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Chapter 7
"It doesn't matter how many different ways you phrase the same words, I'm not going," I say through clenched teeth.
This conversation has gone on for much too long. And gotten nowhere. As soon as I came home from school and saw my parents waiting for me in the living room, I knew this was going to be more than I felt like dealing with today. It's already been a hell of a day, one of my professors telling me that he'd be giving me one more chance to write a paper because the version I'd handed in hadn't earned better than a C. Then I'd noticed mold on the bread of the sandwich I was eating in the campus cafeteria...after I'd already eaten half of it. To top it all off, during my last class, we had a pop quiz I was in no way prepared for.
So, to come home and have my parents tell me they have decided we will be moving at the end of the semester. Well, it just made this already crappy day so much worse.
"Jolie, be reasonable." My mother gives me an exasperated face. "You are certainly not in a position nor the right frame of mind to be living anywhere on your own. Besides, me and your father feel it's what's best for all of us. To move away, start over."
"You mean, for you and Dad to move somewhere where people don't know what happened."
My father's face gets hard then, likely at me hitting the nail right on the head.
"The simple fact is that you will be moving with us," he shouts. "You are simply not mature enough to live on your own or be living on campus."
The same excuse they used when my sister wanted to move to campus, and when I started college, and we tried to convince them that Callie and I would live together and be fine. That we weren't responsible enough, certainly not ready to face the world without their guiding hands. All it meant then, and all it means now, is that they wanted to continue controlling us.
"I'm not mature enough?" I ask, getting angrier by the second. "I'm not mature enough to live on my own, but I was mature enough to be the one holding your child together when she was coming apart at the seams again and again, when you couldn't be bothered to."
"Yes, and we see how well that turned out," he snaps.
I stagger back, a pain rushing through me.
"Harold, take that back right now," my mother demands.
"No, Lori. She needs to hear this. She wants to constantly throw that in our faces in therapy, that we didn't count every one of Callie's tears or notice her every frown, but what she seems to fail to realize is that she was a child trying to handle adult problems. She was incapable of being what Callie needed, too ill prepared to handle what was placed upon her shoulders, too immature,” he emphasizes. “To deal with whatever had corrupted Callie. That is why she failed at saving Callie. That is why Callie isn't here."
A sob leaves me before I can stop it. How can he say that to me? How can he sit here and remove any blame from himself and throw it all upon my shoulders? How can he use Callie’s death as an excuse for me not to be able to break free of them? How can he say Callie was corrupted, like some evil thing was inside of her instead of an unbearable pain?
I rush past him, grabbing my keys from the kitchen counter. My mother shouts my name as I walk to the front door, but I barely hear her over my father's words repeating in my ears again and again. I whip the door open and hurry to my car. My hands are shaking so bad, it takes me three tries to get the key in and start it. My mother is at the window, pounding on the glass, but I pull away.
What can she do? Apologize for my father's words, take away the pain that they caused? He meant them, and I can just picture them sitting around discussing all the ways I failed both them and Callie. It's all too much.
I drive until I have to pull over because I can't see through my tears. And like some sick sort of deja vu, Elijah calls, and it's me who needs him to come meet me this time.
"Elijah," I croak.
"Where are you?" he asks.
"I don't even..." I have to look around and give a dry chuckle when I realize where I am. "Down the street from the high school."
"I'll be right there."
"Thank you," I whisper before hanging up.
I put my head to my steering wheel, trying to push the words away, trying to not let what my parents said affect me the way it is. It's useless. Suddenly, my passenger door opens, and my head snaps up to see Elijah getting into my car.
"What happened?" he inquires.
I shake my head, wondering where to even begin. The beginning, I guess. I tell him about the conversation with my parents, the bad, the badder, and the worst of it. It's not hard to see how he feels from the muscle ticking in his jaw as he listens.
"I know those are your parents and all, but that's such bullshit," he exclaims. "How the hell can they blame you for that? For any of it? Saying you couldn't handle your sister. I mean, shit, you shouldn't have had to."
"I just can't help but feeling like they want to move me as some type of punishment. Like I couldn't save Callie, so I have to uproot my life to fix my mistake or something. For letting their imperfect family be exposed."
"So, what are you gonna do? If they do really move?"
"I have no idea. But I do know I'm not moving with them. No way. I can't take being with them anymore. Their constant watching, their looks of false concern. It's like they're waiting for me to break so they can rush in to save me the way they didn't Callie."
