Taking Flight (2 page)

The result was that I got lucky. My mom was watched by the media like a hawk in the years leading up to her death, but I was old news by then: a kid she’d had for over ten years.
Nicole Erickson’s Kid Turns Thirteen
isn’t a headline like
Nicole Erickson Due to Have Baby
is. I wouldn’t ever complain about having the fortune half of “fame and fortune,” but I was glad I didn’t have to deal with the “fame” part of it. David Marshall, provided he wasn’t obsessed with my mother’s personal life, probably wouldn’t make the connection between her and me.

My dad and I, however, was a coin toss, especially since David would probably be given my dad’s name. If you were a huge fan of
Just Amanda
or a huge fan of my mom, you may have heard of him. Or if you were just constantly glued to TMZ and were one of those people who constantly knew which celebrities were dating or married to whom. I doubted David was like that. But his wife – assuming he had one – could be.

Being that I was completely fameless and my dad was a Z-lister by now, we normally didn’t have to deal with paparazzi. That was my mom’s problem, not ours. But it had certainly become ours now. Even three months later, there were still a few men that waited outside of our house, trying to get pictures of me and my dad looking distraught or wrecked or something. As if any high-profile magazines would want to publish pictures of a drunken-looking Z-lister and his no-name daughter three months after the death of their third family member. But they kept trying, and I was determined not to give them what they wanted. So on days like my court date and days like today, when I had to leave the house, I had one trick: to smile. They wanted me sad, so I was happy.

I was still thinking about the way they’d blinded Caitlyn and I with flashes back at my house as I danced with her at our favorite 16-and-up club. I would never understand how Mom had dealt with it on a daily basis. She wasn’t around much when I was growing up, but she was ten times the person my dad was. He spent his time away from me drinking away the pain of being a failed child star. He was a complete and total cliché. It was pathetic. Mom wasn’t around because she was busy raking in millions of dollars and putting in appearances at various events and ceremonies. I wondered now if she would’ve regretted the time she spent away from home if she’d known she’d be dead at 42.

It was probably a good thing that Caitlyn distracted me at that point. She nudged me and leaned forward, shouting into my ear over the music. “What are you doing?! Do you see anyone you like?!”

I glanced around half-heartedly, uninterested in trying to find a girl to hook up with. It felt stupid. If my mom had taught me anything, it was that life was fleeting in the grand scheme of things and that I should enjoy it while I had the chance, but I’d done this dozens of times, and it was meaningless in each and every instance.

The routine was always exactly the same. I’d hook up with a girl, and then I’d avoid her every time I came here, and if I were lucky, I’d never have to speak to her again. Rinse and repeat. If I really wanted to have sex, there were easier ways to get it. The fun for me was the chase. Getting a girl interested and making her feel brave enough to go for it.
That
was what I was good at. But that took effort, and I didn’t feel like trying tonight. In fact, I really didn’t feel like doing anything. Even dancing with Caitlyn felt like a chore. I wanted to go back to bed.

I didn’t tell Caitlyn what I was thinking. I just shrugged instead. She read me correctly, though, and rolled her eyes as she pulled me closer. “C’mon! You love this! Go flirt with someone!”

I looked around again. There were a few gross couples nearby grinding on each other, and a few groups of girls dancing together while guys watched them from the shadows, no doubt trying to gather the courage to go ask them to dance.

Caitlyn was watching me, and so she saw me shake my head. Her hand slid into mine instantaneously, and she tugged, pulling me into a corner of the club, where it was a little easier to talk. “What are you doing? This is your last chance to have fun, remember?”

“I guess so.” I struggled to put what I was feeling into words. “I just think maybe I’ve done this enough for now.”

“What, slept with girls?” Caitlyn asked. “Okay, Lauren, there are a lot of things people say about you that aren’t true, but the sleeping around part? That part’s true, and we both know you own it. You are
never
not in the mood to hook up.”

“It’s not that.” I rolled my eyes and forced a smile. “I just don’t feel like making an effort tonight. I’m leaving in, like, two days and—”

“Which is what makes this perfect!” Caitlyn insisted, cutting me off. “You’re guaranteed not to see any of these people for half a year.”

“Why are you so invested in getting me laid?” I asked her, quirking an eyebrow.

She didn’t reply at first, and let out a deep sigh instead. “I want my best friend back, Lauren. I know your mom died. I know that it’s been hard. But we spent the majority of high school drunk or high and
still
managed to act like normal human beings: going to school, interacting with people,
leaving our houses
. We’ve been shitty students for years and now you’re finally getting punished for it because you literally just wouldn’t get out of bed and go to school. I tried to help and you ignored my texts—”

“That’s not—” I tried to interrupt, feeling embarrassed, but she cut me off again and continued.

“Then, after you ignored me, I showed up in person to try and get you to do something fun, and you hardly ever took me up on that. And now you have two days left in Los Angeles and you’d still be at home in your bed right now if you could be, wouldn’t you?”

She was right, but I shook my head at her in disbelief. “Caitlyn, I lost a parent.”

“And I lost my best friend,” she countered. We stared at each other, the moment tense, and, at last, she stepped back. “I’m gonna go get us drinks,” she mumbled, and then turned and walked away.

I stood alone, my back resting against the wall, and thought about what Caitlyn had said. It was true that I hadn’t been myself for the past three months. But she couldn’t expect me to stay the same after a death in the family. And it wasn’t fair to try and put a rush job on my recovering from it, either.

But I knew how she felt. There was a part of me that missed my old self too. On the outside, at least, I’d been the confident girl that’d turned heads and turned straight girls bi for a night. I’d let insults roll off of my back and I was good at hiding when I was hurt. People hated me and loved to hate me, and I didn’t care. I was untouchable; I wore a suit of emotional armor. Now I was just a shell of the girl I’d used to be.

I felt sorry for Caitlyn by the time she returned with two drinks in her hands. I knew she was only trying to help, and I knew she’d probably have a rough time without me in the months to come. In her own way, she was just trying to say goodbye in the best way she knew how.

She offered me one of the drinks and then took a flask out of her purse. We’d stopped by her house on the way here and gotten vodka from her brother. She opened the flask and dumped only a small amount into her drink; she was driving tonight. Then she handed it to me.

“Don’t take all of it; I’m having more when we get back to your place,” she warned, seemingly convinced now that I wouldn’t be spending any time with another girl tonight.

I considered the flask in my hand, then tilted it over my drink and poured a majority of the contents in before Caitlyn could protest. “We can steal some more from my dad tonight.”

*   *   *

When I woke up the next morning, I couldn’t remember most of my night, and Caitlyn and I were both nude in my bed.

I sat up, rubbing at my head as I glanced over at her and then at my room around us. The lamp on my nightstand had been knocked over, and I spotted Caitlyn’s bra and my pants on the floor by my bedroom door. I looked at Caitlyn again, frowning. Her dirty-blonde hair was fanned out all over her pillow, and she looked pretty wrecked, honestly. But this wasn’t the first time we’d woken up like this, and I doubted it’d be the last.

Caitlyn and I had been friends for a long time, and she’d never called herself anything but straight, but with enough alcohol in our systems, this happened sometimes. It wasn’t a big deal, but it wasn’t something I’d wanted to deal with right before I left for Georgia.

Our relationship was strange. There were times where we could go a week without talking and then be desperate to hang out, and then there were also times where things got a little too intense and I’d give anything for that one-week break.

There are moments I think everyone will experience during their lives at some point where they’re aware that something more than friendly is happening beneath the surface with someone, even if nothing ever actually comes of it. Caitlyn and I’d had a lot of those moments; we’d be pressed together, both knowing we’d slept together in the past and that I was gay, and for just a moment, I’d think it could happen for us while we were sober.

But it never did. The moment would pass, and then we’d end up naked and hung over in the same bed however many days later, trying to remember what exactly had happened the night before. It’d been happening since sophomore year, sometimes even while she’d had a boyfriend, and I supposed it’d keep happening until she finally got into a serious relationship. And it
would
be her that’d get into a serious relationship out of the two of us.

She stirred beside me and her eyes opened. I stared back at her, clearly topless as I sat up in bed beside her. She abruptly shut her eyes and let out a short, hoarse laugh. “Shit.”

“Sorry about the boobs,” I told her, sliding out of bed and moving to find some clothes to put on. “Oh, and the vagina.”

That made her laugh again. “What happened last night?”

“I have no idea,” I admitted even as I pulled on underwear and a top. I tossed Caitlyn a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, and she stayed under the covers as she wriggled the bottoms on. “How many times does this make, though?”

Caitlyn stuck her middle finger in the air, my shirt shielding her face from view as she pulled it on. “Shut up; I felt sorry for you… I’m sure.”

“Probably,” I admitted, even though she’d been kidding. I had a brief memory of a drunken Caitlyn declaring emphatically that even though I was being a loser, I still needed to have sex before I left for Georgia. “I think you volunteered yourself to be the one to bite the bullet and sleep with me. You poor, poor thing. Such a victim.” I got another middle finger for that, and grinned at her.

“At least you’re smiling,” she said with a sigh. “That’s an improvement. And now I need a shower. Can you please come out with me tonight and find a girl we don’t know this time? We need to cleanse you.”

“You need higher self-esteem.”

She rolled her eyes at me, pointing a finger back and forth between us. “Drunk Me may have thought this was a good idea, but Sober Me is super uncomfortable with the idea of spending five months being your most recent lay.”

“I can find someone to sleep with in Georgia!” I exclaimed through laughter. “Seriously!”

“Maybe, but after the way you acted last night, I’m not so sure you’ll make an effort.”

She had a point there. I scratched at my head as Caitlyn left for the bathroom, and frowned once she’d gone. A part of me was glad I couldn’t remember anything with Caitlyn, but another part of me wished I could remember it all. That was a new feeling.

I tried to shake it off and headed downstairs. I was surprised to see my dad making pancakes in the kitchen. I was used to seeing him unconscious more often than conscious, and equally as surprising was that he also seemed to be sober.

“Are you hungry?” he asked me. I nodded truthfully and sat down at our breakfast bar, silently watching my dad as he cooked. He’d let his hair grow out in the past few months; it was shaggy and long now, but remained the same dark brown color it’d always been. The color I’d inherited from him. I looked a lot more like my dad than my mom. I had his brown eyes too.

He served me a stack of three pancakes and asked, “Need me to make more?”

I knew what he was asking, albeit indirectly, and nodded anyway. “Yeah.”

“Okay. So do I know this one?”

I picked at my pancakes awkwardly. “It’s just Caitlyn.”

He was silent for a moment, pouring batter into the pan on the stove. “Again?” he finally asked.

“It was stupid,” I mumbled, growing uncomfortable. My dad wasn’t completely oblivious; he knew that I was having sex. But it was rare that we talked so openly about it.

He finished with the pancakes and sat down next to me with a stack of his own, leaving a third stack on the counter for Caitlyn. I tried to ignore the way he’d chosen a beer for his drink. “Let me tell you something, kiddo,” he said. “I met your mom when I was sixteen years old. A long time ago. But I still remember the way we looked at each other. We both just
knew
. It was this look, like… like we were the only two people that mattered. If you get that look, you don’t let that go, understand?”

I took his words with a grain of salt. Most of the things he said lately didn’t make sense, and this was him only slightly more coherent than usual. If his drinking habits were bad before my mom’s death, they were horrible now.