DREAMS of 18 Page 9

  “And most of all, you’re not an alleged anything,” I finish just as fiercely, turning so I’m facing him.

  “Yeah? It was in the paper. It must be true,” he says sarcastically, eyes on the road.

  And that just totally blows me up.

  I get so angry on his behalf. So rage-y that I can’t stop from raising my voice and fisting my hands on the seat.

  “Fuck the paper, okay? Fuck everyone. Fuck every single person who says that about you. It was my fault. Mine. All of it. I made a stupid drunken mistake and you had to pay the price for it. It’s not –”

  I almost bite my tongue when the truck comes to a violently abrupt stop. Despite wearing the seat belt, my body shoots forward and jerks against the strap.

  The pain’s so sharp that all I can do is gasp, without being able to make a sound.

  “Get out.”

  Still gasping painfully and rubbing my chest, I look at him. “What?”

  He clicks off his seat belt; the rustle of it snapping back is loud, louder than anything I’ve heard tonight, before facing me.

  He not only faces me, he comes closer to me. But not by sliding toward me on the seat – that would’ve been less scary for some reason.

  He comes closer by leaning, looming, hanging over me.

  He tips his head softly, pointing at something, but his eyes are on me. “You see that?”

  His intimate voice makes me tremble. The interior of the cab is barely lit up by the overhead light, turning the air thick and cozy.

  It’s hard to look away from him. But still, I do it.

  It’s a sign, neon green, on the side of the road, announcing our arrival at his town, Pike’s Peak. I passed it on my way over.

  I’m confused.

  Why are we here?

  It’s a deserted area, miles away from the downtown we were in. How long have we been driving for?

  I shift my gaze back to him. “Yes?”

  “I want you to get out of the truck and walk up to it,” he says, again in that intimate tone of his.

  “Why?” I ask, warily.

  “And when you reach it, I want you to keep walking.” He pauses but he’s not finished; I can feel it. “I want you to walk until you get out of this town, this county. This state.” Another pause. “I want you to walk until you get back to where you came from. Do you understand?”

  “B-but I –”

  “I want you to walk.”

  Everything he’s said, he’s done it in a calm way. So, so calm that it’s deadly and chilling. And so opposite of what I’m feeling right now.

  Frantic.

  That’s what I am. That’s how I’m doing things.

  Frantically, I look at the sign. Frantically, I’m dragging in breaths and looking back at him.

  “Mr. Edwards, I know you’re mad. I know that. T-that’s why I came. I wanted to apologize and –”

  “I know why you came,” he interrupts – again calmly. “You came because of your stupid drunken mistake, isn’t it?”

  I’m this close to wheezing, this close to passing the fuck out with how fast my heart’s beating. But somehow, I manage to nod.

  “You came because I paid for it. For your mistake.”

  I give him another nod.

  “So you think I want your apology, isn’t that it? You think that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now, let me tell you what I think, yeah? You want to know what I think when I look at you?”

  God, why’s he asking me?

  It makes everything doubly dangerous and scary. Like I have a choice. I can tell him no and he won’t tell me.

  But I’m never going to do that. I’m never going to tell him no.

  I’m going to take whatever he gives me.

  I smother my Audrey Hepburn sunglasses between my hands and nod. “What?”

  At my small voice, his calm breaks. The hand he has on the wheel flexes and I prepare myself.

  “When I look at you, Violet, I think about the night that changed my life. Everyone has that moment. When things change. The moment that you remember for the rest of your life. The moment you think about for the rest of your life. You are that moment for me.”

  He takes another pause here like he’s digging out words from somewhere deep inside his soul. Words that he probably wanted to say for a long time but never got the chance to.

  Words that I know are going to break apart what little heart I have left.

  And then, he proves me right.

  “You. A teenage girl who stunk of a thousand-dollar rum. You are my moment. A girl who ruined my life. That’s what I think about. I think about my lost peace of mind. The peace that you took from me. I think about the shitshow my life has become. I think about how the fuck to forget you. And I think about how no matter what I do, I never will. Because you’re a nightmare that’s goddamn unforgettable.”

  I scrunch my eyes closed as his stare, his anger, his words burn me.

  “So I don’t want your apology. I don’t want you to be here for me, understand? I want you to leave. I want you to get the fuck out of this town and never come back.”

  He looks like a towering mountain right now, his shoulders stretched out in front of the window, his chest heaving, his thighs sprawled.

  Or maybe a volcano that seems to be on the verge of exploding.

  Because of me.

  His nightmare.

  “Okay,” I whisper, nodding.

  I grab my bag, open the door and hop down, all in one breath, and I do what he says.

  Shutting the door behind me, I walk to the sign and dump my hobo by it. With my back turned, I squat down and open the zipper.

  I root around the hobo for a while, not sure what I’m looking for. Not sure what the fuck I’m even doing.

  A few minutes later, I hear the rev of his truck, the screech of his tires as he probably backs up, turns around and leaves me.

  All alone on the side of the road.

  I wanna cry. I wanna cover my face with my hands and sob into them until I don’t have any tears left in me.

  But I’m not gonna do that.

  I’m not gonna cry over something I already knew in my heart of hearts.

  I knew he hated me.

  I knew he was angry and furious and seething.

  I expected it.

  What I didn’t expect was the fact that I’d become his nightmare.

  In all the dreams I’ve had about Mr. Edwards, I never once thought that. I never thought I’d ruin his life and steal his peace.

  But it’s okay.

  I’m here to fix it. I’m here to make everything right. To pay for my crimes, and I’m not going to be defeated so easily.

  I get up and I put on my disguise.

  Cap, headphones and sunglasses. I also whip out some lollipops.

  I stand up and heave the fat hobo over my shoulders. Turning around, I look at the dark, endless road made even darker by the tint of my shades.

  At least he chose to leave me in a deserted area where there are no people around.

  Unwrapping my candy, I shove it in my mouth and begin walking.

  Not away from his town or him.

  But toward him.

  Because I’m not going anywhere.

  Hallucinations.

  Delusions. Illusions. Figments of the imagination.

  All of the above are symptoms of a diseased mind. A broken mind. A sick mind. Maybe even a sick heart.

  I never liked them, the hallucinations.

  Definitely not the ones that are brought on by a sober brain.

  Up until tonight, I wanted them to go away. I wanted them to leave me alone and fuck off.

  In fact, I’d drink and drink until I made sure they left me alone. I made sure that my brain was shut off and my heart was numb.

  I’m doing the same thing right now. I’m sitting here, in my darkened truck, gulping down Jack Daniels l
ike water.

  Right now, I’d give anything, anything at all, for this to be a bad dream.

  A nightmare, like I told her.

  I’d give anything for her to not be here.

  I’d give anything for me to be seeing things. To be imagining, hallucinating, daydreaming like I’ve been doing for the past ten months.

  Hallucinating her pale face. Imagining her smell, her voice. Her red as fuck lips.

  But it’s not a dream.

  If it were, my truck wouldn’t be hiding in the woods by the road that I abandoned her on like the goddamn asshole that I am, waiting for her to walk by like some criminal.

  Just to make sure that… no one is kidnapping her. Apparently, I have a conscience when it comes to her.

  Jesus Fucking Christ.

  What the fuck is she doing here? Why the hell won’t she leave me alone?

  It was a stupid drunken mistake…

  So it was a mistake.

  She made a fucking mistake. Because she was drunk. Because she thought she could do whatever the hell she wanted.

  Because she’s this terrible thing that I can’t seem to forget.

  The most terrible thing that’s ever happened to me.

  I strangle the bottle with my fingers and take a deep, deep pull and bark out a harsh laugh.

  Fucking teenager.

  I lied.

  I told her that my life changed that night, the night she kissed me, the night of her stupid drunken mistake.

  My life changed the moment I moved into that house over two years ago.

  I never should’ve done that. I never should’ve moved to Connecticut in the first place. It was a mistake.

  The only reason I did it was for Brian.

  It was a good school for him. When they contacted me out of the blue and offered me a job, I was hesitant. We were happy in Denver. We were settled. I had a good job. We lived in a good neighborhood. Brian had life-long friends.

  But then, they told me that kids from Cherryville High usually end up at Yale or Columbia or something similar, and I knew Brian wanted that.

  Unlike me, he’s always been a straight-A student. He’s always been excellent at everything according to his teachers. Not only that but he’s one of those rare kids who are good at sports too.

  Sometimes I can’t believe he’s my kid. My son.

  I raised him. Me. An aimless, angry kid from a small town who never thought he’d get anywhere. Whose only goal at eighteen was to get out of this shitty place and maybe use that scholarship they accidentally gave him for playing some ball to go to college.

  How the hell did my son get so talented?

  So smart that my chest hurts with pride for him.

  If only I hadn’t moved cross-country.

  I should’ve known that Brian would end up at an Ivy League school anyway. All I wanted to do was make it easier for him. All I wanted was for him to have his best shot, to be able to give him all the help I could so he could go wherever he wanted.

  Isn’t that what parents do?

  They try to make it easy for their kids. They try to give them all the opportunities that they can so their kids can be whoever they want to be.

  I’ve never been very confident in my parenting abilities. I never had a very good example from which to learn – my dad was a drunk and my mother left when I was five or so – but goddamn it, I thought I was doing the right thing.

  I should’ve stayed put, however. I should’ve refused their offer.

  We were happy in Denver.

  In Denver, I could sleep.

  In Denver, there were no brown-eyed girls with long, thick hair that doesn’t stop for miles and milky-white skin that shines under the moonlight.

  The first time I saw her, she was climbing out of a window at night.

  I was in my bedroom, trying to fall asleep in the new bed, in a new house that I didn’t like very much. I noticed a movement from the corner of my eye: someone jumping onto a tree branch, outside of a window next door.

  By the time I’d sprung out of the bed, thinking there was an intruder, the climber had scaled that branch so fast that all I could do was stand there.

  All I could do was stare.

  At her long, thick hair, wondering how I missed seeing it in the first place.

  Because that hair appeared alive. The strands were blowing and winding and fluttering in the breeze and I wasn’t even sure that the wind was so strong that night.

  Then, the ‘intruder’ looked up at the sky and opened her arms wide.

  I was too far away to notice anything minuscule about her but I could’ve sworn, the way she was staring up at the sky, she had just sighed. And smiled.

  A second later, she sat down on the slanting roof and reached behind her to get at something. That’s when I noticed she had a small backpack slung across her back. One by one, she fished out a notebook, a flashlight, and a giant pair of headphones, along with a lollipop.

  Popping that lollipop in her mouth and putting those headphones on, she lit up the flashlight and began writing.

  It was clear by then that it wasn’t a break-in. She wasn’t an intruder.

  She was the girl next door who was probably a little crazy and in some serious need of parental guidance.

  The following day I saw her again.

  After coming back from a late run, I was in the kitchen, trying to find our coffee machine in one of the unopened boxes.

  And there she was.

  Out in her backyard, sitting at the edge of the pool, her arms behind her propping her up and her feet dangling in the water. Again, she had those headphones on and a lollipop in her mouth and her eyes were closed.

  Her hair appeared dark but had streaks of gold in it or something similar. Something I’d never seen before.

  Just then a blonde came rushing out the door and started shouting at her, gesturing wildly with her hands. I couldn’t hear what she was saying but I could hear her high-pitched, whiny voice. The golden-haired girl opened her eyes, squinted at her and in the midst of all the obnoxious wild gesturing, she pointed at something behind the blonde’s shoulder.

  The blonde looked and I knew what a mistake it was as soon as she’d done it. Because now, the blonde was going to end up being thrown in the water.

  In a flash, I was proven correct.

  The girl from last night grabbed hold of the blonde’s ankle and pushed her in. I would’ve done the same thing just to make her shut up.

  Only the blonde’s shouts turned into shrieks and the other girl began laughing. Loud and fresh, and I wondered if there was something wrong with their parents that they weren’t immediately out there, putting out the fight.

  The golden-haired girl tugged on her ears, probably saying sorry to the blonde, before she jumped into the pool too.

  It was a shock to me, her antics. I’d never seen anyone act so… brazenly and crazily. But then, in the coming days, I saw her dancing in her backyard, singing by the pool, running out of the house, sticking her tongue out just to feel the snow.

  So I realized that this was the norm for her: doing her own thing when no one was watching or at least, she thought no one was watching. When people were around, she’d keep her head down and cover her face by those brown/blonde hair of hers.

  Maybe because those people back in Connecticut looked at her like there was something wrong with her.

  Stupid fuckers.

  There was something wrong with them. They were all dead and dull and boring and she was a burst of life in their world.

  Two days after the pool incident, I found out her name from Brian – Violet.

  Two years after that she told me herself when I caught her stealing my roses.

  I’m Violet. Violet Moore. I live next door…

  I wanted to laugh and tell her: I know.

  I fucking know.

  I wish I didn’t. I wish I didn’t know the name of the teenage girl
next door, the girl half my age, but I did. I wish I didn’t know that she liked to climb up to the roof at night or that her skin shines when the light of the moon falls on her.

  That night I could’ve stopped her from unnecessarily introducing herself. I could’ve stopped a lot of things. But I didn’t want to, for some reason.

  If I had, then none of this would’ve happened.

  The scandal at school, that article.

  Fight with Brian. I wouldn’t have hurt him the way I did.

  We had a great summer together.

  He’d just graduated and he was going away for college in the fall. In fact, he was going to leave early so he could start his new campus job. So we spent as much time together as we could.

  But then just before he was set to leave, everything blew up.

  Everything went to fucking hell.

  I came here, to this isolated, abandoned cabin I grew up in because I wanted to get away, be alone or maybe to punish myself for everything. Because it is punishment, isn’t it, to live in a place that never held any good memories for me.

  And Brian went to go live with one of his friends in the city before he could move into his dorm room. Again, unlike me, Brian had a lot of friends in school.

  He’s open and adventurous and friendly. He’s always been popular and well-adjusted with regular teenage concerns. It makes me feel that maybe I did do something right after all, giving him a normal environment to grow up in when I had no idea myself as to what a normal environment consisted of.

  After that night, when he left to go live with one of his friends, I didn’t stop him. I figured he needed some time alone. I figured he needed some time away from me.

  But it’s been almost a year and we still don’t talk. He still hates me. We barely keep in touch. Our form of communication is either texts or two-minute phone calls.

  It’s okay, though. I deserve it all.

  I deserve his hatred. His anger, his disgust.

  For watching a girl half my age. For watching my son’s best friend, a teenage girl when I had no business to.

  But more than that, I deserve it for watching a girl my son, my blood, my kid watched as well.

  “You know how creepy this is? How perverted? Have you been watching her or something? She’s my age, Dad. You have a son her age. And you like her? You like Violet. Fantastic. Guess what, Dad, I like her too. She was special. She was fucking special. I was going to… I was going to ask her out before she moved away for college. I was finally gonna take a chance but you fucked it up. You ruined everything. So fuck you, Dad. Fuck. You.”