Did I Stutter? Burn It
I wasn’t expecting the invitation in the mail so soon. Or actually hand delivered by my brother with a pitying grimace. I stand there staring at his outstretched arm for a few moments, not wanting to accept it, as if it will change the contents inside.
The cream cardstock decorated with blush colored flowers makes me sick. It fuels me with such fury that I don’t know if I want to cry, scream, or hit something. A pathetic part of me hoped they wouldn’t go through with it. That Jared had some decency after a decade together, that my mother and sister cared enough about me to not do such a thing.
I’m clutching the counter so hard the skin around my knuckles has turned white. A sob escapes my throat before I can stop it, tears dropping onto the cold granite.
“Hey…” Nick says, rubbing my back. “It’s okay, Jen. You’re allowed to be upset.”
I shake my head, rolling my shoulders so he removes his touch.
Tilting my head back, I blink up at my ceiling and push off the counter. “I don’t want to be upset. They don’t deserve that reaction from me. I just—” I shrug, swallowing the lump in my throat as I stare at my brother.
Nick’s watery eyes almost set off my own tears again. He folds his arms across his chest and leans against the island. “Thought they were better people than that?”
“How are they not embarrassed?” I ask, picking up the invitation. I glance over the details again and set it down. “Mother cares so much about her image. She has to know people are talking about Jared dumping me and marrying my sister only a few months later.”
He scoffs. “Whatever her princess wants, her princess gets.”
My chin trembles at that. My brother and I were never the apple in our mother’s eye. Too rowdy or mischievous, unlike her perfect Amber, who was subdued and subservient, to be molded exactly to what she expected of a daughter without complaint.
Something breaks in my heart, the last fragile tie I had to the man I had loved and the family that I no longer owe loyalty to. Ignoring Nick, I stomp past him to the hallway closet and push a few boxes around to find the tattered duffle bag.
“Uh, what are you doing?” my brother asks, confused as he watches me rummage through my things.
I pull out the bag and hold it out to him. “Facetime, Natalie. She’ll kill me if she misses this.”
He follows me back into the kitchen as I grab lighter fluid and a match. Tucking the items into my side, I grab the invitation and head outside.
“Nicky boy, why do you look frightened?” Natalie’s voice echoes in the room.
“Uh. I think Jen has finally lost it. She got the invitation, and she grabbed some bag from the closet—”
“You bitch!” my best friend screeches. “I am ten minutes away. If you even strike that match, I’ll never forgive you.”
A genuine smile stretches across my face as I toss the bag onto the ground.
“Then you better make it less than ten minutes,” I call over my shoulder as I walk around the side of the house and drag the empty trash bin into the backyard.
Nick is watching with a grimace. “You’re going to set his things on fire. Isn’t this a little teenage melodramatic?”
I face him, my hands resting on my hips. “Why do you think I would willingly pack and move things of Jared”s?”
He glances at his phone as if waiting for Natalie’s confirmation, but she seems preoccupied with breaking traffic laws to get to the house.
Sighing, I grab the duffle bag. “I’m burning my memories, our memories. I want to be done with that part of my life.”
“I mean, have you thought about just burying it instead?”
Crinkling my nose, I open the duffle bag. “Are you gonna shovel it?” I ask him.
“No.”
“Okay then,” I say, flaring my eyes like obviously neither am I.
Natalie’s loud screech is indistinguishable and Nick hangs up on her, instead of clarifying as he moves closer to me. He squats, his hand grazing my knee with a quick squeeze.
“It’s just that burning is permanent. There’s no going back,” he says, the soft worry in his voice calming some of my hurt.
I nod. “I know, Nick. I plan to never go back.”
He grabs the bag, dragging it to him. He pulls out a pale pink t-shirt, his brow flickering with confusion. “Is this a baby shirt?”
I smile lightly. “No, it’s a tight crop top. The summer before senior year at the U.S. Surfing Open in Huntington, I spilled nachos down my shirt. Jared bought that as a replacement and then had to fight off multiple promoters asking if I wanted to participate in a wet t-shirt contest. He was so mad, but then we got home, and he…”
Words catch at the memory, it had been a really good night for us. Jared wasn’t overly affectionate or even playful, but he had staged a whole fake contest in his bathroom just the two of us. We couldn’t hold back the tears of laughter as I tried modeling and then choking on the cold water that he splashed over me.
I grab the shirt, tossing it into the trash can and grit my jaw. My brother watches and hands me another item, I don’t explain the memory attached to it and toss it without another look. It hurts, it feels like I’m burning pieces of my soul. Tiny fragments that shaped who I am.
But it also feels like I was tethering a thread that kept me chained to the past. A strange sense of freedom fills me as I continue to toss my memorabilia into the large bin. Natalie comes sprinting from inside the house, dragging something behind her. I hadn’t kept track of how long it took her to get here, but my mouth drops at the garment bag in her arms.
“Is that my junior prom dress?”
She nods, huffing out a few breaths as if she ran the entire way here. “Yeah. I told Eric that you needed a ploy to get Jared back. He let me in to grab it.”
I frown. The head of security at my parent’s house wouldn’t care if I got back together with him, but I know my mom watched the visitor log like a hawk. “You know he’s going to tell my mother that.”
She grins. “Yes. I figured it would keep her on her toes. Maybe get us out of the Christmas party next month.”
Nick laughs. “No one gets out of the Christmas party. Not even the president of the United States if he was invited.”
Natalie rolls her eyes, waving the dress at me. “Well?”
There’s a reason she’s my best friend, and it’s because she’s as crazy as I am. I hadn’t thought about that dress hanging in my childhood bedroom for years, but she had thought of grabbing it.
I smile, grabbing the bottle of lighter fluid. “Let’s burn it.”