Broken Series (14 page)

Broken Dreams

One

Rainey

The plane landed on the runway without a single hiccup. Of course, my hands gripped the armrests like a lifeline and I couldn’t make myself let go until the flight attendant came to check on me long after everyone else was off the plane. My hands shook until I walked through the walkway into the airport; my feet were finally on solid ground.

That morning, I woke up in my own bed in Los Angeles, took a taxi to LAX, popped a Valium, and boarded my plane. I was lucky enough to find a nonstop flight to Boston, but it had been difficult. I wasn’t much of a flier. The puddle-jumper plane that guided me from Boston to Portland, Maine, was, in my opinion, not even equipped to fly. But the staff assured me it was. On several occasions. So I sat perfectly still for the entire half-hour flight, hands glued to the armrests. The Valium had long ago worn off, which meant I wasn’t as relaxed as I wanted to be.

It wasn’t that I hated flying. I simply despised flying so much that I would feel safer jumping out of the damn airplane than riding inside it. But it landed.
Thank God
. I made my way through the terminal and toward baggage claim. My mother claimed she would pick me up, but I wasn’t about to hold my breath. She was the most unreliable woman I’d ever met in my life, and that included my flighty aunt, Brittney.

I rounded the corner to baggage claim and found my mother’s void eyes staring at me. She waited for me to approach and made no effort to hug me. I nodded to her. She resented me for going to live with my aunt. It wasn’t a decision I’d made lightly, but it still burned that she didn’t respect my decision. Of course, there were things about my life she didn’t know, so I couldn’t blame her too much. I’d hidden my
real
life from so many people.

I’d only been away from Maine for a week. After spending three weeks in my hometown of Casper, Maine, helping my best friend, Mallory, deal with the death of her father, I’d made the final decision to move back home. Mallory needed support through her grief, and even though she had her boyfriend, Luke, I felt like I should move back, at least for the summer.

She was my reasoning for moving home, but the truth was so much more complex. But I promised her I would move home for the summer, and I meant to keep my promise. When I’d flown to LA last week, Mallory dropped me at the airport, demanding I not change my mind.

“There’s no way I’m letting you leave me here all summer to handle Baker,” she protested when I joked about not coming back.

Baker was just another complication of my life. He took me to my high school prom and was a perfect gentleman, which led me to giving him my virginity at the age of eighteen. That summer, though, his best friend and mine broke up. The breakdown of Luke and Mallory’s relationship had spurred me to ignore anyone who affiliated with Luke. And that included Baker. It was too bad, too, since I’d had a crush on him for nearly all four years of high school. But when couples break up, everyone around them must choose sides.

“I’ll come back, Mal. It’s only a week so I can figure out what I’m going to ship here and what I’m having Aunt Britt toss out,” I reassured my best friend.

Mallory was fragile and I knew she was worried about me. Even though I explained how little chance there was of a relapse, she still worried. It made sense. Her father died of cancer just two weeks ago. So, finding out her best friend had leukemia was a shock.

I didn’t want to tell her. Hell, I didn’t even want to admit it to myself. But she’d begged and pleaded until I confessed. It pissed her off that Gabby, our other best friend, knew before she did. Then again, Gabby knew before anyone. She was the very first person I told two-and-a-half years ago. Plus, Mallory had been dealing with her father’s cancer; she didn’t need to worry about mine. I was in remission. There was no reason to think it would come back, either. I’d been cancer free for five whole months. It didn’t seem like a long time, but every other time the doctors said the leukemia was in remission, it came back within six weeks. Five months was practically a lifetime.

“Did you eat on the plane?” my mother asked. I gulped down my immediate nausea.

“No, but I’m not all that hungry. We can just go home,” I suggested. We made our way out of the airport once I grabbed my extra-large duffel bag. Aunt Britt was going to mail larger packages of my things.

She didn’t speak while she drove. Casper was an hour away from the airport and the silence gave me some time to truly think about being back in my hometown. I didn’t hate the town, or anyone in it. My reasons for leaving had been the pursuit of an escape from my mother. The reason I stayed in the city, however, was that I fell in love with LA.

There was always something going on in Southern California, whether it was a movie production or premiere, or even just a party at one of the frats at UCLA. It was a busy place and I never sat home on a weekend debating whether I should hit up the local pizza place or do something out of town like I did during high school in Casper.

LA was the land of dreams, and although mine probably weren’t going to come true, I loved living there. But the more I watched the people around me achieve their dreams, the more I realized I would never be able to stay there forever. Perhaps my aunt was right and I should consider moving back to Casper permanently. It wasn’t something I was ready to decide, though. Spending the summer in the small town would hopefully steer me in the right direction. Until then, I just wanted to enjoy myself.

My mother didn’t expect me to stay home during my vacation, which meant I needed to make plans, since she would likely be heavily sedated on Xanax and tequila by dinnertime. She was predictable as ever. Halfway through the hour-long drive, she pulled over, feigned a headache, and asked me to drive. She popped a few pills and took a swig off the to-go mug she had with her. I didn’t bother asking her what was inside the mug. I already knew.

I supposed I should be grateful for the fact that she remained sober until I got in. I wasn’t, though. I resented her. I had spent my high school years taking care of her, instead of her taking care of me. She always guilted me into staying home and throwing a party instead of going out with my friends. She was the ultimate party mom and all my friends loved her. But they never saw behind the scenes. Well, Mallory and Gabby did, but they were the only ones. All my other girlfriends had been blissfully unaware of the turmoil I faced every day at home.

I tried not to think about the past as I pulled the mini-van back onto the highway. Mom’s head was already tilted against the glass, her eyes closed and a soft snore escaping her nose. I sighed.

It was going to be an emotional summer. Her constant inebriation was part of the reason I left, but it was my extended stay at Cedars Sinai hospital that convinced me to remain in LA. Well, more like my aunt convinced me to stay based on my hospital visit. Aunt Britt was the one who explained that I needed to be cared for, not to care for someone else. Mom wasn’t going to be able to give me the kind of care I needed after my hospital stay.

I found out about my leukemia two short weeks after my father was killed in a car accident. I’d only been in LA for a month and had just started my classes at UCLA. As much as I wanted to spend months grieving, the knowledge of my cancer pushed me to
live
. It was, as Aunt Britt pointed out, exactly what my dad would have wanted.

Mom took his death the hardest, although I was hardly in a good place. She called me every ten minutes for two weeks after I moved back to LA, professing her love for him and questioning why God would do this to her. As much as I tried to understand, I resented her for expecting me to be there for her when she couldn’t be there for me. Eventually, I stopped trying to comfort her over the phone from LA and she stopped calling. I went an entire year before I came home to visit and she and I were awkward in our relationship. But, I made the effort. For Daddy.

When I pulled down Main Street in Casper, I smiled. Feelings of contentment and
coming home
filled me. Whether I liked LA or not, this was home for me. This was where I belonged. I passed the only full-service gas station in town, the post office, and a newly renovated book store. The sidewalks were filled with people.

As a tourist town, people came from all over the country to visit Casper. The shops and epic coastline drew them in, but what kept them coming back was the feeling of community and the bubbly personalities most residents had. The ocean was a short trip down the peninsula, where the lighthouse glowed late at night.

I looked forward to heading to the beach while I was here. California boasted beautiful beaches, but nothing beat the beaches in Maine. The sand was rugged, a testament to the number of storms the state got. Hurricane season usually left a small mark, but winter storms tore the coast of Maine up. I even missed the snow while I was in LA.

The drive through Casper was short, given its size. In a matter of minutes, I was out of the center of town and turning onto the road that led to my mother’s house. It hardly qualified as a house, though. The mobile home was set back from the road on a tiny piece of land. It was the only thing Dad let her keep when they divorced.

Theirs was a relationship that left me baffled. After their divorce, they got back together several times, though they didn’t marry again. The fact that they spent two years apart, though, meant that I had step-siblings. Not that I saw them often. Dallas was twenty-four and traveled for his job. I secretly coveted his photographer’s lifestyle. Not only was he talented with a lens, but he also went from place to place and lived as a nomad. He never stayed in the same place longer than a few months. He’d visited me in LA twice during the last three years; he was one of the few people who knew about my illness. As far as I knew, he didn’t have any plans to come to Maine, though. I didn’t blame him.

Ember was seventeen and would be graduating high school in a few weeks. She was smart, sassy, and gorgeous. At seventeen, she had more grace and style than most women had in a lifetime. Of course, her mother was a model, which probably contributed to her fashion sense. She only lived a few towns away from Casper, so I would be able to go to her graduation, just as I promised her I would.

Our family was split up in a chaotic way. Dallas and I shared a mother, but had different fathers. We grew up in the same house until he was sixteen. His father offered him an internship at his photography firm in Virginia, and he’d spent the summer there. He refused to come back to Casper after that, choosing instead to finish his high school degree in Virginia.

After he graduated, he began his roaming tendencies, refusing to settle down. He didn’t want to end up like so many of the people in Casper who never left, never got to see the world. I’d done the same thing, in a sense. Ember and I had different mothers, lucky her. She was only fifteen when Dad died, and it had been a rough time for her. I hadn’t been able to be there for her like I wanted, as I was dealing with my own issues, but I kept in close contact with her through the years. She even flew out to see me last summer.

Ember’s birth had been a severe hiccup in my parent’s relationship, and had ultimately caused their divorce. But Dad’s infidelity brought me a little sister, one I adored. She was going places, and with Dad gone, I felt it my responsibility to make sure she did. Her mother, Victoria, was always pleasant whenever Ember invited me over when we were younger, and she made me feel right at home in their house.

I pulled into the driveway of Mom’s place and parked. I looked over at her slumped form and shook my head in disgust. The woman couldn’t even stay sober for my homecoming. I left her there in the passenger seat, grabbed my bag, and made my way into the house. My room was the smallest of three and when I opened up the bedroom door, it was still a shock to see that all traces of my youth were washed away. The room was made up as a guest room without any of my adolescent boy band posters or my belongings, and although I had time to adjust to the fact that my mother erased a piece of me, it still stung.

The quotes from poems and my favorite books I’d written on the walls had been painted over with a brilliantly white paint. Even the desk had been painted to cover all the phone numbers I wrote on it in permanent marker. I swallowed the lump in my throat. When I’d come home last Christmas, everything had been painted over. I wasn’t sure how I felt about everything being wiped away.

It was as if she had deleted a piece of my past. I made my way to the painted desk and yanked open the top drawer. I breathed a sigh of relief. All of my photos were neatly stacked inside. At least she hadn’t erased me completely. I closed the drawer, not yet wanting to go down memory lane.

I tossed my bag onto the bed and pulled the door closed behind me as I went to get Mom out of the van. I walked past Dallas’s bedroom and the door was partially open. I pushed it and stood there, dumbfounded. I hadn’t noticed his room when I’d been home two weeks ago.

Whereas my room had been turned into a guest room, Dallas’s bedroom had become a shrine. Covering the walls were photos he’d taken, photos of him taking photos, and copies of the awards he’d won in the last few years. All were framed and hung proudly. I stared at the walls, knowing how much Dallas would hate it. She did it in tribute, I was sure, but if he saw it, he’d rip each photo, each award from the walls and declare he didn’t want anyone to put him up on a pedestal like that.

But Dallas hadn’t been to Casper in a long time. I tried to remember if I’d come into his room last Christmas. I didn’t think I did, as I would have remembered what she’d done. I stepped out of the room, vaguely aware that it smelled like Dallas. She must know what cologne he wore. I closed the door and never wanted to open it again, hating her for loving him more than me. But I managed a deep breath as I went back outside to help her into bed.

It was going to be a long summer.