Alone.
With no friends in sight.
The morning turned into a blur as well. Clint and I didn't say anything to one another. Allison didn’t come over to check on me. And while I didn’t expect Michael to say anything to me, it still hurt that he didn’t. We all silently piled into Michael’s car just before eleven. Just in time for the hotel-wide checkout. I leaned heavily into the leather seats. I gazed out the window. Allison sat beside me in the back seat while Clint sat up from with Michael.
There was so much distance between all of us I almost couldn't see straight.
“So, does anyone want to listen to some music?”
Allison’s words pierced the silent car ride as we got onto the highway.
“No? Not even Barbie Girl?”
I shook my head, but didn’t say anything.
“Did anyone eat their leftovers for breakfast? Mine were fantastic. Hibachi is always good the day after.”
I knew what she was trying to do. She was trying to lighten the mood. Preserve what was left of our weekend. But her efforts were fruitless. No one wanted to talk and no one wanted to engage with anyone else. Michael kept his lips pursed like the sour-puss he was. Clint’s body tensed and stayed that way, and I just felt sad.
Sadder than I’d ever felt in my entire life.
Allison finally fell silent with a soft sigh. The world passed by the tinted windows as I gazed out toward the world. The outskirts of Los Angeles rolled by. A city that gave birth to me. A city that tried to bury me. A city that, oddly enough, felt like home more than anyplace else.
Well, except Clint’s arms.
Why didn’t he want to sit next to me?
This was all my fault. Michael was right last night. I ruined this trip for everyone who had been looking forward to it. I had been talking about things changing all summer. We had planned this trip together. To try and ease our souls. To try and give us some hope. To try and give us one last memory to take to college with us.
And it was a terrible memory.
What was worse was that I felt like I had ruined my friendships. My relationships with those I loved most. The three most important people to me in my life. In one fell swoop, I had alienated all of them. Clint, the man I loved; Allison, my best friend; and Michael, the first man I ever trusted after my father left.
You’re a fuck-up, Rae.
I couldn't stop turning Michael’s words over in my head. Those things he’d said to me over dinner last night. Jealous of Clint? Was that even possible? I mean, I had never considered any other path other than college. Sure, a four-year institution hadn’t been in the plan. But college had always been there. Some sort of higher education after high school had always been there. How the fuck could I be jealous of Clint for not going?
Going had been my dream.
Are you sure about that?
I shoved the thoughts off to the side. I focused my eyes out the window as the air conditioning pummeled against my face. I kept myself as silent as I could and pressed myself as close to the window as I could get. Away from the tension in the car. Away from the fact that I wanted to scream.
Away from the fact that I wanted to keep crying until I drowned myself in my own tears.
You’re pathetic, Rae.
Despite the fact that Clint’s apartment was the first place we hit, Michael didn’t stop there. I pulled my head upright from the window and gazed out the windshield. Watching as Clint slowly looked over at Michael.
“You missed my--”
“I know,” Michael said plainly.
I looked over at Allison and she sighed.
He’s taking me home first.
It shouldn’t have shocked me. In some ways, it didn’t. It just… hurt. Then again, I deserved it after what I pulled. Michael picked up the pace. Raced down streets doing fifteen over before turning into the opening of my neighborhood. He couldn't get there fast enough, and it made my stomach sink.
“Home sweet home,” Michael said flatly.
I opened my door. “Thanks for the ride.”
He didn't answer as I climbed out.
I quickly gathered my things from his trunk and turned around. I said goodbye to Allison with a soft hug as Michael threw the car into reverse, backing down the driveway before we even let go.
“Michael!” she exclaimed.
I dropped my things in the driveway. I watched Allison struggle to get the door closed. I saw Clint wave at me through the windshield before he looked over at the wild man driving. The tinted windows quickly covered their faces the further back they pulled away from me. And as Michael sped down the road, his tires skidded on the pavement.
“Rae?”
Mom’s voice pulled me out of my trance and I felt myself tense up. I closed my eyes and picked up my things, then headed for the porch. The worry on her face made me sick to my stomach. Fucking hell, would I really have to talk about this with her? I didn’t want to. The only person I wanted to speak with was Clint.
Then Michael.
But certainly not my mother.
“Come on. Here. Let me help.”
I pulled myself away. “I’ve got it, Mom.”
She pulled my suitcase from my hand. “No, you don’t. And that’s okay sometimes.”
I snickered before I dropped my things near the staircase. I walked into the kitchen and headed straight for the fridge. I pulled out a soda and cracked it open, then found my space at the table in the corner.
I dropped down and guzzled it until the pain of the carbonation took over the pain I felt in my chest.
“So the weekend went that well, huh?”
I set my soda can down as Mom sat beside me.
“I really don’t want to talk about it.”
Mom shrugged. “Well, too bad.”
I rolled my eyes. “Great.”
“Hey, I know you. I raised you. And I know that the more bothered and stressed you become, the more you lock up. The more you shut people out. Which does no one any good.”
I shrugged. “Doesn’t matter anymore.”
She placed her hand over mine. “It matters to me.”
I stared into my mother’s eyes and tried to come up with a reason to move away from this conversation. Because I knew if I started, I wouldn't stop until it was all out on the table. Including the shit I had to deal with when it came to her.
“You really don’t want this, Mom.”
She squeezed my hand. “I’m a bigger girl than you give me credit for.”
All right. Your funeral. “I don’t know if C.S.U. is for me, Mom.”
She nodded. “That’s fine. We can find you another school, if that’s what you want.”
“I went to a college party and got so plastered I told Clint I needed a new boyfriend.”
She blinked. “You got drunk?”
“And high. I lost complete control, Mom. I’m not ready to be on my own. Not like that.”
“What else happened this weekend?”
Tears crested my eyes. “Everything, Mom. I said so many disgusting things to Clint. I ruined my friendship with Michael. He won’t even talk to me. He’s so angry for what I did at that party. The mess I made of things and the hurtful things I said to Clint.”
“Oh, honey. Come here.”
Mom scooted her chair closer and wrapped her arms around me.
“I don’t know what’s wrong. I’m petrified of going off to school. I want school. But I don’t know if I want English. And I don’t know if I want school right now. I don’t know if I’ll like teaching kids or if I’m playing it safe or if me going off to college will ruin me and Clint or if I’m not going to be friends with Allison and Michael anymore and I probably won’t now anyway because they hate me and want nothing to do with me and Clint didn’t sit beside me in the car so I think he hates me, too--”
“There, there. It’s okay. Sh, sh sh sh sh sh.”
I drew in a shaking breath. “And you’re always asking me for money. And I don’t have money to give you. I have my own plans to have my own place and you stopped looking for a job and I don’t get why you did that and I’ve had to hide money from you just to keep it for myself and I’m so tired of you complaining about me contributing to a house I don’t want to call home in an area of the city that I want to leave in a part of the state I don’t even know I want to continue living in!”
I felt my mother’s arms go slack and I pulled back.
“What?” she asked.
I wiped at my eyes. “I know you stopped looking for a job because I had money to contribute. I became your financial enabler and I didn’t speak up until it was too late.”
Mom blinked. “You’re upset with me about money?”
I sighed. “Not just money, Mom. Everything. It’s like you’re scared you’re going to fail at a job or something, so you don’t even try. You psyche yourself out before anything ever happens and you fall back on what’s easiest because you’re content with the life you have. Even if it does make you miserable most of the time.”
“I’m not miserable, Raelynn.”
I rolled my eyes. “And now you’re upset with me, too.”
“Yeah, rightfully so. Just because I ask you to contribute to some of the bills you help rack up around here doesn’t mean I want to drain you of all your money.”
“So, the fact that I pay for all these lunch outings we randomly have now and order the pizza all the time for our movie nights and do all the grocery shopping and pay over half of the bills doesn’t strike you as odd. Especially when I only worked a part-time job at a grocery store?”