Chapter 5
Jess
“Mom!” I ran up the back stairs at the house. My shoes were in one hand and my dress was in the other. My heart was racing, but not from the run up the stairs. I couldn’t believe it. Charles loved me. This was the best night of my life. I had told my mom before I left I wanted to tell Charles I loved him. We had been together for a while now, in high school years, and I had been so afraid to say it, but when he said it, I knew it was right. Excited thrills ran through some part of me when I thought about it, but at the moment he said calm came over me, like everything was right with the world and nothing could ever go wrong again.
“Mom, you will never believe…” I drew up short when I got to her bedroom. In real life, she was just gone, the room was empty, the bed sat with its comforter, but the pictures were gone and the drawers were empty and the smell of my moms perfume, the one she wore when she missed my dad, lingered in the air. My grandma had come up behind me and pulled me into a tight hug when I turned to her. I could barely see her through the tears in my eyes, but she held me tight and let me ruin her robe with my running make up. I didn’t understand. She was here when I left. She helped me get ready, did my hair and makeup before she gave me a tight hug and told me how happy she was for me and how much she loved me. Now she was just gone, and she didn’t even say goodbye.
This time, instead of a room, there was a void. One I narrowly avoided falling into as I pulled up short in her doorway. “Mom!” I shouted in the blackness. It was the kind of blackness that sucked everything into it. More like a black hole than the void I first imagined. Along with it went every feeling of peace and calm and joy that had filled me before. “Mom!” I called again. The wind picking up around me as I shouted, disturbing my hair and pulling at my dress. I clung tight to the door frame, so the nothingness didn’t suck me in.
“She’s mine now,” my dad’s voice answered back. The deep tone of it reverberated through me and knocked me to my knees. Despite my fight against the black hole, my dress had crumbled and my body fell away with it soon enough. “You left, and now she’s mine.” I wanted to scream and wail against him, but I didn’t have a voice box anymore. That was gone as well.
I could feel my heart racing and I stood and ran to my grandma’s room so she could hug me tight enough to make my body real again. She could always hug me tight enough so my soul and my body stayed as one. Only she wasn’t there either. In her place on her bed sat a puppet of me. A giant, wrinkled hand reached down to pull the strings and doll-me danced like I had just been doing at the prom, only I had no date, there was no Charles, there was no joy and happiness. Doll-me’s face was pulled into a smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes and I could see my grandma’s wrinkled hand pulling the strings of that smile as well.
“Look what I can make her do,” a voice that sounded like my grandma’s, but twisted and wrong, said as she pulled the strings this way and that. When she was done making me dance, she walked the doll-me over to the window where a movie of my meeting with her executor played on a loop. “You don’t have a choice,” the twisted voice said before a mountain of snow and ice crashed down on top of me, burying me in its weight. “It’s all going according to plan.”
My only hope was to follow the smell of bacon and coffee and hope it led me to freedom. I dug and clawed at the ice around me, knowing that if I could just get to the coffee, I would be home and all would be well.
“I know you’re awake,” Charles called from the kitchen. His voice cut through the ice and I realized I was shivering. I hated that most about the morning. My body could remember the warmth of sleep, and that made the chill of being awake all that more unbearable. This time, though, despite the cold, I was glad to be awake. The dream was slipping through my fingers already and in its place was emptiness and confusion.
I didn’t know what to do about Charles. I didn’t know what to do about my grandma’s will, and I never, ever wanted to think about my mom and dad again. That was easier said than done. My therapist always said I shouldn’t try to avoid thoughts of them, but let them come, acknowledge them, and let them go. I just couldn’t do it, though. I couldn’t just feel what they make me feel and then let them go. Rather than deal with everything I was feeling this morning, I hid again.
“No.” I groaned and pulled the blanket over my head. The smell of coffee and bacon became stronger, as did the sound of Charles’ voice.
“You gonna keep running and hiding from me?” Charles asked from right next to me. His voice was calm and had a note of teasing that said he didn’t hold my tantrum against me, but wasn’t going to ignore it, either. I didn’t like that. If he had been angry with me, or hell even just ignored me, I would have known what to do and how to act. I would have been able to handle that, but this was something I had very little experience with. Shame wormed its way through me at how I’ve been treating him in return.
I threw the blankets off my head. Yes, I was running and hiding from him, but what else was I supposed to do? Tell him everything? Eviscerate my soul and let him see all the ugly parts of it? Just eat breakfast, the reasonable part of my brain said, and for a moment I considered ignoring it out of spite.
“Come eat breakfast. You’ll feel better.” He had perched himself on the back of the couch and I could feel his warmth so close to me. If I tilted my head back, it would land on his thigh. God, I wanted to tilt my head back. I stood instead and realized how disheveled I was when the frosty morning air stung the exposed stretch of skin across my stomach.
“Why are you being so nice?” I shouldn’t be accusing him of anything. I knew that, but I just couldn’t help it. He had always simply been nice, but guilt at how I handled things made me angry in the face of his steadfastness. He had been on his knees begging when I last saw him, but now here he was pretending like we were friends and nothing had happened. Like I hadn’t ripped us apart without warning or explanation. Maybe he no longer cared. The thought of that hurt more than I liked. Him no longer caring was more heartbreak than I could handle today, and I don’t think I ever want to find out if it’s true. So instead, I put up my hackles and hoped he understood.
“Would you rather I be mean?” He asked easily as he watched me walk over to the table. He had the plate of bacon in his hands, presumably to tease me and tempt me out of slumber. I didn’t like his eyes on me this morning. It felt like he could see right through me, and I didn’t want to think about what he saw.
“That’s not an answer.” I didn’t say that I thought I might want him to be mean to me. At least I could understand that, but then if he was, a part of me would wither and die, and I’d lost too much of myself already to risk losing his kindness as well.
“You’re right. That’s not an answer.” He shrugged when he sat down at the table. “So, would you rather I be mean?” His tone was conversational, and I wanted to throw a pillow at him again. I looked around and couldn’t find one nearby.
“I’d rather know why you’re being so nice,” I grumbled again, fingering the fork in front of me hoping to distract myself from how the intimacy of sitting across the table from him while I was so off balance already.
“I want to be nice.” He passed me the plate of bacon and let me load up as much I wanted. There was enough food here to serve an army. I was starving and still too tired to be self-conscious about the amount of food I was getting.
I didn’t understand people that couldn’t eat when they were emotional and upset. I’d always been the opposite. Food was the only thing I understood clearly right now. I knew bacon, and I knew eggs, and I knew what I would get with both. They were an anchor. One that I desperately needed right now.
I put some sugar and cream in my coffee and took a sip before eating. The flavor of the coffee hit my tongue, and I groaned. “You make excellent coffee,” I admitted before diving into my food, letting go of a little of the uncertainty I’d been feeling since waking up. I would thaw for the devil himself if he made me a cup of coffee this good.
“Glad you approve.” There was a hint of laughter in Charles’ voice and his lips twitched like he was trying to suppress a grin.
We ate our bacon and eggs in uncomfortable silence. I wasn’t sure what to say to him after yesterday’s fiasco. Thankfully, tonight was the last night I had to stay here, and I could escape and be done with the whole situation tomorrow. A small part of me lurched in protest at that thought.