Anywhere But Here

by Paul, JL

  “Thanks,” I said, my voice a little choked. “Really.”

  His blush increased as his smile widened. “Yeah, sure. I’m glad…you know… that you’re okay and all that. I just heard them and instantly was angry.”

  The mood lightened as I assured him that I was okay and he decided to hang out in the store for a while to keep me company. He caught me up on all the things that had happened over the weekend – mostly just about him and his girlfriend – and teased me about my budding relationship with Fin.

  Damon left when Fin dropped in to buy his customary after practice sports drink. He guzzled it while he watched me close up the store and then walked me to my car. He helped me brush off the snow then invited me to sit in his car as mine warmed up. Not wanting to bid him good night too soon, I obliged.

  “Rena,” he sighed as he took my hand and squeezed it. “Grant told me today about some rumors going around school and I wanted to…”

  “I was not molested,” I said with a loud, annoyed sigh. I turned in my seat and cupped his cheek. “Damon came in earlier to tell me about it. It’s not true.”

  “But people who were in your class said you were angry,” he said softly.

  “I have strong opinions on the subject but that does not mean I was molested,” I said, trying to desperately get my point across. “Fin, maybe it’s not something I would have told you outright, but if you confronted me about it, I certainly wouldn’t lie.”

  He nodded his bowed his head. “Okay.” He jerked his head up, his eyes hard as steel. “But promise me that you’re being straight with me – not just trying to get me off track.”

  I leaned in and kissed him, softly at first, gradually deepening it. When we drew apart, both of us a little surprised at the spurt of passion, I smiled. “I swear to you, Fin, that I’m being straight.”

  “Okay,” he said, his voice a bit husky. “If you say so.”

  “I do,” I promised and pecked his lips. “And I need to get home. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  ***

  That night, my emotions swirled again. I wondered how I would handle this latest batch of rumors and if I’d manage to survive them somehow.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “I’m sure your emotions were all over the place this past weekend,” Roberta stated as I settled into my usual chair.

  I looked at the ceiling, searching for the correct response as I shrugged. “I guess.”

  Roberta, not to be brushed off, pursued the subject like a cop after a criminal. “Franki filled me in on what happened.”

  Closing my eyes, I groaned as I pinched the bridge of my nose. I could feel a headache forming just behind my eyes and knew it would be hell to get rid of later. “If Aunt Franki told you everything, then why do I have to be here?”

  Roberta smiled warmly, but not in a condescending sort of way, and set her legal pad on the floor next to her chair. “Your aunt can come in here and tell me everything that’s happened to your family but that’s not going to help you at all, Rena.”

  “Do you honestly think this is helping me at all? I mean, really?” I challenged.

  Roberta’s lips turned inward as she leaned forward, moving closer and invading my comfort zone in her usual manner. “I think it will help if you let it – if you want it to help. But maybe you enjoy playing the injured party. Maybe you like alienating people and sitting all alone in your bedroom. Maybe you want to sit around and feel sorry for yourself – maybe you think your parents will notice you then.”

  I snorted, a sarcastic smile on my face. I knew what she was trying to do and I wasn’t going to fall for it. “Not at all. I already did the attention seeking act, remember? The drinking, partying – the suspension. Isn’t that why I’m here every Thursday?”

  “That’s part of it,” she agreed, leaning back with a twinge of frustration in her eyes. “But that’s only a small part. You’re here to talk about how you feel about your sister’s disappearance.”

  “It sucks. I hate it. I wish it hadn’t happened,” I said, petulantly. “There – I’m done.”

  “Rena,” she said in the firmest voice I’d heard from her. “You know that was a very broad definition. You know it’s a little more intricate than that.”

  I stood with a sigh and walked around to grip the back of my comfy chair. My shoulders slumped as I wrapped my head around my thoughts. “Okay, so I’m not sure how I feel right now. I was nervous and scared until we knew it wasn’t Camille and then relieved. But then, well now, actually, I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

  I allowed my head to fall back so I could gaze at the ceiling again. The building must have gone through renovations in the last few years for none of the tiles were browned with water stains quite yet. “I don’t know if I’m relieved any longer. I don’t know if I’m glad it wasn’t Camille. And I really feel horrible about that.”

  “I’m sure you do,” Roberta prodded.

  “But,” I said, as I returned to my seat, my tongue loose and on a roll. “Don’t you think it would be better if it was Camille – in a way? I mean, at least we’d know. At least we could have a little closure and maybe, eventually, put our family back together.”

  “That’s true,” she agreed. “I think the hardest thing for a family in this situation is not knowing.”

  “Yeah and I feel really horrible and guilty because I think that way.”

  Roberta gently patted my knee. “And it upset your mother when you voiced your opinion, right?”

  I snorted again. “That’s an understatement. She threw me out of the house.”

  I was horrified to feel tears forming alongside that inevitable headache. I was falling apart – coming apart at the seams – and no one, including this woman, could fix me.

  “Rena, you need to realize that your mother is feeling all sorts of different things right now, too. She doesn’t want to give up hope that her little girl is still alive somewhere and she’s at the point now where she doesn’t want to hear any differently. She’s only trying to protect her own heart right now. She doesn’t want to face the prospect that she might have lost a child.”

  “So, she’s in denial,” I surmised.

  “Sounds like it to me,” Roberta agreed.

  “So throwing me out of the house – her own daughter – was her way of protecting her heart. Forget her child,” I said bitterly.

  “Well, yes, basically, but perhaps it wasn’t the best time to voice your opinion – especially immediately after a scare like she’d had.”

  “So, let’s just not worry how anyone else feels or what anyone else thinks, let’s just coddle Mom because she’s in the most pain, right?”

  “That’s not exactly what I was trying to say,” Roberta said. “Everyone takes this sort of thing differently and they deal with it in their own way. You tried to ignore it – you even resorted to drinking and partying to cover the pain. Your mother ignores it, too, but in a different way. She’s keeping Camille alive by searching for her every day.”

  “Maybe Mom should be sitting here instead of me,” I tried to joke.

  Roberta only nodded. “I think your mother could use a little counseling but I don’t think she’s ready yet.”

  “And who said I was ready? I didn’t ask to come here. Aunt Franki made me,” I complained, folding my arms over my chest childishly to prove my point.

  Roberta sighed heavily. “Do you honestly think you’re handling this whole situation well?”

  Pride welled up inside me. “I think I am, yes.”

  She shook her head in defeat. The tense cloud that had formed above us suddenly broke and I could almost feel the raindrops of false confidence fall on me. So what if she supposedly knew better. So what if she was some sort of professional. I knew myself better than anyone and I was beginning to think my Thursday sessions were a waste of time.

  “Rena,” she said slowly as though speaking in a foreign language for the first time. “If you d
on’t think I’m helping you – if you don’t believe I can help you, then you’re never going to get better.”

  I opened my mouth to disagree but she held up a hand and cut me off before I could speak.

  “But plenty of other people believe that you’re struggling with things and want you to get help. They don’t want to see you go down the wrong road again.”

  “What people – my aunt?” I asked with raised brow.

  “Yes,” Roberta confirmed. “And your father.”

  I laughed. “My father is only placating you – or my aunt, rather. He’ll go along with what anyone wants right about now – that is, when he’s not at work. If I called him tomorrow and told him that I didn’t need counseling, he’d call you and tell you I was fine.”

  She pursed her lips as silence enveloped us. Her brow puckered and she picked up her legal pad, scribbling fervently. Once she finished, she studied me again.

  “Okay, Rena, let’s try this, then.”

  I lifted a curious brow and leaned in closer, ready to hear her brilliant plan. “Try what?”

  “We’ll skip next week and see how you do. But I want to meet with you the week after so we can discuss this again, all right?”

  “Sure,” I said as I jumped to my feet. “Can I leave now?”

  “Yes. And good luck,” she called as I yanked open the door. I was certain, though, that she was on the phone with Aunt Franki, reporting the latest. I wondered what would be waiting for me when I got home.

  ***

  My new freedom – though minute – put a bounce in my step as I walked the halls of school on Friday. By the time I reached the cafeteria at lunch, I was able to ward off all those rumors and gossipmongers with my invisible shield of stability. Yep, all I’d needed was someone to tell me to go ahead and do it on my own. Who needed a shrink – or a counselor, whatever? Well, technically I’d needed one to tell me to go ahead and do things my own way, but I was willing to skip that little detail.

  Fin picked up on my good mood and did everything he could he to keep it there. He held my hand in the halls, placed sweet, affectionate kisses on my cheek when the bell rang, and went out of his way to meet me between classes when usually, he didn’t.

  It was wonderful to focus on me and my new life and shove all the pesky little family problems to the side. I couldn’t actually see any way to remedy them anyway, except give them a little time and eventually they’d fade. Mom would slowly realize that Camille was gone and then she’d mourn. She’d want me to return home so we could reconcile and Dad, seeing that we needed to pull together, he’d start spending more time at home. Jared would stop making excuses for avoiding the house on the weekends and would join us. We’d be one happy family again.

  I wasn’t totally stupid to think the little cloud of Camille’s absence wouldn’t hover around us. But I figured that as a family, we’d be able to fight the dismay together and find some sort of happiness somehow.

  “How about if I pick you up early tonight?” Fin asked as I munched on the surprisingly delicious lasagna. “We could do dinner and then catch a movie.”

  “That’s fine,” I said, anxious for our date. It was far too difficult to spend much quality time together at school or when he stopped in to see me at work.

  “Dudes,” Damon said as he set his fork down. “Sabrina’s in town this weekend. Her birthday’s Sunday but her parents are letting her throw a party tonight. You two should stop by.”

  I lifted a brow at Fin who responded with a slight shrug. “Sure,” he told Damon. “If the movie isn’t too late, we’ll stop by and see what’s up. What’s the address?”

  Damon ripped a corner off Reg’s lunch bag and scribbled down an address. He handed it to Fin and finished his lunch quietly.

  ***

  The movie was boring – another angsty teen flick featuring the nerdy girl that somehow catches the eye of the most popular boy and together they change the entire school – sort of like world peace or something. We left early and headed to the party instead.

  “Wow,” I said as Fin searched for a place to park on the narrow street dotted with huge, two story beach houses. “These places are nice.”

  He snorted as he nosed his car into a tight squeeze between a Chevy and some monster truck concoction. “I should bring you out here in the summer. The yards – what there are of them – are full of flowers and the lawns are meticulous. They paint or redo the siding on these houses often. And the cars – wow – BMWs, Jaguars, Cadillacs, you name it.”

  I nodded, keeping my comments to a minimum. I exited the car and waited for him to join me, linking my hand with his as he towed me toward the door.

  The color of the two story house was hard to make out in the cold night air but the picket fence surrounding the small front yard glowed white in the moonlight. Through the large window, we could see a small group of people dancing to music that rattled the glass.

  “I can’t imagine Damon out there showing his moves,” I quipped as Fin forewent the doorbell and opened the door. The music hit us like a fly on a windshield and my footing faltered a tiny bit. Fin tightened his grip on my hand as he wound his way through the gyrating crowd toward what was the most spacious and immaculate kitchen I’d ever seen.

  Even though the party was in full swing, the kitchen still maintained some sort of order. The ceramic tiles on the floor had managed to deflect most of the dirt and mud stuck to the bottoms of shoes and the counters weren’t littered with empty cups or snack bags. Gleaming stainless steel pots and pans hung regally over the island in the middle of the spacious room. The island was cluttered with trays of meats, cheeses, and crackers along with cut veggies and dips. A partygoer opened the huge refrigerator and I caught a glimpse of rows and rows soft drinks on the shelves.

  And amidst it all was Damon, sweating despite the cold January air, keeping things tidy and chastising anyone who was careless with their trash. Grinning, I tapped his shoulder.

  “Hey, you made it,” he said, grinning back. “Rad.”

  “I never imagined you as the domestic type,” I laughed as Damon swept the counter with a damp sponge.

  He shrugged as a touch of pink colored his cheeks. “Yeah, well, Sabrina’s parents warned her to keep it tame, you know. I don’t want her in trouble or anything.”

  “Where is she?” Fin asked as he plucked a chunk of cheese off a tray and popped it in his mouth. He leaned against the island, shooting me a wink.

  “I think she ran upstairs to make sure no one’s up there,” Damon said. He tossed the sponge in the sink and folded his arms over his chest. “She told everyone but you know some people are hard headed.” He nodded at the refrigerator. “Help yourselves. It’s only soda – her parents said no alcohol, but I’m sure you could find some somewhere. A couple people brought their own.”

  Fin fetched us both a soda and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. My heart lifted and I had a sudden urge to get him alone just so I could kiss him.

  “I think everyone is behaving for once,” a female said as she wandered into the kitchen. I turned my head and found a slim, pretty girl with thick, dark hair and warm hazel eyes smiling at Fin and I. She was nearly as tall as Damon and dressed in clothes I recognized from the magazines Aunt Franki subscribed to – the sort of things I used to wear once upon a time.

  “You’ve met Fin before, right?” Damon asked as he grabbed the girl’s hand and tugged her to his chest.

  “I think so,” she said with a smile. She disengaged herself from Damon to extend her hand toward us. “Nice to meet you again, anyway. I’m Sabrina.”

  Fin shook her hand and nodded at me. “This is Rena.”

  I shook her hand also and found that I didn’t have to force a smile. She seemed extremely nice and had a friendly, inviting air about her. “Thanks for having us. Um, happy birthday, by the way.”

  “Oh, thanks,” she said as her brow crunched and her eyes scrutinized me. “You look familiar. Have we met before?”

&nb
sp; I shook my head slowly, a touch of fear pounding in my heart. “I don’t think so. I’m new to this town.”

  “She used to live in some Chicago suburb,” Damon added.

  Sabrina’s face lit up as her smile widened. “Oh, really? Where?”

  “Um,” I stammered, afraid that maybe she did know me. What if she was from the same area? What if she knew some of my old friends? What if she’d heard about Camille? “North of Chicago. Um, Pine Ridge.”

  Her brow furrowed again as her lips puckered in thought. “I live in Rosedale.” A teeny wave of relief swept through me, though I remained on edge. “I could have sworn I’ve seen you somewhere before.”

  I tried to laugh but it fell from my lips in a hollow tone. “I didn’t venture much from my neck of the woods unless it was to go downtown occasionally.”

  She lifted her shoulders in defeat. “Oh well. Maybe you just look like someone I know or remind me of someone. Who knows? Maybe it will come to me later.”

  “Maybe,” I said, shifting closer to Fin. His arm slipped off my shoulders and wrapped around my waist as I attempted to meld into him, hoping to disappear.

  But Sabrina soon forgot about me and focused on her other guests, including Reg and Shane who’d suddenly appeared, both flushed with shining eyes. I cornered Damon later and he informed me that they’d finally stopped trying to ignore the obvious and had gone out on their first date. My heart cheered at the news as, even though Reg sort of frightened me, I did like her.

  Fin worked his way through the crowd, holding onto me constantly, and I noticed that not a lot of the people attending the party were particularly familiar. Granted, I hadn’t attended the school for a very long time, still, I thought I’d have recognized a face or two from classes or the cafeteria.

  I lingered close to Fin as he fell into a discussion about hockey with a guy wearing a Chicago Blackhawks jersey and noticed Sabrina conversing quietly with another dark-haired girl. They both kept casting fleeting looks my way and I wondered if maybe the other girl might have a thing for Fin. I inched closer to him, resting a hand on the small of his back. He shot me a smile as he nodded at whatever his new hockey buddy was saying.