Chapter 4
Rayne
Better Days—Dermot Kennedy
The front door slams behind me with a loud bang. Breathing heavily, I sink down against the door and close my eyes for a moment. Tears burn behind my eyelids, and I have a lump in my throat. Shit. This has gone totally wrong.
My heart aches. I screwed up in the worst possible way, just because I didn’t think things through.
My hands clench into fists and I bite my lower lip to suppress the sobs that are threatening to break out, even though Grandma isn’t here to hear them.
The house is completely silent, and I’m glad of it.
I wouldn’t be able to talk to her, anyway.
Grandma’s house in Back Bay is too big for an old woman and a teenager, two people who barely know each other.
Everything in this house feels off. The creaky wooden floors, the dark green walls.
Dark furniture, dark picture frames. The whole house is dark.
The rooms aren’t small, but they feel that way because they’re so cluttered.
Tall bookshelves are stacked with leather-bound volumes that nobody reads.
Sideboards are dotted with candles that never burn.
Gilded mirrors and lamp bases add a touch of brightness, but that’s about it.
Grandma’s house is the total opposite of our welcoming villa in LA, where the living room and kitchen were part of the same space.
The entire first story was open plan, with floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over the ocean.
Here, all you can see out the windows are tiny gardens and backyards.
There are wide streets with old-fashioned lanterns and trees that will start to bloom in a few months.
Boston is so different from Los Angeles. Less spread out, less free. The city feels more controlled, more orderly. Just like Grandma. She’s exactly like that, and it’s one of a thousand reasons I find it difficult to talk to her. Even though she’s all that’s left of my family.
I swallow hard against the lump in my throat.
Drying my eyes, I straighten up and take my shoes and coat off, then pad up the stairs to my room in my socks.
Carelessly, I toss my backpack on the floor next to my bed, even though I’m itching to get out my phone and check if Easton has texted me.
I don’t need to look to know he hasn’t. He tried so hard for months, and I still ran away.
No, if anyone should get in touch, it’s me.
I just don’t know what to say to him. Which part of the truth should I share? Or should I tell him all of it? Telling him everything would be only fair, but the whole truth hurts.
With a sigh of frustration, I collapse onto my bed and scream into my pillow again and again, until my throat hurts and my voice is hoarse.
At some point, I’ve lost track of time. I turn onto my back and try to breathe calmly and not think about Easton.
It won’t do any good, though. Thinking about nothing is impossible, especially when you’re trying so hard not to think.
My head is too full and my heart aches. This wasn’t the first time I thought about visiting him at the record store.
It was just the first day I actually dared to go. I shouldn’t have tried.
Sitting up, I pull my knees to my chest and hug myself as I look around the room.
It still feels strange, even though I’ve been living here for almost six months.
My new bedroom is as dark as the rest of the house.
In a way, it reminds me of my room in LA, except that my old room was cozy and warm in spite of the black walls.
There are no pictures hanging above the bed here, no fairy lights creating a soft glow around everything.
I haven’t plastered every inch of the walls with song lyrics and thoughts with my white pen and messy handwriting.
My room told my story. But right now, all my pages are blank.
I couldn’t bring myself to settle in here; after all, from the very start, I hadn’t planned to stay long.
My gaze wanders over to the boxes stacked in a corner.
The one on top of the pile teeters dangerously; I’ve been expecting it to fall for days.
Two suitcases lie open in front of my closet.
All I have to do is pick up my clothes from the floor and repack them.
The closet is empty. I haven’t ever used it.
The only thing that I’ve unpacked properly is Dad’s record player and the records that I brought with me from LA.
The record player is set up on a tall dresser, right opposite my bed.
I can see it every night—every day too, because I usually can’t be bothered to get up and leave the room.
I found a place for the LPs on the wide bookshelf next to the window.
They couldn’t stay in the boxes; that would have broken my heart.
But now it’s time to pack them up again. I’ll be out of here in two days. I’m not leaving the city, just this room and this house, but it’s a start. It’s what I need right now.
Living with Grandma is difficult. I think we both feel that way. We just don’t know what to do with each other. We haven’t played a role in each other’s lives for eighteen years, and as much as we’ve tried to pretend that doesn’t matter, it does.
I climb out of bed and pull a record off the shelf. It’s Taylor Swift’s Folklore album, because Taylor is always the right choice and I need her now. Her melodic tunes help keep me from thinking too much.
Then I start packing. I carefully distribute records among several boxes so they don’t get too heavy. After all, I have to be able to carry them myself. I just stuff my clothes into the suitcases; they’re mostly T-shirts, leggings, and hoodies anyway, so it doesn’t matter if anything gets wrinkled.
After a while, everything is packed. Grandma still isn’t home, even though it’s almost dinner time, and I can’t resist the urge to dig my phone out of my backpack to see if Easton has texted me.
Which is extremely unlikely, to be honest. But I can’t deny that I’m still hoping he will.
My hands sweat as I pull out my phone and tap the screen.
My stomach sinks in disappointment. No message.
Of course. I take a breath and blink, but it still hurts.
My vision blurs as I open Instagram and then our chat.
My fingers hover over the letters on the keyboard, but I can’t seem to find the right words.
Or any words at all, regardless of whether they’re the right ones.
There’s nothing but emptiness. Eventually I give up and crawl back into bed.
I pull the blanket over my head and close my eyes.
* * *
“You really don’t have to come with me.” I give Grandma a quick glance, my fingers clenched too tightly around the glass of orange juice in my hand.
It’s Sunday, and we’re having breakfast at the table in the formal dining room, which is far too large for the two of us.
We’re about to set off for my new home—the second in six months.
She shakes her head, giving me a cool smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. It never does. I’ve never seen her smile properly. “I don’t mind.”
I press my lips together. Maybe she doesn’t mind, but I do.
I can’t protest because I owe her one. My stomach cramps at the thought that I only got accepted to the New England School of Ballet because of her.
I didn’t even have to audition. Apparently it’s enough to be Penelope Bennett’s granddaughter.
She knows Travis Pearson, the principal, and has been on the school board for years.
Basically, all she had to do was snap her fingers to get me in.
It’s painful how easy she made it for me, but at the same time, I’m infinitely grateful to her. I couldn’t have done it on my own.
“Okay,” I say, finally giving in.
“Do you need help packing?”
“No, I can manage. Thanks,” I add. I hate that it’s so difficult to talk to her.
But I can’t pretend that nothing ever happened.
There’s a reason why Grandma never visited us in California.
We both know it, but in the six months we’ve lived together, we’ve never talked about it once.
But then again, we don’t talk about Mom or Dad, either.
“All right.” She stands up and smooths her tailored wool dress.
Grandma still has the figure of the dancer she used to be.
Tall and very slim. She’s still beautiful, even though her hair has gone gray.
The tight bun she wears her hair in is still the same.
She looks like an older version of Mom, and sometimes, too often, it hurts me to even look at her.
It reminds me that Mom will never become an older version of herself.
I feel it right now. It burns in my chest, but I can’t start crying, so I force myself to take a deep breath.
In. And out.
The burning subsides, and when I look at her again, she looks back with the same gray eyes that I have.
“Let’s go, then.” She leaves the dining room.
I get up and go upstairs, grab my two suitcases, and bring them down. Grandma has called her driver, Francis, even though it’s Sunday. She would never just get into an Uber or drive herself.
While Francis stows my suitcases in the back, I run upstairs again to carry down one box after another. My records. The notebooks Dad gave me. The record player. It’s too much stuff, but I can’t leave anything behind. I just can’t.
It takes me fifteen minutes to get all my things into the trunk, and Grandma has already been sitting in the car for a few minutes by the time I finally slide into the back seat. Francis starts the engine, and then we set off for the New England School of Ballet—the ballet academy Mom went to.
She loved the school, I know that. She talked about it often enough.
And she wouldn’t have tried to convince me to audition last year if she hadn’t liked it there.
I hope I feel the same way. I hope I fall in love with this place, that I won’t feel lost. Also, I hope I’ll find a part of her there, the part I always resisted a little because I’ve loved music more than ballet my entire life. But that was before.
Dad is always with me, somehow.
Mom is the one I have to find again. Myself too.