Page 5 of Falling Again

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I let my phone slip out of my hand and fall on the floor. I don’t know when it began, but I realize I’m crying. I’m crying because of how lonely I feel, because my mom is crying, and because I don’t know what my dad meant when he left. I’m so confused, and crying feels like the only thing I can do.

The sound of country music wakes me up. It’s so bright outside. I look at the rainbow clock on my nightstand. I slept until one in the afternoon. It’s a good thing it’s a Sunday.

I get up and use the restroom. I almost forgot what happened yesterday until I passed my parents’ room and saw clothes and furniture everywhere.

My dad left us. Left me.

I go back to my room and crawl back into my bed, reaching for my phone. I forgot to charge it, so the screen remains black when I open it. I wonder if I can keep sleeping for the next two weeks. I don’t want to see anyone.

A couple of hours later, my mom comes into my room. She’s holding a light blue box.

“Hey, honey pie,” she says, sitting on my bed, raking her fingers through my hair. My eyes feel puffy when I look up at her. She has redness around her eyes and nose. Her hair is pulled into a tight ponytail.

“Hi, Mom.”

“How are you feeling? I think you caught a bug. You’ve been in bed all day.” She presses the back of her hand to my forehead. “You’re burning up!”

“I feel fine,” I say, pushing her hand away.

“I got you a gift. Consider it a belated birthday gift.” She hands me the box, and I don’t open it immediately. I know this isn’t for my birthday. When I was about seven years old, I caught on when they’d give me gifts out of nowhere. They’d argue, I’d lock myself in my room, and I’d get a toy. My Barbie dream house is from when my mom burned the Thanksgiving turkey. They got me a hot-pink Coach handbag when my dad got mad and flipped the dining table.

“Open it, honey.” She pushes the box towards me.

I sit up in bed and take the lid off the box. A charm bracelet lies on a white layer of stuffing. It’s beautiful. It has gold chains and little colorful animals. One is a turquoise dolphin, and the other is a green turtle. I love it, and I hate it.

“Thanks, Mom,” I say, swallowing down the sick feeling in my stomach. “I think I did get a stomach bug or something. I don’t feel great.”

“Yeah, just rest, Coco, so that you can be better by tomorrow.” She kisses me on the forehead and takes the bracelet out of the box. She slips it around my wrist and clasps the chain.

I want to cry again, and I pull the covers back over my head as the bracelet jingles with each movement. I don’t know if any day could be worse than the day I found out I no longer had a family.

THREE

TYLER

NOW

A week passed, and I had only seen Reid three times, each time at work. I get it; he is in a new relationship now and wants to spend all his free time with Annika, but I have to admit, I miss my best friend. It makes me think how all my friends I used to have in Auburn Hills are gone. Friends from high school moved away for college, and most didn’t return. Sometimes I’ll see them during the holiday season, but for the most part, Reid is my closest friend. Maybe I can convince Miles and Alyssa to move here. Miles was my best friend in college, and he still lives near Eugene, a few hours from here. We learned to climb together, and we would see each other weekly until I moved back home. We still chat on the phone, and Eugene isn’t too far of a drive, but far enough to put distance between friends. I think Miles and Reid would get along well. I bet if I could get Alyssa, Miles’s wife, on board with moving here, they would. Or I could make an effort to find new friends, but that idea feels too overwhelming.

Reid told me that he and Annika are spending the weekend together again. He mentioned at work yesterday that they’re trying to make up for lost time, and that any moment he doesn’t spend with her feels like time wasted. I can’t help but think back to my conversation on the couch with Chloe. She didn’t know what to do with herself when she wasn’t with her friends. I’m starting to understand that feeling. Over the six months since she’s moved to this tiny town, she’s become one of my closest friends. I find the times when I’m alone without her or Reid or even Annika, it feels too lonely. I don’t want to be left with my own thoughts.

The morning glow shines in through the wooden shutters in my bedroom. I still sleep in the bedroom where I grew up. Even though I am the only one who has lived here for four years, the thought of moving into the main bedroom still hurts too much. I usually keep the door to my parents’ room shut, only ever venturing in there to rifle through storage boxes. Even then, I tend to shut down emotionally the rest of the day after I set foot in there. It doesn’t look the same as when I first moved back. My parents’ friends helped me a lot with getting the house in shape and with putting away so many reminders of them. The contents of their bedroom are mostly boxes stacked along the wall, their mattress bagged up, and the bed disassembled. I gave away most of their other bedroom furniture; it was way too big for the room anyway. I’m not sure what I’ll make of the space; I can’t see myself making it my bedroom even if it does have an attached bathroom. It will always be my parents’ room.

Besides, my room is big enough for what I need. It is just me and my beagle puppy, Scooter. I have been trying to train him to sleep in the lovely wooden crate I got him, but every morning, without fail, I find him under the covers next to me with his head on the pillow.

When I moved back, I took down all the remnants of my adolescence: University of Oregon banners, band posters from Tame Impala and the Steve Miller Band, and random notebooks from high school. I also went shopping for new sheets and linens, which helped the house feel like my place rather than my parents’. These small things allowed me to move forward with the grief. I found that the more I was reminded of my childhood, the more it hurt. A reminder of the wonderful life I had with my parents and a reminder that my life going forward would be absent of them.

Mornings like these, when it is starting to get chilly outside and leaves are turning warm fall shades, I’m reluctant to leave my bed. Especially when Scooter is curled up next to me, his head resting on the pillow beside me like he’s a human. I decided to take the day off today. I didn’t have any clients booked and figured I could take a mental health day. Ever since I joined Parker Wellness as a physical Therapist four years ago, Martin, the owner and Reid’s uncle, has always been understanding when some days are harder than others. Even now, the wave of grief sneaks up on me like a flash flood. I let my eyes fall closed again, and my body lulls into an early-morning nap.

A tapping against my window jolts me awake, and I fly out of bed. I cross my room to the window facing the ranch and pull the blinds up, expecting to find someone trying to break in. But what greets me on the other side of the pane is Lucy the llama. She is tapping her little nose against my window. I open the window, and she looks at me squarely.

“Lucy. It is Saturday. You are allowed to sleep in.” I lift my hand and scratch behind her ear. My parents got Lucy about a year before the accident, so I did not get proper training on how to care for her. My neighbor, Glen, who has several farm animals, gave me a rundown, but I feel like I learn new things every day. Lucy is brilliant. Most of the time, I think she’s teaching me a lesson. I’m not sure how she knows which room was mine, but she never lets me sleep past my alarm by even thirty minutes before tapping on the window.

“All right, Scoot, you heard the lady. It’s time to get up.” I walk back to bed, grabbing the edge of the duvet and fluffing it in the air. Scooter scrambles around the bed and jumps off, darting wildly through the house.

Growing up, my parents had several different kinds of animals on the ranch. Tucked up in the hills, it’s secluded and quiet, and sits on fifty acres land, most of it wooded, save for about 10 acres around the main house with a few structures, grasslands and Lucy’s fenced yard. Right now, though, I have just a few animals in my care. Only Lucy and a handful of ducks roam the fenced-in property. Scooter will run the perimeter and occasionally chase the ducks. In the past, my parents had goats, sheep, and even a cow. Sometimes, they would get in over their head and pass them off to neighbors with more livestock and the structures to hold them. I fixed up the shed for Lucy and the duck pond shelter within the year of moving, so they could withstand the winters here. Nothing too extreme, but we do get snow up here.