Secret Lucidity(63)

I pick my phone back up to call my mom, and I’m surprised when she actually answers.

“Mom.”

“Hi, dear,” she responds in an unexpected coherent tone I’m not used to hearing.

“Where have you been all weekend? Are you at home right now?”

“I stopped by a couple hours ago to pack my bags,” she tells me. “Michael has a business trip in Denver, and he’s taking me with him for a little getaway.”

She says his name as if I should know exactly who he is among the many men that filter in and out of her bedroom.

“You’re going to Colorado?”

“Yes. We’re at the airport now.”

That’s why she isn’t sloppy drunk.

My tone hardens in annoyance. “So you were just going to leave the state without telling me?”

“I’m telling you right now.”

Unbelievable.

“When will you be back?”

“We fly back on Thursday,” she says. “Oh, honey, they just called us for boarding. I have to go. Talk to you later.”

The line goes dead before I can say anything else. I sulk down in the couch, completely aggravated by the lunatic my mother has turned into, talking to me as if everything is peachy just to put on a show in front of whatever guy she’s with. God forbid she expose the crappy mother she actually is and compromise whatever it is she seeks from these men.

Everything in my life is so unstable at this point. I’m terrified about what’s going to happen after graduation. If I can’t depend on my mom, what will I do?

The only solid thing I have is David, but after these past few days, it feels like even that is fracturing slowly beneath me, making me even more scared about the future. Never before have I needed someone to simply tell me they won’t abandon me. I’m vividly aware that David is my only safety net. If I lose him, who’s left to catch me if I should stumble and fall? And if he is still here with me, will he grow more intimate with the bottles he’s been seeking comfort from than me? Will I eventually fade into the background like I have with my mother?

Maybe it’s an overreaction, but it’s a legitimate fear nonetheless, so when I lurch off the couch, I don’t give a second thought when I walk back into the kitchen. One after another, with distemper in my bloodstream, I pull the bottles out of the cabinet and pour their contents down the sink. The smell burns my nose, and I send up a promise to my father above that I will never consume a drop of this poison. I’ve seen the destruction that comes with it, a destruction I don’t want David to be a part of.

I add the bottles to the trash can, tie up the bag, and take it out to the garage.

Time does nothing to console as it slowly passes. Wrapped up in a blanket that holds David’s scent within the threaded fibers, I lie on the couch and check my phone to see it’s now after five o’clock. I click off the mundane television I’d been watching and tuck the blanket under my nose. Closing my eyes, I breathe Love into my lungs and do my best not to stress about why, after over four hours, he’s still not home.

I stare out the large windows and watch the clouds sink down, darkening the skies. In the still of the room, I soak in the vacant hum of silence before the wind blows the first pellets of sleet against the glass. My heart aches at the thought of David outside in the bitter cold. All I can do is hope that he isn’t still at the cemetery after all these hours.

The moisture outside builds, increasing the mists of ice. I contemplate driving back to the gravesite before talking myself out of it, knowing I shouldn’t be on the roads when it’s icing the way it is.

I sulk in dreariness as sleet turns to flurries, and I give way to tired eyes, somehow managing to fall asleep with a heaviness trapped behind my ribs.




A noise jars me, waking me to a darkened room. I sit up too fast, causing my head to spin in a haze, and when a soft light from a lamp illuminates the room, I have to blink against the fog of sleep that’s blurring my eyes.

“David?” My voice comes out in a quiet rasp.

My vision sharpens as he walks deeper into the room and takes off his coat and scarf, laying them over the chair.

“What time is it?” I ask, still trying to get my bearings after waking up so fast.

“Almost eight.” He turns on another light, allowing me to see him more clearly before walking my way and dropping onto the couch beside me with a heavy sigh.

“What are you doing here?” he questions when he turns his head to look at me.

It takes me a moment to respond, and when I do, I admit with slight trepidation, “I followed you.”

“What do you mean you followed me?”

“I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have, but you’ve been so distant, and I’ve been feeling unsure about . . . everything. So when you left school today . . .”

I leave my words hanging in the air between us, feeling immense guilt for stepping across a boundary I shouldn’t have, but he picks up my fallen words, saying, “You followed me.”

I nod, and he looks away, staring straight ahead. All I can do is remain by his side as I take in the exhaustion on his face—his beautiful face, marred in harbored pain, a pain I wish I could be a part of, if he’d only just let me in.

“David . . .”

“You should probably go before the roads get any worse.”