Shattered (4 page)

I could have easily honked the horn and stopped to talk to her, but I wasn’t sure what to say.  I’d been gone for nine months and the whole reason I left was because she wanted me to.  I waited until she was inside, before driving by.  I parked in the small carport behind the bar, hoping that she wouldn’t see my Jeep.  How was I going to convince the girl that wanted me gone, that she was the reason I couldn’t stay away?

I thought about the last nine months.  When I left Harrington it wasn’t because I wanted to, it was because I needed to.  Whoever said that people go through stages of grief was a fucking moron.  It didn’t come in stages, every single emotion hits you all at one like a fucking hurricane: anger, guilt, shock, denial, bargaining.  All of them take over but acceptance.  That one takes a while.  The night of the accident I was a complete mess.  One minute I’m holding hands with the girl of my dreams and the next I’m standing next to my best friend’s dead body.  My initial reaction was to shut down.  I’d never been good at expressing my emotions, obviously, so I just paced around waiting for help to show up.  I watched as Alyssa crouched down, burying her head on her knees.  She kept looking up at me, waiting for me to comfort her, talk to her anything, but I remained in my head, trying to sort through my own feelings.  I was selfish and stupid.  I screwed up.  That’s why she didn’t want me around anymore.  I should have been there for her.  I should have stepped up and been the rock for her that Garrett had always been for the both of us.  

Garrett had been there for me through some pretty rough times.  My parents weren’t bad people.  I loved them and they loved me, in the you’re my mom and dad, I’m your son kind of way, but they were in their own world, constantly on the move, never sticking around long enough for me to really have a meaningful relationship with them.  When they bought the bar in Harrington, I really thought we were laying down some roots, but as soon as my sister, Kelly, was old enough to look after me, they took off like a bullet from a gun.  Every few months, they’d come back to town and we’d have this big reunion.  Hugs and promises were tossed around and every time I got my hopes up that they were staying.  Then they’d get a call about some big motorcycle ride or an “opportunity that we can’t pass up,” as my dad would put it, and I’d be crushed.  I’d sit in my room for a few days, quietly processing the hurt and anger, until Garrett would show up and convince me that I wasn’t the reason they left. When I finally wised up and took them for what they were, loveable drifters, I quit letting myself get so attached and quit letting myself get emotionally beat up when they left.  That’s why I tried not to let myself get attached to people.  Kelly and Garrett were the only ones that I really let in.  They were the only ones who knew how damaged I truly was.   Turns out, the one thing I was doing to protect myself ended up being the one thing that cost me Alyssa.

Alyssa

“Alyssa Boyd!” My mother’s rage was apparent the moment I walked through the front door.  I hesitantly entered the kitchen and saw her vigorously chopping tomatoes for the dinner she was preparing. I knew she’d heard about me walking out of the graduation rehearsal.

“Mom.” I pulled up a chair and settle down behind the kitchen table.  I purposely selected the furthest seat from my mother in hopes that her by the time her words reached me they would feel less harsh. “Before you start, let me explain.”

She used the large knife blade she was holding to scrape the now mangled bits of tomato pulp into her hand, before throwing them in the large pot behind her on the stove. “Let me explain, Alyssa.” She set the knife down and placed both hands on the island in the center of the kitchen, anchoring herself for the lecture she was about to deliver. “I understand that it’s hard for you to be in the gym, but you can’t keep putting your life on hold.”  My mother was not a warm and loving person, no matter how hard she may have tried.  I remember her putting on a show for the people at the funeral.  She’d put her arms around me and filled my ear with emotionally unattached words of condolence.  I think I even saw her manage to squeeze a tear out.  I wish that her tears were for her only child’s grief at losing her best friend, but I knew they were really just to convince everyone else that she was the perfect mother.

“I know, it’s just…”

“It’s just nothing. Garrett is gone.  I know you miss him, but you need to get it together.”  The tone in her voice held the same expectations of me dealing with it
,
as it had the last time she mentioned Garrett’s name, when she told me “I was an adult” and that “death was just a part of life.”  

I’d never understood how this woman and I shared the same DNA.  She was about as empathetic as a statue. The only things that linked us were physical similarities: dark hair and dark eyes. It was amazing how much my mother and I looked alike.  The only difference was that my mother’s hips had become a little wider over the years.  I’m sure she blamed me for ruining her figure. As she reminded me often, she carried me for nine months and endured eighteen hours of labor to bring me into this world.  Even when I was a child, I never remembered my mother being warm or loving, unless we were in public.  I used to wish for the days that we’d go to the market, where she’d hold my hand, or attended church, when she’d pull me onto her lap, but as soon as we were home it all ended.   All I remembered was her constant desire for adulation.  I used to be tempted to ask her what made her this way, but as the years went by, I found that I didn’t really care.  I wasn’t going to waste my feelings on a woman who didn’t seem to have any for me.

“You are not going to skip your graduation.  Do you know what the town will say if you aren’t there?  This family has an image to uphold.”

“An image?! Really, Mom!” Of course she only cared about the way it would look to the town if I didn’t go to my graduation.  We were the Boyds.  The perfect little farm family.  Heaven forbid, anyone in this town believe that we were not like the Rockwell portrayal of a hardworking, good Christian family that she’d worked her entire married life to ensure.  What she was really trying to say was, “I can’t have people thinking I’m not the superior wife and mother I pretend to be when I walk down the street.”

“Yes, Alyssa.  This is not just about you.  Your father works very hard. So do I!”

I almost laughed at that one.  What a hard life you live, mother.  Grocery shopping and making lunch every day for my father and the two hired hands was really freakin’ stressful.  Oh, and let’s not forget, the gallon jug of sweet tea that she slaved over before driving it out to my father in the fields.  “You think I like feeling this way?  I hate not being able to walk into the gym without having a meltdown!”

“Do not raise your voice again.” Her hand slapped off the counter top. Then the five words that I knew were eventually going to come out of her mouth made their appearance. “Are you taking your medication?”

“Ugh!” I closed my eyes and pinned my lips so as not to let any foul words spew out of my mouth.  The medication in question was the prescription that my doctor had given me the day after Garrett’s funeral.  My mother hauled me into his office when I couldn’t stop crying.  I knew she wasn’t really worried about me.  I was pretty sure that she was actually allergic to tears.  I’m sure the one she squeezed out at Garrett’s funeral took every ounce of her will to summon.  I took that medication for one week before deciding that I’d rather feel everything than nothing at all.  The person I was off the meds was nothing compared to the zombie-like existence I led while on them. “Yes,” I lied.

“Well, we need to get your dosage adjusted.”  She stated flatly.  As if watching a few episodes of
gray’s Anatomy
qualified her to write prescriptions, and I loved the way she said “we” as if she was going to be taking them too.  “I’ll call the doctor in the morning.”

“No.” I shook the urge to run out of the room and gathered myself.  “I’ll be fine.  I’ll go to graduation.”

“Good.”  I must have satisfied her.  I stood to walk out of the room, trying to get away from her icy stare.  “If this is just about Garrett,” she said returning to her work, “then it’s time to heal, but if this is about the Vaughn boy, remember, he left you Alyssa.  You shouldn’t be wasting your energy on him.”

I pursed my lips and took in a deep breath through my nose.  Silently, I left the room, never letting her see the tear that fell from the corner of my eye.

The day after Garrett’s funeral, my mom and I had just returned from the doctor’s office and I was completely loaded down with a narcotic cocktail of anti-depressants and sedatives. I knew that I still felt sad, but I was so out of it that I couldn’t focus on the grief or guilt that was now being bottled up inside of me.  That was the last day I saw Jesse Vaughn.  He came by my house.  I saw him through the living room window, as I sat on the couch in my medically induced fog.  He talked to my mother on the front porch and then just walked away.  He never even bothered to come inside.  Apparently, he couldn’t stand to look at me.  I was the reason that he wasn’t in that truck. I was the reason that neither of us were.  Maybe the guilt of not being with Garrett when he drove over that hill on County 5 was too much.  Maybe he would have seen the combine tractor that was coming from the opposite direction.  Maybe he could have told Garrett to stop and wait for it to pass.  Maybe he blamed me just as much as I blamed myself.

It was seven o’clock on the dot, when Jesse and Garrett pulled in my driveway. I lived somewhere in the middle of the route between Jesse’s house in-town and Garrett’s house out in the country.  We always met up at my house. The plan was, we’d leave Jesse’s Jeep at my house and ride over to Smolder’s together in Garrett’s truck.

I bounced out the front door, eager to see them. “Hey boys!”  I took in the sight of my two favorite people in the world.  Both in jeans that fit them just right.  Garrett was wearing a pearl-button snap, plaid short-sleeved shirt and the same worn out ball cap that he’d had since childhood. Jesse was wearing his favorite Lynard Skynard t-shirt.  The way it pulled across his, lean muscular chest was perfection.  Garrett had shot past Jesse in the height department, but Jesse and he had both filled out as they grown from the boys I remembered, into the men that stood before me.   They were still night and day.  Garrett’s fair complexion and light eyes, weren’t nearly as enticing as Jesse’s coal-colored hair and green eyes.

 I’d spent the afternoon getting all dolled up.  I had on a lacy pink tank top and my frayed cut-offs with my cowboy boots. I was showing off just enough of my tan legs for them to smile when they saw me.

“You look great, Lyss!” Garrett smiled.

“Thanks!”  I wasn’t trying to look cute for everybody at the party.  The one person I was trying to impress was standing right there in my driveway.  I’m not sure exactly when it happened, but, sometime that summer, I started looking at Jesse as more than just my friend.  When we were together I’d find myself staring at him, studying his every move to the point where I knew what he was going to do or say before he did it.  When we weren’t together it was the worst.  I constantly wondered who he was with or what he was doing.  I’d see his face every time I closed my eyes.  The creases that formed around his eyes when he laughed.  The way he way he traced his finger along the edge of his stubble-covered jaw when he was thinking. The small line that formed on his forehead when he was worried about something.  He was everything I thought about, but I couldn’t risk our friendship over a silly schoolgirl crush.  I convinced myself it was all one-sided, until the tiniest things started to catch my attention.  The way he gently squeezed my hand to pull me up into Garrett’s truck.  The way he rested his hand on mine when I was hanging onto him on the back of a four-wheeler.  The cute little smiles and stolen glances that he thought I didn‘t see.  Jesse and I were friends, we hung out all the time, but he was still hard to read.  Garrett never had a problem expressing his emotions.  Jesse was still reserved and didn’t really share much about the way he was feeling.

“You really do.”  Jesse eyed me up and down as bit his bottom lip.

The simple action of his mouth, caused the butterflies in my stomach to take flight.  I was overcome with the desire to kiss him, or better yet, have him kiss me.  I giggled like the girls did back in 7
th
grade when Jesse would talk to them. “Thanks,” I mumbled in my stupor.  I’d seen him bite his lip a few times that summer and I liked to think he did it because he was also thinking about what our lips would feel like if we pressed them together.  

“All right, you two ready to go?” Garrett chuckled before climbing back into his truck.  Jesse started to make his way over to the passenger side.

This was my chance.  My chance to get Jesse alone for a moment.  To tell him that I felt something more than just friendship for him. “Shit!” I placed my hands on my hips.  “I forgot my purse inside.”  I played it up tossing my hands in the air.  They both looked at me a little confused.  They knew I never carried a purse and I would have bet that they both knew I had a $20 bill and tube of lip gloss in my pocket.  Those were my staples, the only things I ever took with me. “Hey Jess, why don’t you and I just ride over together after I run inside and grab it? Go ahead, Garrett. You don’t wanna miss anything.”  I waited for a response.  The two boys looked at each other, as if using some telepathic communication.  They’d always been able to tell what the other was thinking from a single look.  It always aggravated me that I wasn’t in on their unspoken communication.   They smiled.

“Sounds good! I’ll see you there!”  Garrett’s truck roared to life and he quickly turned it around, the howl of his over the top exhaust system bellowing.

Jesse and I just stood there, staring at each other, unsure of what to do.  It was the first time that we’d been alone since the new developments in our relationship. A breeze blew a few strands of hair into my eyes, abruptly ending our gaze. “You need to grab your purse?”  Jesse asked.