Masked Masks 5 Chapter 1
Jasmine
I finished my tasks within four hours of being at work, yet it wasn’t enough.
Every evening, right before it was time to clock out and go home, a pit would form, heavy and sour, in my stomach.
I would ask my boss for extra work, help my coworkers, almost anything to stay away from home a little bit longer.
Home, if I could even call it that. Most of the time, it felt like a prison, especially when my husband was home.
Over the last year, it had only gotten worse.
He lost his job due to drinking on the clock, but he would never admit to that.
If you asked him, the whole world was out to get him and he did nothing wrong.
If he wasn’t at home stewing in his anger, he was out doing God knows what with God knows who.
I cherished those nights. I craved the times when he wouldn’t come home for days, sometimes even weeks at a time.
When that happened, I would check the news and public records, just hoping I’d find something.
But sadly, he always came home and every time he was in a worse mood than when he left. I really didn’t know what he had to complain about. He didn’t need a job. His dad had always paid for his life and always would. Maybe it was his father’s disappointment that ate away at him.
He tried to keep me from working once, but when I failed to get pregnant, he said he was tired of paying for me when I couldn’t provide anything for him.
I carefully hid my excitement, framing my enthusiasm for finding a job as a way to give back to him when, in reality, I needed health insurance separate from his.
I needed a way to keep ensuring I would never get pregnant that he didn’t have access to.
Thankfully, after a few years, he gave up completely. He barely looked in my direction anymore, let alone touch me. He kept me around for the appearance and I stayed for…Well, I didn’t really have an answer for that yet.
“Anything you need help with, Kathy?” I peeked into my boss’s office as she packed up for the evening.
Her eyebrows curled when she looked at me, her clear, blue eyes full of sympathy, the way you look at a sick puppy.
I knew she had to suspect something because she always scrounged around to find something for me to do.
Even if it was as small as reorganizing her desk drawers, she always let me do it on overtime.
“Hmm.” She looked around the room, her gaze landing on the tall, dark gray filing cabinets in the corner. “These files are a disaster. Could you take a look? You don’t have to finish it tonight, but I would love to be able to find things more easily.”
“Of course,” I smiled.
“Thanks, Jasmine.” She squeezed my shoulder before making her way out, stopping at the door. “And please let me know if you need anything, okay?”
Her voice was soft, understanding. I almost wondered if she knew because she’d been through it too. I nodded with my best smile and she left me to my task.
I pulled Kathy’s still-warm, plush desk chair over to the corner and settled in. The cabinets were covered in thick layers of dust. I wiped the label in the middle of one drawer with the sleeve of my cardigan: June 1995-October 2000. My jaw went slack. Yeah, she definitely knew.
***
After about two hours of organizing almost 30-year-old files, I was relieved to pull into the driveway and find that Jared’s car wasn’t there. As I turned off the engine and gathered my things, I silently prayed this was one of those times he disappeared for at least a few days.
I trudged inside, throwing my keys on the entryway table and hanging up my purse and coat. I was surprised at how chilly it was inside. The central heating was working away as I moved down the hall to the thermostat. I kicked it up a few degrees and headed into the kitchen for some tea.
Immediately, I noticed the cause of the chill. The sliding glass door in the dining room was wide open, the screen behind it was cracked a few inches. I trotted over and slammed it closed, locking it and pulling the curtains.
I tried to calm my thumping heart. Jared was probably just drunk and forgot to close it.
But when I turned to the kitchen and reached for the mug cabinet, my thumping heart stilled, twisting in my chest. There, sitting under the illuminated stove light, was a black envelope tied with a dark red bow.
Whipping my head around, I searched for the intruder that was sure to stab me at any moment or drag me to my death, but there was nothing.
I strained my ears, listening for anything out of the ordinary, but the only sound was the gentle whir of the heating.
To be safe, I tucked the envelope under my arm and did a quick sweep around the house.
Once I found nothing out of place and no killer in the closet, I switched on the kettle and settled onto the kitchen island with the envelope. Jared must have brought in the mail, I thought to myself. It was out of character, but it was the only explanation I had and I was clinging to it.
I tugged gently on the red bow; it unraveled easily and I let it fall onto my lap.
On the front of the envelope, my maiden name was written on the front in curly letters.
The “i” in Jasmine was dotted with a little star.
It tugged on a forgotten string embedded deep in my heart.
Strumming like a song that desperately wanted to be heard, but was buried too deep.
Gently, I ripped open the envelope and pulled out a sheet of white cardstock decorated with deep, red words and designed to match the bow I removed earlier.
You’re invited to Maple Meadow High School’s 10-year reunion.
My brows scrunched at “10-year reunion.” I’d always thought more time passed between those, like 20 years, but what did I know?
Under my name, there was a scannable QR code to RSVP, so I pulled out my phone and opened the link. It took me to a social media site that I wasn’t a part of. That was almost enough for me to abandon the whole thing, but I was curious.
I settled onto the couch with my tea and laptop and opened the link again. Reluctantly, I clicked the “create new account” button. I paused after typing my first name, glancing at the envelope. Whoever had put these together had either overlooked my married name or didn’t know I was married.
I hovered my cursor over the “Last Name” box, considering what to put.
Would I show up as Jasmine, the miserable married woman, or Jasmine, the still-single 30-year-old?
Both sounded equally embarrassing, but not as embarrassing as my husband, so I quickly typed my maiden name in the box before I could change my mind.
I added the rest of my details, deciding to leave my profile picture blank and explored the reunion group page. Familiar faces filled the screen. Some with kids squished in the frame with them, some more wrinkled than others, some more plastic than others.
Scrolling through all of the group members, I scanned through the photos and names.
I tried to tell myself I was just curious, but the truth was, I was looking for a certain name.
I got to the K’s, skimming through the short list of names.
When I didn’t find what I was looking for, I skipped forward to the M’s.
Still nothing. Maybe this is a good thing, I thought.
She wouldn’t go to something like a high-school reunion anyway.
As I cleared my throat, trying to dislodge the lump of disappointment that bloomed there, I clicked back to the main page. I clicked on the RSVP link and a list of people who had confirmed and declined appeared. About 150 people had already confirmed, including my old best friend, Ariana.
She was just as perfect as she was in high school.
Not a hair out of place, not a wrinkle in sight.
Although her profile was so private that I couldn’t see past her profile picture, I could tell things had turned out how she wanted.
She might have been self-absorbed and a little bitchy when we were teens, but she was with me through some of the hardest times in my life and it would be nice to see her.
It all came down to two questions: what would my husband say and did I really want to go to my hometown again and risk seeing my parents?
As if thinking about his name summoned him like a demon from Hell, Jared stumbled through the front door, knocking almost everything over in his path. I closed the laptop as silently as I could, standing to slip away to safety before he could see me.
Jared had always been aggressive, especially when he drank, but the last few months, he’d been downright terrifying. I didn’t know what had changed, but something was pushing him further down the dark hole he was already in and I did my best to keep out of the line of fire.
I ducked into the hall just as he stepped into the living room.
When things started getting worse, I’d made up the guest room for myself.
I didn’t know if he didn’t notice or if he just didn’t care, but I was thankful for the separation.
I tiptoed to my small sanctuary in the chaos, clutching my laptop and the invitation to my chest, when his slurred, thundering voice rang through the entire house.
“BAAAAABE!” He yelled over the crash of a vase shattering on the wood floors. “Where the fuck is dinner? And come clean this shit up!”
I could’ve slipped into my room and pretended to be asleep, but that would raise the risk of him coming to look for me and I’d rather come to him than have him destroy my safe space.
“JASMINE!” I didn’t get another moment to think as he stumbled into the hall. “What the fuck, didn’t you hear me calling you?!”
It was in those moments that I wouldn’t mind ending up in a true crime documentary one day.
“Yes…Sorry,” I straightened from my hunched position. “I can heat up some-”
“What’s that?” His chin tilted towards the envelope still clutched in my hand and my blood ran cold. I still needed a few days to work up the courage to tell him about it.
“Oh, it's just a-” I couldn’t finish before he ripped it from my hands.
My stomach went sour as he slowly read over it, squinting and leaning in as I’m sure his vision was swimming.
“A high school reunion,” he rubbed his chin, his expression scrunched in concentration like he was actually considering it. “You should go. I’m gonna make a sandwich and go to bed.”
He handed it back to me and I was at a loss for words. He wanted me to go, just like that? There had to be more to it, but I wasn’t about to ask any questions. The reunion wasn’t for another four weeks, which seemed rather soon, but there was still time for him to change his mind.
After cleaning up what Jared destroyed, I climbed into the guest bed with a bowl of BBQ chips to help calm my nerves.
I rested the laptop on my lap with the reunion page still pulled up.
A few days spent hundreds of miles away from my husband sounded like a dream, even if I would be in the same town as my parents.
But, they’d be easy enough to avoid. I didn’t need to tell them I was coming.
Crunching frantically on a handful of chips, I finally decided to click “yes” on the RSVP page.
I quickly searched for hotels and booked my room for the trip.
Even with the possibility of it falling through, I let the excitement build inside me.
Maybe I could get a taste of how life used to be.
Before adulthood. Before Jared. Before everything changed.