at the house again. The chimney suggested someone was inside, but nobody had come out. Nobody was rushing them or pressuring them. Audrey didn’t understand.
“My mom’s house. I don’t live too far away, but this place is much nicer than mine, and, well, I figured you could use this.”
Audrey’s heart clenched. “You didn’t have to—”
“I know. I wanted to. And we can go in whenever you’re ready.”
“We have to go now. Your mom…”
“She’ll be fine waiting until we’re ready. No rush. No problem. Just take all the time you need.”
Audrey’s stomach ached again. She knew she’d need to eat today but she couldn’t help being glad she hadn’t so far.
If they’d been at her parents’ house, they’d have been out the door already. They’d have been demanding she come inside. Some people found that welcoming, but it wasn’t that. This was welcoming. Hallie’s mom’s patience made going inside feel like something Audrey could do.
She finally stopped tapping and reached to take Hallie’s hand. “I’m sorry. I know this is ridiculous and silly and nothing bad really happened.”
“Audrey,” Hallie breathed. “What you’re experiencing isn’t coming from one incident of your mom getting upset.
I mean, even if it was that, you’d still be entitled to be hurt that you told your mom something good and she made it all about her and put that on you, but it’s not that.
It’s years of your whole family mistreating you. ”
“They’re not mistreating me. It’s not that bad.”
“I know that’s what they have you tell yourself, and I support you doing what you have to in order to protect yourself, but families who love you don’t act the way yours does. And how you’re feeling is a direct result of how they’ve always treated you.”
Audrey didn’t want to cry. She wanted to make everything okay. That was her job. But Hallie didn’t buy it. She didn’t want to sweep everything away and pretend it didn’t matter. Maybe that was good in the long run, but, in the moment, Audrey wasn’t sure what to do.
It was always like this. Her family was this.
And, every year, she’d convince herself it would be okay.
Everyone else would act like it was perfectly normal, so what other choice did she have but to suck it up and swallow it down?
But, the second they introduced Hallie into the equation, everything got harder.
Sure, Audrey had been realizing more and more just how bad things were, but having Hallie see her, see the…
bad parts of her family and tell her she deserved better…
How did she keep gaslighting herself into believing she was the problem when someone was standing in the midst of it all with her and insisting she wasn’t?
All the times she’d needed to fall apart over her family had been building up inside of her and, the second someone saw that, acknowledged it, and gave her the space to feel it, it all came flooding out.
And it felt far more complicated than she had any way to process.
She swallowed hard and squeezed Hallie’s hand. “I don’t even know what to say.” Her voice was shaky and breathless.
“You don’t have to say anything,” Hallie replied quickly, stroking a thumb over Audrey’s hand.
She really shouldn’t have been like this around other people, let alone someone she’d only just met. Even worse, it was River’s fake girlfriend. How were they going to explain that whole thing?
“Audrey,” Hallie said again, bringing her back into the moment.
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay. But, for now, stay here with me. We’re far away, you’re safe, and we’ll deal with whatever we need to later.”
For half a second, Audrey wondered whether she’d been verbalizing her thoughts. Then, she realized it probably wasn’t hard to put together the panic that was undoubtedly crossing her face.
She nodded, taking a shaky breath and looking at the house again. It really was lovely.
“Is there anything that might help right now?” Hallie asked.
Audrey needed a shower. She needed water so hot it hurt. She needed to decontaminate her body so that maybe her mind could rest a little. But she couldn’t ask for that.
She could, however, probably ask for the music to be annoyingly loud for a moment. Not so high as to do damage but enough to drown out some of her thoughts.
She nodded at the stereo. “Can we play that loud for a moment?”
Hallie breathed a surprised laugh. “Of course.”
She waited, but when Audrey didn’t move to adjust the volume, she did it herself, watching for the moment Audrey nodded that it was loud enough.
It was obnoxiously loud. People would be able to hear it if they stood outside the car, but it helped and Audrey’s breathing came a little easier.
When the song ended, she nodded and finally released Hallie’s hand, feeling more than a little embarrassed that she’d needed the physical contact.
When she went through this stuff, she didn’t feel like herself and she hated that.
Of course, most of the time she was around her family she didn’t feel like herself, but she knew she wasn’t alone in that feeling.
“We can stay here longer if you want to,” Hallie said sincerely as she turned the music down again.
Audrey shook her head. “It’s okay.”
“If you’re sure?”
“I am.” She tried to banish the thought echoing in her head but her mind wasn’t having any of it. She looked down as she asked, “Your mom’s not sick right now, is she?”