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Sheneededher mom.
When Maybelle knocked on the front door, she didn’tthink about what she’d say, what she’d do. But when Chelsea opened the door Maybelle instantly collapsed. She fell into Chelsea’s arms and let the pain and heartbreak take control. She wailed, she cried, and she screamed for what might have been hours, maybe even years.
Chelsea fell to the floor with her, and held Maybelle in her arms, to her chest, barely keeping her together as she crumbled and tore at the seams.
“Shh shh, you’re safe. You’ll be ok, May. I’m here, you are safe.” Chelsea hushed softly into Maybelle’s hair, tightening her embrace. But she wasn’t ok. She may never be ok again.
At some point, Chelsea had lured Maybelle to the couch, laying her down so her head rested on Chelsea’s lap. Maybelle’s tears were heavy and drowning as they soaked Chelsea’s pant legs. Chelsea didn’t say anything else except for the gentle soothing words, and combed her fingers through Maybelle’s hair as she broke.
She sobbed herself to sleep. Maybelle was unaware of when she had finally given into exhaustion, but she welcomed the numb, painless void.
She woke the next day before the sun had fully risen with a skull crushing migraine, eyes swollen. Chelsea had remained by her side, sleeping in the armchair next to her. Maybelle had arrived in the deep hours of the night, but Chelsea had been there, and there she stayed, even now.
It was early, around the time Maybelle and Trey would have been meeting for their walk— she didn’t want to walk, she didn’t want to run. Maybelle wanted to just sleep. She wanted to fade off into oblivion, never to wake again.
Maybelle didn’t speak, didn’t leave the couch that whole day, dozing in and out of consciousness. Chelsea tried to gently coax her in to eating, talking, or calling Trey but Maybelle was numb.
Nothing mattered.
Nothing felt right.
Liam should be there talking to Trey. Her mom should be there, holding her as she cried. But they were gone, and she was still here.
A full day and night passed.
Maybelle wanted to go home, while the Turner house now felt like a home, she wanted to be where she could feel Liam and her mom.
“Are you sure you’re going to be alright?” Chelsea asked as she handed Maybelle a bag of snacks, she had put together for her, “I plan to come over and check on you every day.” Chelsea explained with a sad smile.
Maybelle accepted the bag, nodding, “Thank you Chelsea. That’s fine but please don’t—”
Chelsea put a hand up in front of Maybelle, “I promise. I won’t tell anyone where you are until you are ready.”
That was a week ago.
When Maybelle arrived at her family’s home, she was sick. Sick of the dirty sight, the layers of dust and neglect. She wanted to scream in pain for the house her mother built, the home she made for them all by herself, and she might have, she couldn’t quite remember. Her days and memories were blurring together, creating a mess of emotions in her brain. To keep herself upright, from falling apart completely, losing herself to the confusion and depression, Maybelle, instead, lost herself in cleaning, and repairing.
It was the best way she knew how to say sorry to her family for just now giving a shit about their deaths, for just now remembering that they were a significant piece in her story, and that their absence left a gaping, fatal hole in her heart.
For days Maybelle cleaned from the time she woke up, until it was long past nighttime hours, nearing morning. Shedusted, swept, mopped, vacuumed, organized, and tidied. Using the busyness to disassociate from it all.
When she slept, she slept in her mother’s bed, clutching to the pillows and blankets desperately as she sobbed herself to sleep.
Then the nightmares started, the flash of red and blue lights. Liam’s heavy, choked breathing, Maybelle holding Stephanie’s limp hand. Maybelle couldn’t recall the whole accident, but more and more became clearer to her in her nightmares and resurfacing memories. Reminding her of the terror, the fear before she had taken the plunge into a year of sleep.
By the end of the week, the house was finally clean, the air was clear of debris and smelling of an old candle Maybelle salvaged from her mother’s collection that had been stored under her bed. Apples, maple, and cinnamon. Maybelle breathed the scent deeply into her lungs and she didn’t cry.
She was finally home.
That lonely afternoon, Maybelle tiptoed to Liam’s room, imagining she could hear his animalistic snores echoing down the hall as she approached. She had cleaned his room a couple days prior, absolutely traumatized by the amount of stale, stiff socks she found under his bed partnered by a couple explicit magazines and bottle of lotion. Maybelle had the fleeting, evil hope that if Liam was watching he was cringing with humiliation and shame as she tossed the mutilated articles of clothing and revealing images.
Thankfully, her respect for her teen brother was partly restored when Maybelle organized his desk finding a list of goals he had written out on a scrap paper torn from an opened bell work journal from English class. Liam had titled the goal prompt at the top of the slightly soiled paper that had lines from being folded, unfolded, and folded again.
My goals
-Become the star quarterback for UCLA
-Get Penny Howell to finally go out with me
