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"Is everything going to be okay when you get home?" he hesitantly asks.
"Is it ever?" Worry enters his eyes as I stand from the table. "I'll be okay. I always am."
"Yeah. But it's also okay not to be."
"I know."
I kiss him before going back to his room to get my heels and purse.
"Good bye Miss Louise," I say as I reach the living room.
"Oh, none of that Miss stuff, just Louise." She smiles. "I'll see you soon I'm sure. And that is a gorgeous dress."
"Thank you."
"I'm gonna drive her home," Elijah tells her.
"I'll be right here when you get back. In a food coma."
When Elijah pulls up to my house, I see my father's car is gone, and I’m grateful I at least only have to deal with one parent instead of two when I go in.
"Text me when you're on your break," Elijah says.
"I will. Thank you for dinner, breakfast, and everything in between."
"Especially the everything in between." He grins, leaning over to meet my lips.
I get out and wave before going into my house.
Sadness sweeps over me the moment I step over the threshold. The coldness of this house seeps into my bones. The loneliness surrounds me and the stark difference of the house I just came from and the house I now stand in are so prominent it hurts. The absence of the joy, the laughter, even the awkwardness I felt in the kitchen are all so evident here. It makes me want to run right back out the door.
I expect to find my mother on the couch, back straight, waiting for me with a stern look of disapproval on her face. But she's not there. Hoping I can make it to my room and shut the door without her even knowing I'm home, I take off my heels and begin to tiptoe down the hallway. I stop dead in my tracks when I see her sitting on the end of Callie's bed. Her hand caressing the covers like they are her daughter herself. It turns my stomach to watch her do it.
"Did you think of how we would feel at all when you stayed out all night again?" she quietly asks.
I don't respond because, no I didn't think about them at all. Nor did I want to. She finally looks from the covers to me, eyes red, face haggard. She only stares at me for a second though before shaking her head and letting her gaze fall back to the bed.
"Callie never stayed out all night. She was our good girl."
Maybe her words shouldn't send a wave of rage rushing over me. She's right, Callie never spent the night out anywhere. But the way she says it, as if the reasons that kept Callie from actually living her life should be something I should aspire to, it makes me more angry than I'm sure she intended to. I take a single step into Callie's room, body feeling like it's practically vibrating at this point.
"You're right," I say through clenched teeth. "Because Callie barely ever left that bed for anything other than school. But somehow you never noticed that. You never noticed that she didn't shower for days, that her hair was in knots because she couldn't even gather up the energy to comb it. In fact, if you move back just a little, you'll begin to feel the indent in the mattress from where she always laid. The indent her body left in the mattress from how many hours she stayed in the exact same spot, silent, staring at nothing. And all her mother and father told her was to brush it off, to get a little fresh air and she'd feel better, to stop being so dramatic. All her mother and..."
"Stop it!" my mother shouts.
I shake my head and walk away. Slamming my door behind me, I let my heels drop to the floor beside me and bang the back of my head against the door. I want to scream so bad, to yell until my throat is hoarse and raw, but I know that emotion will not be tolerated in this house. It never was. And whereas before I was told to get a hold of myself, control my feelings, now I'd end up in another family session. My mother is probably already calling the therapist right now after what I said in Callie's room.
Mad at what my mother said, and that my happiness from being with Elijah this morning is ruined, I toss my purse across the room and walk over to the closet to pull my uniform off the hanger. Throwing it on the end of my bed, I all but run from my room to the bathroom, not wanting another encounter with my mother before I leave.
I have to sit in the shower, the cold of the tiles biting into my skin when I lean back and let the too hot water pour over me. It helps me to convince myself that I'm not crying, that only water runs down my face instead of the tears I know are there. I tuck my lips into my mouth to hold in the sob that tries to leave, taking a deep breath and quickly letting it out with a shudder.
Even if my parents weren't leaving, I need to leave here, get away from them. I need to escapethis house of memories that feel too much to bear. Some good, some bad, but now all corroded and being tainted more and more with each day I have to spend here with my parents. I can't do it anymore.
I'm pulling my T-shirt over my head when my phone vibrates in my purse. A weight moves off of my heart when I see it's a text from Elijah.
Elijah: Is it normal to miss you this much already?
I take a deep breath, and this time is doesn't come out in a shudder. It doesn't hurt as much.
Me: It must be normal because I'm already wishing I was back at your house, in your arms.
Elijah: Well then, we'll have to do something about that, sooner rather than later.
And just like that, my world doesn't seem quite so dark anymore.
