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I didn’t want to live the rest of my life trying to get the same feeling I’d had in high school; like an addict trying to replicate the first high they’d ever had.
More often than not, people who try to replicate these experiences fail.
I’d watched while so many had rushed about their new lives, trying to live up to being the captain of the football team or head cheerleader. Things that had been easy in high school, and then they realized looking out at the world, that none of it mattered.
Especially if you weren’t going to college. If all you planned on doing was finding a man and getting married. If all your hopes and dreams were based on being a stay at home wife and mother. You tended to live out the joys and accomplishments of your past, instead of your future.
That was never something I wanted.
My hopes and dreams were bigger. In my mind, they were better. Even if I had to give up what had been the love of my young life.
Until they all came crashing down around me.
* * *
“This is good,”I moan, taking a bite of the chili and cornbread my dad has placed in front of me. “I haven’t had food like this in way too long.”
“You haven’t been home in way too long,” he looks over with a raised eyebrow.
“I know,” I duck my head. My ex-fiance wasn’t a fan of Blizzard Bluff. He’d thought it was too simple, too remote, and he never wanted to come here. Instead of insisting, I’d gone along with him, because I’d thought I was too good for the town I’d grown up in. Not coming home aligned with my fears of living in the past. Although I could see that it hurt my parents, I still refused to give in. Now I’m realizing how short-sighted those thoughts were. “I know I hurt you all by not coming home much, and I promise to correct that behavior.”
“We’ve missed you,” Mom reaches over, grabbing my hand in hers. “We understood, even if you weren’t completely honest with me. I knowhethought we were below him, that our home wasn’t up to his standards, and Blizzard Bluff wasn’t where he saw himself being in the future. If it was what made you happy then we were willing to deal with it. Whatever it took, but now that we know he wasn’t the man you thought he was, the man we thought he was, we’re so glad you came home.”
Surprisingly I've missed this place too, but the words hang on the back of my throat. I can't seem to push them past the lump that's taken up residence. In trying to keep myself from being the type of person who didn't want to peak in high school, I've somehow limited myself to being away from my hometown. Maybe I've even done it to the detriment of what my life could be. I'm beginning to wonder if I had come home, would I have saved myself what just happened to me? I'll never know, but what I do know, is I'll never keep myself away from Blizzard Bluff once more. "It won't happen again."
She smiles, her lips curling at the edges. It reaches her eyes and for just a moment, I can forget about all the devastation my failed wedding has caused. Instead of focusing on all the things that have gone wrong, I can focus on what’s right.
Like what my next few days look like. “I’m still staying at the cabin, right? Maggie’s okay with that? I’ll be home for Christmas,” I rush to reassure them. “I just need some time on my own, in a place that I can feel comfortable, without expectations of being strong. I need to fall apart.”
“We can be there to help pick you back up,” Mom insists.
“Teenage me would’ve loved that, but adult me needs to figure this out on her own. She needs to lick her wounds and find out who the hell she is without Camden.”
Her shoulders fall slightly. “Maggie is fine with you staying as long as you need to. She’s got someone going to check it out in the event of what may be a huge storm. They’re calling for either the storm of the century, or nothing. You know how it is.”
I do. It's been this way every single year. It's always the same, but the results can be different. Kind of like how life is, but I'm ready to face it.
No matter what it is.
CHAPTERFIVE
LUCAS
Layingin bed the next morning, I read the forecast. It’s the first thing I do after waking up every day. Partially to try and prepare myself for what I’ll be facing. It’s hard day in and day out to go out in the heat, or cold in this case and work my ass off knowing we’re barely making it. It’s enough to drive me crazy, but I have no choice. I have to keep going. As I read a weather alert, I groan loudly. There seems to be more confidence a big storm will be coming. Up to a foot of snow, with freezing temps, and very high winds. Which means there will be even more work after it goes through. I’m already exhausted, and now it’s just going to get worse.
I dig the heel of my hands into my eyes, pressing deep and hard. There’s little hope it’ll take care of the stinging, of the exhaustion that seeps into my bones.
The tiredness that seems to permeate every piece of my day. I'm drowning under the pressure of keeping my family together. Or maybe it's depression.
Christmas being next week isn’t helping matters.
Since my Dad died, I haven’t found joy in hardly anything, much less the holidays. It’d been a progressive cancer with him. Twice he’d gone into remission, but it’d come back with a vengeance. There had even been years when he’d been able to work with me, but in the end it’d ravaged him and his body.
The man who lay in the casket wasn’t anything like the man who’d carried me on his shoulders when I was a kid.
Six months of devastation later, I'm struggling to see when I might be ready to come out of this darkness.
Desperately I wish for something, anything to save me. Recently I thought about a dog, but I’m not here enough, and I’d need to train it in order to take it with me on job sites. So for now, it’s the alcohol that keeps the darkness under control. Although I know I won’t be able to use that excuse for long. As I sit on the edge of my bed, the phone rings.
