The Weight of Destiny (26 page)

Mom and Amelia.

Samantha, and what she said to me all those years ago.

Ryder, and how he held me, and listened, with no judgment.

It’s still all too much.

Sitting up, I see a blanket and a big lump on the floor beside the bed. It only takes me a second to realize its Ryder. He slept on the floor next to me last night. Giving me space.

Instinct takes over and I crawl down on the floor beside him. When I push his hair back from his face, his eyes slowly open. “Thank you.”

“For what?” He squints, obviously still tired, and then says, “I called your dad last night. I’m sorry if you’re pissed, but I didn’t want him to worry.”

If anything, it makes me fall in love with him more. “For that. It’s one of the things at least.”

I thread my fingers through his and then Ryder holds our hands up. The light from his window highlights our hands. We both stare at them, Ryder twisting and turning our hands as though he’s never seen them together before. It’s the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen.

“My dad came to see me…”

My heart skips a few beats. “What? When?”

Ryder still watches our hands with the window as a backdrop. “Yesterday. He gave me a bus ticket to go out to where he’s staying.”

Now my heart has taken up residence in my throat. “Are you going?” The question hurts.

“I was going to…my bag is already packed. I just… I always felt like the only person who really loved me was him. Like he was the only one who saw something worthy in me. And then I fell for you, but after the party and everything, I didn’t know what was going to happen. Which is bullshit in a way. It’s all an excuse.”

Tell me!
I want to yell at him.
Are you going to go?
I need to know. My breath feels trapped in my lungs, scared to come out, but I fight it off, letting him speak.

“Then you came last night, and told me everything about your mom. I know you’ve never told anyone any of that. I was thinking about your mom and how her life was kind of decided by people who hurt her. No, that’s not right. But they altered her life without her permission, which then altered yours. Luke and I talked after that, and…”

Ryder shrugs. “I always thought he saw me as a loser, the same way he saw Dad. He doesn’t, though… He looked up to me. Wanted to protect me. He would have come back for me, and…”

He rolls over, onto his stomach, leaning on his arms. “Write a story with me, Virginia.”

Finally, I breathe. “What?”

“I don’t know shit about writing, but write a story with me. Our story. Your story. Mine. Whatever. Let’s not be afraid to write our own. To decide who we want to be, who we already are.”

I get what he’s saying. We don’t know much about life. Who really does? We all see things one way when most of the time, it’s the complete opposite. Even when you live in the situation, if it’s not yours, you don’t get it. Maybe even if it
is
yours, you don’t get it, but that doesn’t mean we should be afraid to write our own stories. To live.

“My dad…” I say.

“We’ll work around it. Or we won’t, but at least we tried. At least we didn’t give in.” Ryder closes his eyes, and I miss the colors in them. “I don’t want to steal cars, V. I don’t want my dad to decide who I am.”

Each of his words are a hand, a hand reaching out to me, reaching into my pockets, one by one, removing the rocks. Or maybe they’re my hands, and maybe his words just show me it’s okay to be the one to decide. Not to have to mold and shape and pretend to be anything. To be okay with who I am, flaws and all, and that ultimately, it’s all up to me.

“I don’t want my destiny decided for me…”

“It’s not,” he says.

“I like to write,” I admit. “It’s not what I want to do, but I’m good at it.”

“I don’t know what I’m good at yet, but I know there’s something.”

And then he kisses me, and I kiss him back. His body rests on mine, and I feel every inch of him. Feel that he wants me just as much as I want him, that it’s okay not to be in a hurry. Our time will come. Soon.

I drop my head backward and Ryder kisses my throat.

“I know there’s something for you, too,” I tell him.

It’s then I realize that’s it’s okay. Maybe I don’t have to have all the answers. It’s okay not to know what to do sometimes. It’s okay to make things up as you go. That’s kind of what Ryder and I did with each other—just made things up as we went along. And I think maybe ours might be the greatest story ever written.

CHAPTER FIFTY

~Ryder~

I don’t use the bus ticket but I go on a road trip all the same. As soon as Virginia leaves, Luke and I jump in his car, fill it up with gas, and hope like hell it will make it to Detroit and back.

His work wasn’t too happy that he’s taking a few days off, but it doesn’t stop him. This is our time. The Blackstock brothers.

We basically eat nothing but gas station food the whole trip because it’s cheap. We sleep in the car at rest stops or just keep driving, taking turns. It’s even better than our day at the park when I was a kid. It’s our adventure, the first one we’ve gone on together as a team.

Not Luke who is better than me, or Ryder who wants to be just like Dad.

Just…brothers.

The drive takes us a few days and we go to the hotel where we’re supposed to meet Dad.

There’s a knock at the door exactly when he said he’d come. I’m sitting on the bed, my heart trying to run away from me. Luke squeezes my shoulder and whispers, “We got this.”

Not,
you got this.
Not,
I got this. We got this.

And we do.

Pushing to my feet, I rub my palms on my jeans before walking to the door. I open it and Dad smiles at me. There’s a pinch in my chest but I ignore it. I have to. No matter what, he’s my dad; but I don’t want his life.

He takes one step into the room and freezes when he sees Luke sitting there.

“What the fuck is going on here, Ryder?”

“We didn’t turn you in.” I close the door. “But I’m not staying, either.”

“So, he did turn you against me. You little bastard!” Dad goes after Luke, who jumps to his feet. Before Luke can do anything stupid, I jump between them. My dad isn’t someone you want to fuck with. I’ve seen him beat people. I’ve seen him hurt them. But I know he won’t hurt me.

“Luke!” I reach for him but he shakes me off.

“Just listen to him, Dad. Shut up and listen to what he has to say.” Luke holds his hands up as if to say he’s good.

“I…” It comes out all wrong and I have to clear my throat. The weight is on my chest again, but it’s a different kind. It’s the weight that comes with saying goodbye. “I don’t want to do this. I thought I did my whole life. I thought I wanted to be just like you, but…” I shrug. “I think the only thing I ever really wanted was for you to love me. You loved what I could do. You loved that I was good and quick and thought well on the spot. I pretended that was the same thing as loving me.”

But it wasn’t. Maybe Dad loves me and maybe he doesn’t. Maybe he loves Luke and maybe he doesn’t. Maybe he never thought his parents loved him so he doesn’t know how to show us.

Maybe we’ll never know. Life is full of uncertainty. All you can do is keep going.

Dad shoves Luke away, who stumbles backward. He looks at my brother, fire in his eyes. “This is
you.
You did this.” And then to me. “It’s a waste, Ryder. The world will always shit on people like us. I thought you were strong enough to fight back. You shouldn’t have come. Neither of you. Are you going to rat me out?”

My vision gets a little fuzzy. “No.”

“You’re both just like her. Just like your mother. You think you’re too good. Don’t fucking turn me in. If you do, I’ll know it’s you. I’m done with you both.”

Dad turns and walks out of the room. It’s the first time he’s said something like that about Mom. Hell, I don’t even remember her. I was a baby when she bailed. Maybe she did think she was too good. Maybe he chased her away. We’ll never know, and I’m okay with that. I have my friends. My brother. Virginia. And one day, I’ll know who I am, too. That’s all that matters.

“Come on, Luke. Let’s go home.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

~Virginia~

Mom hadn’t been home when I came back. Dad says we all need some time before we discuss things. It takes me a couple days to be ready to talk, and then finally I know I am.

This time, it is my decision for the family to sit around the dining room table.

Mom looks nervous, her hands on the table, and she’s looking down at them. Or maybe it’s not nerves; maybe it’s sadness.

Dad looks at me, gives me his kind smile, and it’s the strength I need.

“I’m sorry, Mom. So sorry. I didn’t know….I didn’t…” I shake my head. “Not knowing isn’t an excuse. I wasn’t fair to you, and I’m sorry about that.”

Relief flashes across Mom’s face, fear I hadn’t realized was there disappearing. And it hurts…makes me feel incredible, but it hurts at the same time. She loves me so much that she can forgive the fact that I’ve been horrible to her for years, this quickly. “Oh honey. You’re a child. You didn’t know any better. You’ve been hurt. You were protecting your heart. How can I fault you for that?”

My body gets jittery. “I love you. I’m so sorry,” I mumble again. I can’t sit over here anymore so I push to my feet and go to her. I climb on her lap like I used to do when she read my stories as I kid. I wrap my arms around her neck and cry.

Cry for our family and what’s it’s been through.

Cry for Mom and the pain she lives with daily.

Cry for Grandma and her destiny.

Maybe I even cry for Virginia Woolf, too. The mind is a funny thing. It’s not always something we can control, or even something that makes sense. It’s hard sometimes to see through the fog, the pain, hurt, fear and everything else we live with every day. Virginia Woolf couldn’t do it. Annette Klinger couldn’t, either. My heart breaks for them—that they couldn’t get the help they needed for a disease they couldn’t control.

Mom is fighting for that.

And I will as well.

“I think…I think I’d like to go. Talk to someone with you. Understand what’s going on with you better and maybe even…maybe even understand some things about myself.”

Dad sits across the table from us as we hug. Hug and cry. His girls. That’s what he used to call us. Even after they separated, he called us his girls.

Finally the tears stop. “Maybe I can start coming to your house on the weekends sometimes. I’d like to start staying there again.”

“I would love that, Virginia. So much.”

Mom lets me go and I sit beside her, instead of moving back to my chair next to Dad. “I want to talk about Ryder.” My parents share a look and I forge on. “He’s a good guy. He’s trying to be more than what he thought was his destiny. He loves me and I love him, and—”

“And you can see him,” Dad finishes.

“What?” I’d been prepared to go into the whole
I turn eighteen in a couple months
thing, but it looks like I won’t have to.

“He called me when you went there, Lulu. He didn’t have to do that. I’m not going to pretend I’m not still angry, but your mom reminded me what it’s like to be young. And that boy would do anything to protect you. That much is obvious.”

“There will be rules,” Mom adds.

“Yeah. Sure. Anything.”

Both my parents laugh and I’m glad we’re like this—the abnormal family that still loves each other and gets along, even when a marriage ends.

“No more drinking, or drugs, and he needs to come around the house.”

I don’t tell Dad he’s here often, just not when he’s home.

“Your mom needs to meet him as well, and school still needs to come first. You can’t—”

“We do homework together. Every day. He’s trying to bring his grades up.”

Dad nods and smiles. “Good. That’s good.”

We all go into the kitchen together to make dinner. My parents laugh and tease each other. They laugh and tease me. I wonder if Ryder and I will be like them one day. Hopefully still together, yet I want the respect and love between us that my parents have. It’s so thick around them, it touches me every time we’re together.

That’s life, I think. Sometimes people who love each other and are perfect for each other don’t work out. Sometimes the person who should be all wrong for you couldn’t be more right.

Life never goes the direction you think it will. No one’s destiny is mapped out for them. Life is full of choices and happiness and heartbreak. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

EPILOGUE

There once was a girl named Virginia. She had hair made of honey and a life made of dreams. It wasn’t Perfect, no one’s was. But it was her life, and she loved it.

It wasn’t always like that, and that too, is life. It starts one way and ends another, because there isn’t life without growth.

When she was seventeen years old, she realized what growth really was. What life really was.

We are all people named Fear.

Perfect.

Liar.

Want.

Lonely.

Guilt.

Control.

Fate.

Hate.

Denial.

Thief.

Sadness.

Reckless.

Love.

We’re also all more than that. It’s all those identities that make us human. It’s all those people who show us we’re alive.

And she wanted to live.

The End

Keep reading for a letter from the author.

Dear Reader
,

In high school I did my Jr. Research Paper on DID, though at the time it was more often called MPD—Multiple Personality Disorder. I did it because I wanted to learn more about the disease that a close family friend of ours suffered from. I’ve seen the hardships DID, and mental illness can cause families. There is a ripple effect, and each and every person deals with it differently. The way Virginia dealt won’t be the same way others do but her journey was true to her.