Summer's Desire (5 page)

This time he stopped calling.

Then he waited and waited for his Sunny,
and the more he waited in vain, the more remote he grew. His heart, that Summer
had awakened, was gradually engulfed by the cold spreading inside him once again.
Finally it was no more than a block of ice.

* * *

A week after the one-year anniversary of
Summer's departure, on a Friday evening at the beginning of March, fourteen-year-old
Seth stopped by the Anderson residence. Jessica, who was waiting for him,
opened the door right away, gave him her wide smile, then let her expression
turn sad.

"I'm sorry, Seth. There's been no
letter," she told him softly.

His face turned to stone, then he spun
around without a word and left. He never came back again.

That entire year, his friends had been
inviting him to parties, wheedling and taunting him to go, but he'd always declined.
Without Summer in his life, without having once heard from her, he had been in
no mood to party.

But that evening after leaving Jessica,
for the first time Seth didn't refuse his friends.

He went to his first party and got drunk
on cheap booze. Though mostly numbed by the alcohol in his system, he noticed
with a weird detachment that the pain inside him hadn't been numbed at all. So
he drank some more and fucked a girl for the first time. When he was done with the
girl, he realized he didn't even remember her name.

The pain was still there, shredding and
throbbing, and he concluded resignedly that it probably always would be. But he
would bury it deep, along with his memories of
her
.

It was time to say goodbye to his Sunny.

Forever.

Part II

Chapter 4

Summer

In the last five years since leaving
Rockford, I have been in and out of seventeen foster homes. My night terrors
have gotten worse with each year, and the most sleep I can get at night is five
hours, if I'm lucky. I'm constantly tired, moving like a zombie through my
hellish life.

No matter how exhausted I am, I can't sleep
during the day. If I try, I just lie there but never manage to drift off. I
can't take sleeping pills either. I've tried that, and it's true they make me
sleep for eight hours straight. But they also stop me from waking up from my
nightmares, which messes with my sanity.

Not that, were you to ask them, would any
of my former fosters call me sane.

I haven't been able to stop my night
terrors, but I have been able to stop my nightmare-induced cries. Mostly. I
sometimes go entire months without the screaming episodes—the longest has been seven
months (which, not coincidentally, is also the longest I've stayed with the
same foster family).

But then after some time, I inevitably
get
those
nightmares again—the ones that are actually memories. The ones
in which I see my parents dying and I see
him
walking toward me, holding
the knife that's dripping with my parents' blood... and then the knife is in
my
hand... And my head implodes, and I wake up amid such awful shrieks escaping my
throat that even I feel aghast.

All my fosters were horrified at my
screams; after at most three such episodes, they moved heaven and earth to get
me out of their homes, away from them and their families. Once, when I stayed
with this deeply religious couple, they even thought I was possessed.

I was in their house for less than three
weeks.

I've seen a total of six psychiatrists—mostly
during my interim stays in group homes in-between foster placements—but that
hasn't helped me either. The first shrink made me talk about the blood-soaked
night when I lost my parents, claiming that, in order for me to get better, I
needed to "confront my past" and "work through it". Well,
his brand of therapy not only didn't help me "get better" but it
actually triggered some of the worst night terrors I've ever had.

Needless to say, after that I learned to
keep my mouth shut with the other shrinks.

My antics have driven tetchy Ms. Walker,
my social worker for the last three-and-a-half years, to the brink of despair.
I kind of feel sorry for her, actually. After I arrived up north five years
ago, I changed maybe five caseworkers in the first year and a half: once they
got acquainted with my special brand of trouble-making, they usually couldn't
get rid of me fast enough. Eventually my case file landed on Ms. Walker's desk—and
then, I think, she was just stuck with me.

I mean, I'm sure that after her first
months shackled with me she had to have tried lots of times to pass my case to
someone else. But I was already too infamous in her circle, most likely—not
surprisingly, all the local caseworkers had heard of me—so it must be that
nobody fell into her trap. At any rate, in her unfortunate tenure as my social
worker, Ms. Walker has kept me fairly close to her in the placements she got me.

Until now.

After I was booted out of my last home
(the foster mother called Ms. Walker in the middle of the night, crying
hysterically after I almost brought the house down with my nightmare-driven
screams), there was something different about Ms. Walker, in the way she looked
at me. She seemed really... reflective. Alarmingly so.

Then three weeks later—four days ago—she
called and told me she had found my next placement. 

Somewhere far away.

And so it's been five years. Seventeen
foster placements. And zero attachments. In this, I've kept the vow I made to
myself after Seth's betrayal. I haven't gotten close to anyone all these years:
not to any of my fosters and not to any of my peers in school. I haven't let
anyone in.

Ms. Walker calls my attitude "extreme
anti-sociability". I call it self-preservation. With the number of times
I've moved, it would have been beyond foolish to try and build relationships
when they could only ever be temporary. Besides, I'm too much of a coward to
let myself care about someone again and thus hand them the power to hurt me.

I don't want to miss anyone else, I
don't want to hurt because of anyone else. I have enough on my plate still
missing Seth every day even though more than five years have passed since I
last saw him. The wound he's inflicted by abandoning me is still raw.

But I carry the happy memories of him as
well—they are what has helped me hold on to my sanity all this time. So I'm
grateful to him for granting me those memories. And I still wear the heart
necklace he gave me for my tenth birthday.

* * *

I've been in the car for the last four
hours; my new foster father came to pick me up and is now driving me to my next
placement. At the beginning of the ride he tried for some light conversation,
but as I didn't oblige him, he quickly gave up. Neither of us has spoken in
approximately 3 hours and 55 minutes. I'm listening to my music player, so I
don't care.

To be honest, I can't say there's much I
do
care about. Like for example, I don't care where my new foster is
taking me; one place is the same as any other and it's not like I'll stay for
long. The foster doesn't realize this yet—he seems to be a do-gooder, and I'm
almost positive he has some crazy idea of helping me. Yeah right! I'm beyond
help, beyond salvation.

The foster will figure this out soon
enough too, though maybe it'll take him longer than it's taken others. He told
me he's a doctor, and doctors seem to have this pesky obsession with saving
people. Oh well, he'll eventually get over it in my case.

I casually look out my window and what I
see drains the blood from my face. For an awful moment I fear that, even
sitting down, I'm going to faint for the first time in my life.

We've entered town limits, and the sign
I just read proclaimed, in bold letters:

Rockford, Michigan

Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!
This can't be, oh
God, this simply cannot be! Not Rockford. Any place in Michigan, but not
Rockford. I'm frozen with horror.

And then, though I would have thought it
impossible a few moments ago, things get worse, for the foster's car turns into
a familiar street and, half a minute later, stops in the driveway of a house I
remember far too well.

I somehow manage to stagger out of the
car. Incredibly, I even find my voice. "Wh... What did you say... your
name was?"

The foster, who is at this moment taking
my one battered suitcase out of the trunk, gives me a mildly annoyed look.
Yeah, I realize I just made it glaringly obvious that I didn't pay attention earlier
today when he introduced himself and told me about his family. But
please
,
just answer the question already!

"I am Greg Anderson, but you may
call me Greg, and my wife is Louise. We live with our daughter Jessica—she is a
wonderful girl, and I am certain that the two of you will become great friends.
She is eighteen and a Senior, so she is a grade above you, but you will be attending
the same high school."

I know it's a stupid question—I mean,
he's stopped in front of
this
house, and he's now walking with my suitcase
toward
this
house's entrance, with me trailing in a daze behind him—but
I have to ask.

"So your family lives here? In
this
house?"

He glances at me with a perplexed expression,
maybe questioning my mental health. Yeah, buddy, you and me both.

"Why, yes, of course. We live
here."

No. No!
Oh God, I've
never even considered that Seth could have moved out of his Grandma's home.
Suddenly, I'm deathly afraid of another thing I've never considered.

"How long have you lived
here?" I whisper.

He stops at the door, groaning morosely.
"I am terrible at remembering dates. But let me see... It is the middle of
April now, so I believe it must be approximately... four years? Yes, I seem to
remember that we moved during spring. We purchased the house from a Janice...
Lewton, I believe."

Janice Lewis, Seth's Mom. Only four
years ago. So Seth still lived in this house for a whole entire year after I
left. I'm crushed.

Greg opens the door, and I follow him
inside.

* * *

I'm alone at last, curled in a fetal
position on the bed in my room. It's not the same room in which I used to stay five
years ago—that one belongs to Jessica now.

The moment I stepped inside the house, I
shook myself from my numbness and started to pay attention, particularly when I
was given the grand tour.

Seth's former bedroom, the largest in
the house, is occupied by the fosters. Grandma's former bedroom on the first
floor doesn't exist anymore—they've used the space to expand the kitchen and
create a stylish dining room. But even beyond that, there's a great deal that's
different now about this house where, except for the time with my parents, I
spent the happiest years of my life.

The ancient, comforting furniture I
remember is all gone, replaced by modern, artsy new furniture. The walls have
been repainted from their previous warm tones to neutral ones, the floors are polished
hardwood, the kitchen appliances stainless steel. The fabulously redone bathrooms
are sparkling.

The house has never looked better. It
has also, in my opinion, never looked more soulless. I feel as if it's not a
home anymore, but a showplace.

I ache for the loss of this treasured
piece of my history, but at the same time I'm relieved. There's nothing left
here to remind me of my time with Seth and Grandma.

I also paid attention to the house's current
owners, driven by a mild curiosity about the people who bought and gutted my
childhood home.

Greg seems nice enough, I guess, in a
rather bland way. He's laid-back and casual, not necessarily how I would have
pictured a well-off surgeon. But then again, it's not like I've personally met
a great many surgeons, so I'm trying to keep an open mind.

Though after tonight I doubt that I can
keep an open mind about his wife, Louise. She appears, at least in outward
behavior, Greg's complete opposite. She's urbane and voluble (though not necessarily
eloquent) and, I think, quite ruthless in her pursuits. She seems to take great
pains with her appearance: her hair, makeup, nails, clothes, everything; all
very fashionable. Usually, I admire elegant women and Louise actually reminds
me a little of Ms. Walker in that regard. Only, unlike my long-suffering social
worker, Louise gave me the impression that she's
all
about the surface of
things. Which I don't admire at all.

Also, I think she didn't really want me
here—that was apparently Greg's idea—but she seems to have resigned herself to
my presence nevertheless.

The daughter, on the other hand... The
moment I was introduced to her and she heard my name, her face twisted into a grimace
of horror and she looked at me as if she wanted to gouge my eyes out. It's the
first time in my life that someone's loathed me at first sight. I mean, it's
true that pretty girls like Jessica never seem to like me much, but in the last
five years I've tried to stay invisible, so I've never found myself on the
receiving end of so much hatred as Jessica showed me tonight.