"No," they answered.
The police left after a while, reminding them to 'not leave town' and 'call if Hayden shows up or tries to get in touch'.
"Luke is not dead, yet. He's pretty bad," Mrs Selling said after the policemen were gone, trying to answer their questions with some delay. "I'm sure you know about Hayden's friends: Ashley Dawson, Allyson Forth and Kristina Calmond. They have been interrogated a few hours ago, they said Luke and you sister had some unfinished business to talk about and things probably got out of hand."
"What sort of unfinished business?" James asked.
"I don't know, James. We're thinking drug dealing," she replied.
"Oh come on...You can't be serious."
"The police have been keeping an eye on Hayden and her friends for a while now. There's shoplifting, alcohol abuse, drug dealing - and God knows what else - on her records right now! Do you even know your own sister anymore? If they find her fingerprints on the gun, she'll also be charged for attempted murder. Trust me, I am serious." Mrs Selling was not trying to deliver the news the easy way, but then again there was probably no easy way to tell someone that their loved one was headed down a dangerous path of no return.
"I'm going to be honest with you," she continued. "We need to find her before someone else does. I'm not sure what I should be thinking right now, but I do believe that she's gotten into something way bigger than her, and if she's charged with attempted murder – or worse, murder – she's as good as dead. Luke's friends and family are not going to be waiting around for justice to take its course... You should know how things work around here." She was right, they did know. This was the town where gangs took matters into their own hands: if you do wrong, you pay. It was that simple.
There are no laws in the self-justice system.
TWENTY-TWO
Come on, wake up!" It took a while for Sunrise to get an answer from Hayden.
"Is there a reason for disturbing my brain-dead mode?" she replied, still half-asleep.
"Yes, we should get going now."
"Where?"
"Outside."
"Why? There are people outside."
"Are you planning on hiding in here for the rest of your life?"
"Why not?" Hayden said, sitting on the bed.
"Just hurry up!" Sunrise said while throwing the sweater to Hayden. "I want to grab some lunch before we hit the road again." Hayden looked at the alarm clock on her bedside table. The bright red numbers indicated it was eight-seventeen pm.
"You're having lunch at eight pm? It's called dinner."
"Hey, listen up! There is no way I'm skipping a meal. I've had breakfast, then there's lunch and then there's dinner."
"So you're planning on having dinner after you've had lunch... tonight?"
"Yeah."
"At what time, exactly?"
"Sometime after lunch and before breakfast."
"Makes sense." They gathered their few belongings and quickly checked out. There was only a small café close to the motel so they walked inside and took a seat in the half-empty place.
"Good evening, ladies," said a young waitress with short purple hair, as she placed the menus on their table.
"Good evening to you... Roselind," greeted back Sunrise, while reading the waitress's name-tag. They exchanged a warm smile and a complicit long glance, before Roselind left to serve another table.
"Did I just miss something here?" Hayden asked.
"Where?" Sunrise asked in return, looking down at the menu.
"With that waitress... come on, I'm not stupid. Tell me!"
"What's there to tell?" she said, still pretending to read the menu.
"You like her!"
"Would you lower your tone?" Sunrise whispered, now looking straight at Hayden.
"Sorry... but there's nothing wrong with that, you know? I mean... I'm completely cool with that."
"Believe me, not everyone is."
"Wanna tell me about it?" Strangely enough Hayden was asking Sunrise to speak. Things really can take unexpected turns in life. "Is that why you're not home?"
"Yes. And no." Just then Roselind approached their table and took their order, while silently communicating with Sunrise through eye contact and body gestures.
"So... you were saying?" Hayden asked, as Sunrise seemed to have no intention of resuming her speech.
"Who? Me? Nothing. What do you wanna know?" she said, looking uncomfortable.
"Stop that! Tell me about yourself."
"What is this? First day of school?" Hayden understood that Sunrise didn't want to let her in on her past, after all they barely knew each other so Sunrise had all the right to keep it for herself. They stood quiet for a while, until Sunrise began talking fast, as if all of a sudden her thoughts had been attached to a loudspeaker.
"Don't get me wrong. It's not that I don't wanna talk 'cause I've got stuff to hide or anything, I'm not as messed up as you, no offense... it's just that I left home to start a new beginning, to leave the person I was behind... or better, the way people made feel, turning the idea of me being gay to me being wrong and at some point I started to believe them so I just knew I had to leave... you know? It was either that or... kill myself. Walking down memory lane is not something I like doing; I have these really cringey memories, about things I never talk about so every time something triggers the memory or someone asks the wrong question I just want to fucking wash my brain out with bleach. Have you ever felt like that?"
"On a daily basis."
"I was planning on being normal, then I realized I was gay and I was happy but no one else around me understood me so I said Go fuck yourselves, I'm out, bitches. A thrilling autobiography, by me." She was trying to sound normal, she even laughed, but it was a bittersweet smile.
It was all clear now to Hayden: her new road trip buddy was one of those people who disguises a broken soul behind a series of jokes to seem easygoing. You'd be surprised how many people wear this kind of mask every morning when they walk out the door: the people you really know are far less than those you think you know. You'll agree with me someday. Those people are brave, it takes a lot of courage to convince the world you are doing just fine; but it takes even more courage to convince yourself that you're okay.
"Well, if you ever feel bad about yourself just remember this one time in my geography class one of my classmates said: 'I could go to Japan to learn Chinese'," Hayden said, trying to cheer Sunrise up, and was pleased when she laughed heartily.
"For real?" Sunrise asked, still smiling.
"No. I actually made that up," Hayden confessed. "But I'm glad it made you smile."
"Well then, I appreciate the lie," Sunrise said, just as Roselind brought their food. "Do you remember the happiest moment of your life?" Sunrise asked Hayden, probably following a train of thought of a past no one knew of, as Roselind left once again.
"Probably the 80s, when I wasn't even born," Hayden joked while pouring syrup on her pancakes. "I had the time of my life back then!"
"Girl, you gotta stop being funny 'cause I'm just not used to you talking and being laid-back at the same time."
Being with Sunrise - someone she barely knew and who knew nothing about her - in the middle of nowhere with a messed up day-schedule and nowhere to go to, with no clear plan in mind, made her feel, all of a sudden, strangely free and easy. It's not like she had forgotten about her real life, she never dismissed from her mind her fugitive status but being away, not face to face with her crumbling world was somehow uplifting. Maybe there was still something good in this life, you just had to stop searching for it. Happiness, they say, comes when you stop looking for it. And perhaps that goes for everything else in life as well.
"I'm just trying to keep it cool, you know? It's either that, or go crazy. These last few months have been completely absurd... Everything has changed, and I feel like I have changed along, without even realizing it and having no say in it whatsoever. This
got so out of hand and I don't know how that happened."
"There is nothing wrong in changing, Hayden. No one has the obligation to stay same: life evolves and we evolve with it. The difference is that we have no control over the plot twists in life, but we do have some control over our transformation."
"Plot twists, uh?" Now that was a strange way to define life's turn of events.
"Exactly. Think about life as if it were a sort of book: what makes a great book great? What makes people interested in a story?"
"Plot twists."
"Bingo. No one likes to read boring books; you gotta have plot twists! So why should someone hope for a boring life?" She's a hundred times better than a psychotherapist, Hayden thought.
"I wasn't aiming at boring. Just normal… somehow." Sunrise looked at her intensely for a few seconds, which seemed like never-ending minutes to Hayden: she was about to come up with something wacky – her face said so. And Hayden was afraid of what might come next. Without saying a word, Sunrise got up and walked towards Roselind who was busy filling up some glasses of water. They exchanged a few words, then Roselind handed her a small notepad and a pen. As quietly as she had gotten up, she sat back down, with a smirk on her face.
"Here you go," she said while placing the notepad and the pen on the table, between the two still half-full plates.
"What am I supposed to do with this?" Hayden inquired.
"Take a piece of paper and write down the hardest things in life you are having a hard time accepting," she explained. Hayden knew she was totally serious about this 'game', so talking her out of it or insisting that it was totally superfluous was pointless. Sunrise had something to prove, and she wanted to play along. She moved her plate to the side, took the notepad and the pen, and started writing:
My parents' death
Being raped
Shooting Luke
Not being able to turn back time
Letting Marika walk away
Having no control over my life
Realizing that my “friends” were actually my enemies
Fucked-up relationship with my brothers
"Are you done?" Sunrise asked after five whole minutes.
"You shouldn't think too much, they should just come to mind."
"Yeah, I think I'm done," Hayden acknowledged, while re-reading her handwritten list. It wasn't in any particular order, but number one was definitely at the right place.
"Now what?" she asked, looking at Sunrise. She was now expecting her to begin some kind of never-ending sarcastic monologue concluding with some wisecrack joke that would have left the two of them a bit lighthearted. Instead she spoke only three words, in a serious tone.
"Now accept them."
Hayden didn't say anything for about thirty seconds, unsure whether Sunrise was being serious or just fucking around with her. She just stared at the piece of paper.
"You're probably trying to decide if I'm being serious or if I'm jerking you around... right?" she said, as if she could read her mind.
"Actually... yeah."
"It's okay. It's what I thought too the first time someone told me the same thing. I was expecting some huge life lesson speech and all she said was 'Now accept them', but unlike you I didn't keep quiet. I yelled at her face something like 'Are you fucking kidding me?' and I tore the paper up into small pieces and threw it away and I left. It was actually a funny scene, now that I recall it." She was talking about it like it was in fact the must comic story ever, overly smiling and gesturing. "I know it might sound stupid right now, Hayden, but believe me: it was actually the best piece of advice someone has ever given me." Her tone was now returning to serious.
"It took me a while to understand what she was trying to teach me back then, but one day I finally got it. One night I was walking back home in the pouring rain and I started thinking about my life, about what made me unhappy, and I realized that they were all things I had no control over. I couldn't change the past, I couldn't make my family accept my homosexuality, I couldn't convince my friends that I was normal, I couldn't force someone to love me back and once I realized that I had no power, no saying in this whatsoever... I felt good. Like all of a sudden I felt like worrying and caring and getting mad and being sad made absolutely no sense. It was completely pointless! Do you think I'm crazy?" she asked, interrupting her story, probably because of Hayden's quizzical face.
"I think I'm going to need a definition of crazy here," Hayden replied, smiling. "Go on, I'm actually following you," she concluded, taking a sip of water.
"I just think you should do the same thing. Everyone should, for that matter. Accept whatever we are having a hard time accepting. We should just let go of whatever makes us feel bad about ourselves and focus on what makes us feel happy, we shouldn't be too hard on ourselves.... killing our happiness with remorse and ifs and buts and whatever."
"Where's your friend now?"
"She killed herself," she said, toneless.
"Oh, sorry about that...."
"Let's just say she was really good at giving advice."
"Why did she do it? Kill herself, I mean."
"I don't know," she said, almost angry. "I don't know why we do what we do sometimes. It doesn't matter why, what matters are the consequences. And how we face them, or I should say how those who are left behind face them."
"Did you love her?" Sunrise thought about it for a few seconds, then replied coldly,
"As someone once said: 'Some people mistake the knives in the back for Cupid's arrows'." Besides, hate has a reputation for lasting longer than love, so I'll go with that."
"It sounds like you are mad at her. You shouldn't be. She probably had some pretty good reasons for doing it and don't blame her for not taking into consideration the consequences – "
"Yeah well, for every reaction there's a consequence but guess what?" she interrupted. "Every consequence is also a reaction and there's no ending that. It's a loop you can't stop and she started so many out-of-control events that you have no idea, so excuse me for being pissed at her."
Hayden had wanted to reply, but decided it was better to keep her thoughts to herself. She somehow understood that girl, her act. She knew nothing about her, not even her name as a matter of fact, yet she felt like she could relate to her pain. The kind of pain that quietly disintegrates your bones and leaves you empty. No more feelings, just bare thoughts of self-destruction that flood your mind day and night. You've got to be pretty selfish and desperate for peacefulness to kill yourself, and Hayden had wished she could have been more egoistic herself many times in the past months. Dying, she thought, would be so easy. Dying would fix so many things, is what she believed. And that's a pretty recurring thought when you convince yourself that your birth was a mistake. It takes a lot of courage to decide to take your own life, but it takes even more courage to be selfish, especially when you've always been a caring person. She wanted to tell Sunrise that there was nothing wrong with what her friend did, that she should try and understand her act, that it's okay to be selfish: it is after all our life and we can choose how to end it, she must respect that. Maybe she thought there was nothing worth waking up to in the morning anymore. But that's probably not what Sunrise wanted to hear, so all she said was: "She probably thought there was no good left in the world."
"That's not a good enough reason for me."
"It's not about you. It's about her," Hayden said. "Maybe she was stuck in darkness."
"Yeah well, you know what you're supposed to do you when you're stuck in darkness?"
"Wait for someone to turn the lights on?"
"No. You set yourself on fire," she said angrily. "Shoot, girl, you gotta stop waiting around for people to be your heroes, you gotta be your own savior in this life. Or you end up dead."
"I just think that she must have had reasons and you have no right to judge."
"Are you actually telling me you approve of what she did? We're talking suicide here,
kid! What are your issues?" It was probably a rhetorical questions, but Hayden had an answer ready.
"Well, I'm a teenager. I've got many issues. Don't you remember how you felt when you were a teenager?"
"Of course I do! I'm still a teen."
"No you are not."
"I am. I'm just like the average teenager except I'm not a teenager anymore."
"You've got problems," Hayden said, in a playful tone.
"See? I'm a teenager!" Sunrise replied, satisfied her argument was proved right. "Anyway, you know what? Fuck all of this," she said after a moment, standing up. "I'm done talking about it. But I gotta tell you: there is still good in the world. And if you can't see it, go make it."
As Hayden followed Sunrise out of the restaurant, she realized that death isn't bad for those who die, but just for those who keep on living. And they were both proof of this.
TWENTY-THREE
In the meantime back home bad news kept coming one after another on an hourly basis. Luke's conditions were worsening, and so was Hayden's position. They had found her fingerprints on the gun, proving that it had been really her shooting Luke.
In the evening, the worst news was delivered. The Wilson house was crowded, but unusually quiet. Magda and Will were sitting on the couch just holding hands, while Mike was looking through Hayden's laptop in search of hints of her whereabouts or secret life. The rest of the gang was having quiet conversations always leading up the same question: how did this even happen? It wasn't really the idea of someone getting in trouble, or having problems with the police, that was shocking. It wasn't even the idea of someone shooting another guy and becoming a runaway. It was the idea of Hayden being the main character of all this.
The phone rang.
"Hello?"
"James, it's me." Mrs Selling was calling to give some updates, like she had been doing the whole day.
"Yeah?" His voice was tired, but hopeful that at every phone call he'd get the news that Hayden was fine and coming back home.
BF 2nd edition Page 9
