Chapter 12
It’s Thanksgiving before I know it. Nova, Willa, and I are out on the walkway with a host of other students waiting for our rides to arrive. November winds nip at our cheeks. Gray clouds hover overhead, hinting at snow. The three of us huddle together for warmth.
“I’m going to miss you so much!” Nova croons.
“It’s only four days.” I laugh.
“That’s forever!”
I know exactly what she means—I’m just trying to put on a brave face.
I’m not sure how, but in just three short months, this place has begun to feel like home, even more than the house I spent the first eighteen years of my life growing up in.
I’m freer here. I’m more myself. Going home feels like going backward, to a life that doesn’t quite fit me anymore.
“We’ll text every day,” Willa reasons.
“You better,” Nova demands. “My mom gets so mopey around the holidays. It’s not even fun. Oh, there she is!”
We all turn to where Nova is pointing. A fancy black limousine with tinted windows rolls into the lot.
“She’s so dramatic.” Nova snorts under her breath.
I have to hide my smile. Pot, meet kettle.
“Hi, Carl!” She waves hello, but the driver doesn’t even crack a smile beneath those dark shades as he pulls to a stop and sends a subtle nod our way.
I sort of get the sense he’s packing heat.
“Okay, ahh! I love you guys so much!” Nova tugs us in for a big group hug.
We sway and laugh and shift on our toes until she lets go, rolling her eyes as she wipes at them with her sleeve.
“Oh my god. Why am I crying? Have so much fun! Miss you already!”
She grabs her bag and disappears into the car as I blink the burning in my eyes away.
We’re all being ridiculous. But when I glance at Willa, she’s sniffling too.
Over her shoulder, I spot Nox making his way through the crowd.
It parts around him, murmurs following in his wake.
He’s got headphones in. His head is down.
He doesn’t glance our way once as he ducks smoothly into the car.
The driver closes the door behind him. Only then does a familiar tickle send a wave of goose bumps across my shoulders, whispering I’m being watched.
“Bye!” Willa shouts, pulling me back.
We wave enthusiastically as the limo drives away. Even though it’s impossible to make anything out through the windows, knowing Nova, I’d bet she’s pressed up against the back windshield waving like a fool at us, too.
My dad comes about half an hour later. We give Willa a ride to the airport outside of Albany so she can catch a flight home to Pennsylvania, and then I’m back in my neighborhood, back in those too familiar streets, back in my memories.
The second I walk through the door, my mom is there, sobbing, pulling me into a hug so tight it’s almost painful, but I hug her right back, fighting the emotion burning at the back of my throat, trying to stay strong.
My brother glances up from his video game long enough to wave hello without my mom even needing to smack him on the back of the head.
Hey, I’ll take it. I scuff up his hair, then jump onto the kitchen counter, delaying the inevitable.
We spend the next few hours catching up, playing cards, cooking dinner, but I can only put it off for so long.
Eventually, my brother sneaks off to his room, my parents go to bed, and I’m left alone.
My feet feel like stone as I make my way up the steps, every move an effort. I hold my bedroom doorknob for a full minute before I find the strength to let myself in.
God, it’s worse than I remember.
The pale blue walls are covered in pock marks from where I ripped the posters off in a manic fit. The ceiling is speckled with holes. There are no pictures. No dolls. A host of books fill otherwise empty shelves. It’s lifeless, which is exactly how I felt the last time I lived here.
When I finally made it home from the hospital, I still required a lot of rest. I spent hours in this room, in this bed, staring at these walls, haunted by the posters Mabel helped me tape up, the blue strands she helped me string from the ceiling, the toys we hung on hooks all around the room so it looked as if I lived in an actual aquarium.
I’ll never forget that day, how long it took us to gather the supplies, how much fun we had figuring out where everything should go, the alarmed look my mother gave us when we went down to the kitchen asking if we could borrow the power drill for the hooks.
But, as with everything, the memories turn sour.
They shift to Mabel rolling her eyes at me, wondering when I would take all this shit down and grow up, telling me no one would want to fuck me under a stuffed beluga whale.
I reached a breaking point one day while both my parents were at work.
Hobbling around my room, I ripped and tore and yanked and shredded.
Tears flooded down my cheeks. I screamed and raged and wailed and wept, the surge of emotions whipping through me like a tornado, leaving only devastation in its tracks.
When my mom got home, she found me up there, passed out asleep on the floor surrounded by the debris.
She tucked me into bed and cleaned up the mess while I slept.
No one’s touched my walls since. I think my mom was too afraid anything she might do would set me off.
I thought for a long time about grabbing a can of paint and starting fresh, but it felt more fitting to live in the aftershock.
My life was a shitshow—why should my room be any different?
I place my suitcase on the bed and slowly unzip.
Then I rifle through my clothes for the envelope I tucked within the folds to keep it safe.
There’s a tape dispenser on my desk. And while, no, it’s not the nicest way to decorate, it’s quick and efficient.
One by one, I lift and stick, lift and stick, lift and stick, until the envelope is empty and a set of ten four-by-six pictures from the past few months fill the wall behind my bed.
They’re so small against the large expanse it’s almost laughable how much they mean to me, but it’s something.
Maybe now, my mom won’t feel the need to keep the door closed all the time.
Maybe now, she’ll have a reason to glance inside and smile while I’m gone.
Thanksgiving passes in a blur of family fun.
My mom stays home to cook while my brother, my dad, and I go on the traditional family hike.
By the time we get home, our extended family is starting to arrive.
One of my uncles and two of my aunts head to the kitchen to help, while everyone else piles into the backyard for a game of touch football to stay out of the way.
It’s a relief to be able to participate this year, though I sense my mother’s worried gaze through the window every time the ball sails my way.
Everyone is still a little hesitant. I easily score three touchdowns because they’re still so afraid I might break.
No one mentions it, but I see the memory of last year in their eyes—of me stuck on a porch chair, my leg still in a boot, my arm still in a sling, a wide-brim hat and dark glasses over my eyes to help prevent the sun’s glare from making my head ache.
I feel it in the way they hug me just a second too long or squeeze my shoulder as they walk by, as if to make sure I’m really here.
It’s clear they mean well, that it’s all coming from love, but I can’t help the way their worry weighs on me, another crank in the anchor dragging me back to the past I so long to leave behind.
I wake up on Friday with an anvil on my chest.
Just do it, I tell myself. You owe them this much.
You owe it to her.
I ring the doorbell, my chest burning so fiercely I could probably power the entire city on my anxiety alone.
A lump sits like a fist in my throat. A middle-aged woman opens the door, her straight blonde hair in a bob, her blue eyes ringed red, her prominent cheekbones pale.
She looks so much like Mabel I have to drop my gaze to the floorboards creaking beneath her feet.
“Hi, Mrs. Langford.”
“Oh, Clara.”
She pulls me into a hug without another word.
I told myself I wouldn’t cry, but there’s nothing I can do as the tears leak from my eyes.
Her warm embrace, her citrusy smell, it’s all so familiar, I’m instantly taken back.
But as I’m welcomed inside, the present has never felt starker.
Where my family spent yesterday surrounded by flashes of gratitude, Mabel’s spent it in mourning.
I hug her two older sisters and her father, still amazed by the affection they’re willing to turn toward me.
The first time I saw them after the accident, I was terrified.
I expected them to curse my name. To scream and yell.
To ask why I’d been drinking, why she’d been allowed behind the wheel, why we’d been so incredibly stupid.
Instead, they just pulled me against them and sobbed into my chest, a mix of pain and relief, of love and loss. We all crumpled together.
I don’t let myself crumple now.