by Stacey Kade
No wonder we’re so messed up.
I sigh and drop my head in my hands, attempting to alleviate the tension growing in my neck muscles and the gnawing feeling of hurt in my chest.
Then I straighten up and focus on Mia. “Okay, putting that aside for now”—because what else was I supposed to do with that information right now?—“coming here without telling Mom and Dad is cruel, Mia. They’ve already had one missing kid; they’re going to be—”
“They’d have to notice I was gone first, Amma,” she says wearily.
She holds up her phone. No texts, no screen full of missed calls.
My shoulders sag. I don’t know how to fix this. I don’t know if there is a fix for it. But I hate seeing her hurt. “What can I do to help?” I ask.
She scoots forward to the edge of the bed. “Let me stay here with you until you come home.”
I gape at her.
“It’s just another day or two, right?”
The reminder sends a pang through me.
“You make me crazy, but at least you notice me. At least I exist to you,” she says bitterly.
“Mia…” I begin, shaking my head.
“I won’t get in the way,” she says, and my heart breaks, remembering her as a little kid following Liza and me around.
“It’s not that,” I say.
She scowls. “You just don’t want me crashing your little lovefest.” She flings her hand toward Chase’s room. “But I told you, I don’t care. Go for it.”
Hmmm. Should I be questioning the wisdom of decisions that my wild-as-hell younger sister endorses? Possibly.
“No,” I say. “Listen to me. First, hanging out here isn’t going to fix anything at home. You’ll have to go back eventually. We both will. I’m hoping to have a better grip on some of the stuff that’s bothering me by the time I leave. What’s your plan?”
She doesn’t answer, studying her nails instead.
“Second, things are complicated here. There’s a lot of attention on us and some of it’s not good. I don’t want you caught up in that.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “Are you in trouble?”
“No.” I pause. “Not yet. Maybe. I don’t know. There might have been some threats. Chase is checking into it. But there are always threats, remember?”
“Yeah, but—”
“My choice, not yours,” I say firmly, leaving no room for argument. Liza’s the lawyer, but Mia’s persistence is almost as wearing. “And I don’t want you here in the middle of that. Plus, you’ve got school.”
Mia snorts. “Please. Who cares?”
“You might, if you miss enough that you’re sitting next to me this summer at the kitchen table, doing homework for Mom.” A day or two wouldn’t do that, but I’m guessing, with Sammy’s influence, she might have been “liberating” herself rather frequently.
“Gross.” She wrinkles her nose.
“Exactly.” I hesitate, then add, “But you can stay here for today. And if they’ll let you in, I’ll take you with me to the set.” Hopefully Chase won’t mind.
She straightens up as if she’s been electrified. “Are you serious?”
“Yes, but you have to promise you’ll be quiet and stay right next to me. This is a big deal, and Chase can’t afford trouble from us.”
She throws her hand up, palm out. “I swear.”
“And then you have to go home and go to school tomorrow.”
Mia heaves a sigh. “Fine.” She stands up, practically vibrating with excitement. “Can we go now?” Then she holds up her hands. “Wait. I need to shower and change my clothes.” She has the air of someone who expects to be swept off in a private jet to a studio somewhere.
“You can borrow something from me,” I offer.
She rolls her eyes. “I’m trying to make a good impression, Amma, not convince them to give me their spare change.”
I raise my middle finger at her, and she laughs.
She heads for the bathroom, pausing halfway to look back at me. “You’re going to call them, aren’t you?”
Mom and Dad, she means.
“Yeah. I have to let them know you’re here.” I’m tempted to text, but since a little information might only alarm them further—I really don’t want another visit from the well-intentioned Wescott police—it’s probably better to bite the bullet.
But I’m going to do my best to control the conversation.
As if reading my thoughts, Mia shakes her head and continues toward the bathroom. “Good luck with that,” she says over her shoulder.
“Thanks.” I chuck a pillow after her, missing her by several feet.
She laughs as she disappears into the bathroom. “Wow, you suck.”
“Hey, Meez?”
“Yeah?” She sticks her head out the door.
“No matter what, when I get home, it’s going to be different. I’ll talk to Mom. It’s going to be better.”
Mia nods, her gaze not quite meeting mine.
“You believe me?” I persist.
She hesitates. “I think you’re going to try, and that’s better than it was.”
Not exactly the rousing vote of confidence I was hoping for, but probably what the situation deserves. I wish I could give her more guarantees. I wish we could all have them. But that’s apparently not how life works. Stupid life.
I wait until I hear the shower running—and Mia singing something from a musical—before I pick up my phone.
Ignoring all the texts, voicemails, and missed calls, I pull up my phone book and tap the number for my parents’ house.
It rings once before someone picks up.
“Amanda?” It’s Liza, not bothering with a greeting.
“Yeah, it’s me,” I say.
“I’ll get Mom,” she says.
“Wait.” The word pops out before I know what I’m going to say next, so there’s a weird, awkward silence for a long second. “Mia told me,” I blurt.
Her sudden intake of breath tells me she knows exactly what I’m talking about.
“Liza, it’s…” Not okay, exactly, but what? “Understandable,” I finish lamely. “You don’t have to avoid me because—”
“Mom’s here,” she says, and there’s a murmur of conversation and the rustle of someone’s hand over the receiver.
Then my mom says, “Amanda, thank God.” Relief screams between her words.
“Mom, I’m exactly where I’ve been for the last two days,” I say, striving for patience. I’m a horrible person, feeling frustration with her after everything they went through while I was gone. But it’s making me crazy. I haven’t done anything off the wall. Well, okay, taking off with Chase, I suppose. But since then, I’ve done exactly what I said I would. I’ve been in contact, staying where I said I would be. Okay, last night I hung up on everyone. But that was all.
“I understand why you might feel like we were attacking you,” my mom says. “But I think you just need to look at it from—”
“That’s not why I’m calling,” I say quickly, wanting to avoid the rehash.
“Oh.”
“Mia’s here. I thought you should know,” I say.
“What?” My mom gives a strained laugh, like I’ve finally lost my grip on the few marbles still in my possession. “Amanda, honey, are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine,” I say through gritted teeth. “And Mia is here.”
“No, she’s probably at school by now. She spent the night at a friend’s. Sophia. No, Sarah.”
“Sammy?” I offer.
“Yes, that’s it,” she says, leaping onto the name with confidence. “Sammy Lareau.”
“Mom, Sammy is a guy. And he’s my age.” I rub the heel of my hand in my eyes.
A strangled noise emerges from the other end of the phone. “There must be more than one Sammy,” she says. “She’s been spending the night over there since the beginning of the year and—”
“Mom, no, trust me,” I say. Which in a sentence sums up the exact pr
oblem. It’s not that she doesn’t, but she’s so busy protecting me from myself and everyone else that she doesn’t see or hear me. And how can I blame her for that?
“I don’t … Mia is there? Can I speak with her?” She’s still not sure I know what I’m talking about. Then again, my version of reality hasn’t always been so unassailable.
“She’s in the shower right now. She heard you guys talking last night about bringing her here. She just decided to take matters into her own hands.” And probably severely pissed off Liza, who would need their shared car for classes this afternoon.
“Damnit,” my mom says quietly, startling me. It’s rare to hear my mother lose her temper or, for that matter, swear.
“I told her she can stay for the day, but she has to be back in time for school tomorrow.”
“And you’ll come with her?” my mom asks, hope lifting her voice.
My temper explodes, sending a rush of adrenaline through me.
“I just told you that your youngest daughter is not where you thought she was and probably hasn’t been lots of times in the past, and you’re asking about me?” I demand. “No wonder Mia’s so angry with you guys. She thinks you don’t care, that she doesn’t exist to you. I’m beginning to think she’s right.”
“Amanda, we are doing the best we can with all of this,” she says tightly. “And I don’t think you have the right to judge us.”
“So sorry to have inconvenienced you by surviving,” I mutter, the words out before I can stop them.
She sucks in a breath. “You take that back, right now. The day we learned you were still alive was the best day in my life, followed only by the days you girls were born. But you don’t know,” she says, her voice shaking. “You have no idea what it was like to see you … after. You were so broken. It was like that man”—the hatred in her tone vibrates over the connection—“had taken our little girl and left us with this wounded, damaged creature that shook whenever anyone came close.”
I shut my eyes, able to imagine it all too vividly. Sometimes it feels like those first days out of the basement just happened, like the wound on my arm is still healing and my teeth are still sharp, jagged peaks or blank spaces in my mouth.
“And you didn’t deserve it; you were such a good girl—” Her voice breaks on a half-repressed sob.
I wince, hearing her refer to me in the past tense. But to some extent, that’s accurate. The daughter they lost, the Amanda I was, no longer exists. “Mom, I’m sorry, I—”
“Are we making mistakes? I’m sure,” she says. “But we’re trying. We are doing everything we can to make you healthy and whole again.”
Frustration wells in me again. “Yes, but that’s not your job. I’m not fifteen anymore. Or even eighteen. I’m twenty, and I have to find my own way.”
“If this is about him, Chase Henry, because of what he’s saying to you—”
“No, it’s not about him,” I say. “It’s about me. I’m doing this because I want to, because I need to. And I need you to let me, okay?”
“But it’s a risk that you—”
“I like him. I … want him,” I say in a voice barely above a whisper, squirming with discomfort but determined all the same. The confession tears something loose in me, a last restraint breaking free. “And I’m glad.”
This is not something we talk about at home. But my mother knows what I mean. She’s the one who sat with me through all the invasive tests and exams, who cried with relief with me when the doctors confirmed that I would heal, I would have children if I wanted them, and I was not—for the last and final time, thank you, merciful God—pregnant.
But none of those results spoke to my ability—or lack thereof—to form an emotional and romantic attachment to another human being. There wasn’t an exam for that, nothing except living, waiting, and seeing.
“I know who he is and who he’s not,” I add, because I know she’s wondering if my poor deluded brain has cooked up a fantasy about Chase Henry, the poster version, come to life.
“Oh, Amanda,” my mom says in a soft voice with a pained sigh, “I want this for you, you know I do, but with him, this man?” She emphasizes the word, as if wanting to make the four years between Chase and me an uncrossable chasm, rather than a leap from one stone to the next. “You don’t really know him. He’s handsome, yes, but—”
“He’s more than that,” I say sharply. Even in the short time I’ve been around Chase, I’ve seen how others treat him like he’s nothing more than the symmetry in his face, bone structure that looks good on camera. The worst part is, I’m pretty sure some part of him believes them. I think that’s why he’s so pleased when he does something right, versus just staying quiet and looking pretty.
Someone, somewhere along the way, convinced him that he wasn’t good enough, wasn’t worth consideration just being who he is. And that sucks. Because he is.
“And as for knowing him well enough, yeah, you’re probably right,” I say with a shrug. “But I’m not sure it’s possible for me to trust the way you mean, so completely, no matter how well I know someone. I don’t think that’s part of who I am anymore.”
She makes a small, distressed sound.
It hurts me to hear it even as it makes the blood rush to my head in fury. “Mom, you can’t unbreak me. I wish you could,” I say, my jaw tight with frustration. “But you can’t; the damage is done.” When I look down, a dark circle appears on my jeans and then another. I lift my hand to my face, surprised to find I’m crying.
“So now I have to figure out how to navigate the new me, cracks and all.” I wipe my cheeks with the back of my sleeve. “And if it blows up in my face, then it does. That’s not the important part. What I’m trying to get you to see is that I want to try. That’s the point.” After so many years of hiding, I want something—who cares who or what it is. It should be recognizable as progress, even if she doesn’t agree.
She’s quiet for a long moment, to the point that I pull the phone from my ear to make sure the call hasn’t ended.
“All right, Amanda,” she says distantly. “You have to do what you think is best for you.”
Even if it’s a huge, messy mistake is what she’s very carefully not saying. I hear it just the same.
“Just, please, be careful. I don’t think I can see you hurting like that again.” She sounds so wounded, so bereft, it’s all I can do to keep from taking back everything I’ve just said, everything I’ve fought for.
“I will, I promise,” I make myself say, my voice croaky with tears and effort.
“I’ll talk with Mia when she gets home tomorrow. Thank you for letting us know she’s safe,” my mom says with that chilly formality usually reserved for strangers.
The polite distance growing between us in this call makes my heart hurt, but maybe it’s necessary. Maybe that’s what’s needed to break the connection to the past, the one place we can never return to, no matter how hard everyone tries. None of us is the same and we never will be. Maybe it’s time we acknowledge that, no matter how much it pains us.
“I love you, Mom,” I say.
“Loveyoutoo.” But she rushes the words together and hangs up before I can say good-bye, the click of disconnection sounding as resolute and permanent in my ear as any door slamming.
I lower my hand, phone clenched in my fingers, to my lap and sit still for a moment, feeling the surrealism of this instant. Mia is warbling in the shower, welcoming everyone to the cabaret, and out in the hallway, I hear the wobble and clatter of a loaded-down cart, either room service or housekeeping.
So here I am. In a hotel, next door to Chase Henry’s room, not the Chase in my head but the real one, who’s my friend … and maybe more, if I can take it that far. And I think I just got my mom to listen to me for the first time in over two years.
I’m all in. And all on my own. It’s a strangely isolating and liberating feeling. Before, I had multiple people watching and weighing my every move, helping me see the pitfalls and danger
s and steering my steps.
Now it’s just me. And I forgot how completely terrifying that could be.
22
Chase
The van feels emptier without Amanda. It is, obviously. It’s just me, Emily, and Ron, our driver from yesterday.
But I guess what I mean is that for someone who has a small “presence,” as the theater people say, meaning she’s quiet and doesn’t require being the center of attention, I feel her absence so much more than I expected to.
I’ve been away from her for, what, twenty minutes? But I miss that word or two murmured in my ear. The warmth of her leaning against me, and the trust that symbolizes. The calm suggestion that seems to make everything better, whether it’s finding the local AA meeting or correcting my mini-golf stance. The glare when I’ve overstepped my bounds by being too protective of her or when I’ve laughed at something I shouldn’t, like pretty much anything her sister Mia says.
I wouldn’t have thought twice about anything like that in the past. Actually, I probably would have run screaming at the first hint of sentimentality. There were girls who tried, in a whole variety of ways. Pretending not to care so I’d pay more attention, flirting with Eric or pretty much anyone else in the bar to try for a jealous reaction, or caring so much that I’d never have cause for complaint, like they could wear me down into feeling something I didn’t.
I sound like a privileged asshole, but the truth is, it never felt like anything that was happening to me, the real me. Was it flattering? Hell, yes. Did I take them up on it? No question. It felt good to be wanted. At least, at first.
But once I got sober, or made a real effort toward it for the first time, I saw the situation more clearly. Would they have been so interested (or fake disinterested) in me if we’d found ourselves in Bart’s Tavern in Tillman with sticky beer-soaked floors and peanut shells everywhere instead of some NoHo club with thumping bass and an elevated VIP platform? Not that I planned to be in a bar again anytime soon, either way.
