If you asked either of my parents if they cared if we were gay, they would respond with an emphatic no. They would say that our happiness was all that mattered. But ignoring the truth was not the same as accepting it and that was something neither of them seemed to understand.
My brother had been screaming out for help and his calls, ironically, fell on deaf ears.
***
August 5, 2015
My stomach was still empty by the time we’d finished dinner and cleared our plates, but I couldn’t take any more time engaging in pointless conversation while we all tried desperately to ignore who each really were. Elik pretended none of it bothered him, but I knew that wasn’t true.
It was heartbreaking to witness and every day I watched my brother slip further and further away from himself as he let the fog of painkillers replace his feelings. He was plagued by demons, the kind that disappeared in a clouded breath and created synthetic elation. Elik’s first love was snorting Vicodin, crushed and crippling. Everyone around him ignored who he really was no matter how hard he tried to be himself. He was the most courageous person I knew, but also the loneliest. My drug of choice was poetry. I enjoyed telling the lies of love, giving false hope to the hopeless. Drugs and words were one in the same. They could hurt or heal depending on the dealer.
The sound of a muffled engine from outside pulled me from my self-loathing. I hurried to my window, running my fingertips along the brown sheer curtain as I peered out at Kaden, who was slipping out of his oversized black car. His dark hair was short but messy enough to run his fingers through, his back broad and muscular. He had to be at least a few years older than me, but it didn’t stop my eyes from roaming.
Grabbing my black-rimmed glasses from my nightstand, I pushed them up the bridge of my nose. They were the kind hipsters wore to be ironic, or whatever it was they hoped the look achieved. I was nearsighted and I hated them. I squinted my eyes as I read over the chrome writing on the back of the vehicle that read Impala.
“Impala,” my cherry-stained lips popped as I said the word to myself, my eyes dancing down his fitted black T-shirt and over the back of his dark wash jeans that hung low on his hips. As if he could hear me, he spun around and I gasped, jumping back from the window as the lacy curtain swayed from my sudden departure. My hand went to my stomach as it flipped, my feet shuffling forward so I could catch another glance at him just to ensure he wasn’t a figment of my overactive imagination. He had something small in his hand as he slammed the door shut and disappearing inside of the Harken’s ranch style home. I smiled to myself as I fell back onto my bed, relishing in the sudden feeling of euphoria that swam through my veins.
I grabbed Romeo and Juliet and began to flip through the pages, my eyes skimming over the words as my imagination drifted off into another place.
I wondered how long Kaden would be in town. Daven said he didn’t want to take him school shopping so he should be here for a little while.
I chewed on my lip to fight against my smile. This kid may not even want to talk to me, and even if he did, one look at Bridget and I wouldn’t stand a chance. I grabbed my cell phone from my nightstand, tugging on it until the charger cord fell free.
I dialed Bridget and put the call on speakerphone as I sang along with her ringback tone.
“Bridget speaking,” she announced, already sounding bored. I could picture her staring down at her freshly painted neon-colored nails as if it was too much of a bother to speak to me, her only friend.
“Summers over and we wasted it,” I groaned, flipping onto my back as I stared up at the popcorn ceiling covered in little plastic glow stars.
“Speak for yourself. I’ve watched every season of Friends four times. What have you done with your life, loser?”
“Your parents must be so proud. I’ve read thirty-seven books.” Rolling my eyes, I jumped as I heard the distant roar of an engine outside. It sounded ferocious like the growl of a lion, definitely not belonging to any of the old people who lived on our street.
“Gross. This is why you don’t have any friends.”
“I have you.” I slid from my bed and sank to my knees as I pushed my curtain to the side as I let Bridget ramble on, unable to focus on her words. Whenever her voice would pause, I’d fill the space by agreeing until I heard her break out in a fit of laughter.
“What?” I ducked down slightly when Kaden rounded the back of his car, digging something out of the trunk before resuming his work under the hood.
“You’re not even listening to me.”
“Yes I am,” I shot back defensively.
“Really? So you really do enjoy eating dog crap?”
Groaning, I let the curtain swing back in front of my face, but I kept my gaze locked ahead.
“I have this new neighbor and he’s… weird.”
“Weird how? Like kills puppies weird or tucks his jeans into his socks weird?”
“No, like… mysterious.”
“Oh, so he’s hot?” She asked and I almost choked on my own spit.
“I didn’t say that,” I shot back a little too defensively.
“Lila Jane, you like a real, live boy. And to think, all this time I thought you were in love with me.”
“Ugh, come on. You think everyone is in love with you. I can do better than that.”
Bridget laughed loudly in my ear. “Touché. But come on, you can’t blame me. Silas was pining over you for years and you barely gave him a second look. So tell me about this guy. Does he sparkle?”
I cringed as I bit back my retort. Bridget could never understand my love for reading, so naturally, she found my obsession with male book characters to be a little crazy. “Silas never liked me, I was just the only one who would listen to him. For the last time, you’re focusing on the wrong details of that story. If you would just read the book,” I groaned before dipping my head below the window ledge with a squeal when I noticed Kaden glancing this way.
“Why would I read the book when I can watch the movie?”
“We can’t be friends anymore,” I deadpanned.
“Alright fine,” she groaned in my ear. “I’m coming over. If you are going to face plant in front of some hottie, I want to be there to point and laugh.”
“You’re leaving your house?” I asked in disbelief.
“If this guy turns out to be a murderer, someone has to give his description to the police. Besides, you’re my friend and you need me. I like to be needed. I’m selfish like that.”
“Don’t I know it.” I clicked to end the call and tossed the phone on my bed before looking across the street but Kaden was gone. “Damn,” I whisper-yelled before screaming as my bedroom door opened behind me, bouncing off the wall.
“Seriously, Lila. You need to get out of the house more,” My brother propped himself against the door frame with his shoulder, crossing his arms over his chest.
“And you need to learn how to knock!”
“And wait to hear you say come in?” He stared at me for a moment before he pointed to his ear and what he meant finally clicked.
“Or wait for me to answer it.” Bringing my hand toward my mouth, I touched my fingertips together to sign for him to shut up but he only laughed, shaking his head.
“Why you wanting to go to the mall?” He asked, his eyebrow raising in suspicion.
“I just want to get some new clothes for school,” I struggled to keep my tone even but judging by the look on my brother’s face, I knew I had failed at my attempted lie.
“I don’t even have to be able to hear you to be able to listen. The truth is written all over your nervous face. At this rate, you won’t have any fun before college.”
I rolled my eyes. “Why are you so concerned about what I do anyway?”
“I’m your big brother.”
I exhaled an exaggerated groan as I pushed from my floor, brushing off my bottom even though I knew my carpet was spotless. I jerked my head to motion over my shoulder. My brother hurried across th
e room and gently shoved me out of the way as his eyes narrowed.
“Wait… you like Daven?” He turned toward me, his face scrunched up in confusion. Shrugging my shoulders I dropped my gaze, feeling like a fool. “I thought you and Bridget had a thing.”
“Wait… what? No, not Daven, you dumbass. He’s like… elderly. His nephew.”
Laughter burst from him and I grabbed my pillow, slamming it against his chest and causing him to stumble back into the window. Lurching forward, I grabbed his arm to pull him back before he fell through the glass.
“That’s not funny.”
“Why not?” He asked, jerking his arm from my grip before running his hand through his dark hair to smooth it back into place. “Bridget is cute.”
“I am cute,” Bridget said with an amused smirk as she stepped into my room. Rolling my eyes, I grabbed my pillow from the floor and tossed it back to my bed.
“You could learn to knock,” I groaned.
“And miss out on your sexy brother talking about me?” Her eyebrow rose as she ran her tongue out over her lips.
“You’re not his type.”
“I’m everybody’s type,” she shrugged, dropping her purse to the floor, unfazed. Bridget knew all about my brother’s tumultuous relationship with Danny. “So where is this super-hot guy you’ve been drooling over?”
“I need your dirty laundry if you want to have anything to wear to school,” My mom yelled from downstairs. Her voice was muffled by the sound of our robot vacuum as it bounced off the kitchen cabinets. I rolled my eyes, hoping she’d just leave me alone. School was a few days away and the last thing on my mind. “Lila Jane, do you hear me?”
“Be right back,” I sighed dramatically as I grabbed the overflowing wicker basket of laundry I had already gathered and sat by my bedroom door.
“Coming,” I trudged down the carpeted steps to the first floor of our home and dropped the basket at my mother’s feet. She gave me a hard stare, scrutinizing my makeup before she picked it up and dumped it into her brand new front-load washing machine. It was top of the line and even had a small LCD screen built into the front of it. Nothing was too good for mom and dad… or good enough.
“What have you been doing up there?”
“Reading Romeo & Juliet. It’s going to be a required read this year.” I’d seen the movie a million times and I absolutely despised the premise. A broken heart isn’t the end of the world; it is the end of a chapter. And no boy was worth your life.
“Glad to see you are taking it seriously, although it is kind of late in the summer to try to get a head start.” She ran a free hand through her long, chestnut-brown hair with hints of auburn that was identical to mine. I rolled my eyes at her thinly veiled insult as she pressed the empty basket against my stomach. I took it with a groan of annoyance.
“I’m trying mom. We can’t all be like Elik.”
“I don’t want you to be like Elik, I just want you to care about your future.” Her gaze dropped to the basket in my hands.
“What makes you think I don’t?” Nevertheless, her argument was never changing and I’d grown exhausted trying to defend myself. There was no future in art she’d say. I’d never tell her that she was right. No one would pay for a painting anymore when they could openly ogle a surgically altered woman on the street or live stream the ballad of a broken heart on their MacBook. Art was dead, killed by convenience.
“Lila Jane, watch your tone,” My mother’s jade eyes narrowed as she put her hands on her wide hips. “You kids think you know everything,” she mumbled. I bit my tongue, not reiterating the fact that my IQ had surpassed both of my parent’s when I was still in middle school. It would only exasperate the situation.
My mother led the fight against the new Collective Common teaching standards last year, banding together with the other wine drinking soccer moms to protest teaching the children to be smarter than them. They argued they couldn’t help us with our homework any longer. My mother hadn’t helped with my homework since the first grade unless you count ADHD medication to keep me focused. But now she felt threatened, inferior even, as the world moved to surpass the last generation and make room for the next.
My mother was brilliant, don’t get me wrong. She was going to be a lawyer too, just like my father, but she became a mother instead and the consolation prize didn’t suit her.
The last thing I needed was to be grounded on top of it all even though that only meant I’d lose access to the internet and my eReader would be held hostage. I rarely left the house on my own and if I did, it was to jog or take a bike ride.
But with high school fast approaching, I was desperate to come out of my shell and mingle with my peers in hopes of making some lasting memories. Maybe even make a few friends. Right now the count was at one, Bridget Lane, the only person who didn’t gag when they saw me coming and I was confident she was in my room hitting on my gay big brother as we speak.
Just that thought alone of socializing made my heart palpitate. I always fumbled over my words when I tried to talk to others, tripping over my own rambling thoughts.
I was never bullied or beaten, only ignored. I would argue that being treated as if I didn’t exist was a far worse punishment than taunts and teases. Sticks and stones, they say, break your bones and words can never hurt you. But silence has become deafening and living inside of my own head has been my own personal prison filled with self-doubt and loneliness. I was just one of the lucky millions affected by social anxiety among other things. I was shy and I was exhausted from trying so damn hard. Now I was shy and heavily medicated.
But no matter how loudly society screamed that something was wrong with me, I knew I wasn’t the problem. Not really. Soon little orange bottles would line my shelves, one for each mood I needed to program myself to feel. I was becoming my mother. I was becoming like all the others.
FIVE
KADEN
August 6, 2015
My hand moved furiously across the page as I unleashed everything I had felt since my trip began. A cigarette hung from my lips and smoke billowed, obscuring my vision as the pen sliced holes in the paper, smudging ink on my fingertips.
***
June 3, 2014
The words rolled over again and again in my head, but I couldn’t process them.
“She’s gone, Kaden.”
My eyes flicked to the doorway thinking she had just gone out for a walk and would be stepping in at any moment, her infectious laughter filling the air and my heart once more.
But as I waited, my feet locked into place as the rest of me swayed in dizzying panic, I knew that she was no longer here. I could feel it… or not feel it anymore as it may be. My chest was now a cavernous hole as numbness settled in the depths of my core.
My hands moved on their own accord sending glass raining in violent crashes as her name ripped painfully from my throat. I screamed until my voice cracked and wavered, overtaken by sobs. My vision was next to go, blurred and stinging by tears as her image was forever washed in pain.
“She’s gone,” a voice repeated.
My body was overcome with exhaustion. My knees hit the wooden floor with a jolting thud, pain shooting up my thighs and radiating throughout my chest as I let my palms slap against the ground, my head hanging in defeat. I mumbled an incoherent prayer hoping someone, anyone was listening, but I was met with deafening silence. My faith was last to go.
Some would say I was too young to comprehend the gravity of such loss, that my heart was somehow less mature. But this crippling hurt was something I understood all too well. Society’s arbitrary rules as to what constituted adult or youth had no bearing on what I felt inside. Love is lawless. Life is temporary.
***
August 6, 2015
“You hungry?” Daven called from the living room where he was perched in front of the television once again. It was safe to assume this was the extent of his social life, living vicariously through fictional characters. Ashes fell on the not
ebook below as I pulled the cigarette from my mouth to respond.
“In a minute,” I called out as I pushed open the bedroom window, tossing the butt onto the ground outside before waving my hand in front of my face to disperse some of the fog. My skin was sticky from a thin sheen of sweat due to the oppressive fucking heat that pressed against my lungs, keeping me from inhaling fully.
My eyes danced over the scribbles and scratches I’d written, bleeding onto the page. If dying of a broken heart were possible, I would find my demise soon in her memories.
“Her soul, like sand, slipping through rough fingers,” I sang quietly to myself as I ripped the paper from the book and crumbled it in my palm. My throat tightened and began to close but I finished the line. “Fading from demand, but her memory still lingers.”
I shoved the notebook under my pillow and tossed the crumpled paper to the floor before leaving the room, wishing the ghosts of my past would remain behind as well, offering a few moments of peace.
The happy memories were now tainted with pain and I was no longer able to separate the two. My fingers began to flex as I thought about grabbing my acoustic guitar from my trunk and turning my jotted down rage into a full-length song. But since I’d lost Taylor, it killed me to think about playing it again without her by my side, humming along and swaying as I strummed. Sandy toes and sea salt laced kisses were some of my favorite memories of her. I couldn’t lose those too.
I stood in the narrow hallway and watched Daven for a moment. He was lost in the television show playing and oblivious to my presence. You could see the sadness in the tired lines that had begun to mar the edges of his eyes. He was much younger than my mother, around thirty years old, but had lived a hard existence. My mother had her share of pain as well, but persevered and overcame her demons. Daven had all but given up and I wasn’t sure if she sent me here to help me or for me to help him. One thing was sure, if I weren't careful, we would drag each other down.