Chasing Spring(23)

“Good,” I said, holding her hair back as a wave of déjà vu swept me back in time to my house before my mom had left.

When I was seven, there were a few months when my mother must have started to realize her addiction was no longer manageable. She tried to hide her increasing dependence on alcohol, but I'd come home from school and find her in the bathroom, throwing up and mumbling things I couldn't discern. I’d hold back her hair—the same way I now held Ashley’s—and wonder if this was what other seven-year-olds did when they got home from school.

“I got her some more water,” Duncan said, stumbling back into the bathroom.

I held the glass of water to her lips again so she could take small sips. If she could absorb some of it before throwing up, she’d start to feel better.

I’d been around people like Ashley in Austin, other kids who liked to push their limits. I’d even done it myself from time to time, hoping to find the same solace my mom had found. I wanted to feel what she’d felt. I wanted to know what was so appealing about getting so far out of your head you couldn’t recognize yourself any more. I was starting to think maybe she and I weren’t wired the same. To me, the high was never worth the fall.

The guys eventually abandoned us and Ashley leaned against the toilet dry heaving. I couldn’t leave her yet and I was tired of replaying shitty memories, so I scanned the bathroom for something to distract me.

There were crosses everywhere, the kind you find at small country boutiques with ribbons and bedazzled gemstones. A small collection hung directly behind the toilet, which seemed like an odd location to display faith, but I didn’t dwell on that fact. Instead, I turned for the medicine cabinet.

Medicine cabinets are a veritable trove of pharmaceutical secrets, but it takes a trained eye to discern the juicy from the mundane. A thyroid medication could treat an underactive thyroid, or it could be mommy’s favorite weight loss pill. The devil was in the details. I turned to check on Ashley, but she wasn’t watching as I popped the door open and peered inside.

Sasha’s parents had a twenty-acre ranch, a 6,000 square foot mansion, and a four-car garage, but they also had a neat little row of pill bottles lining their medicine cabinet.

Viagra.

Erectile dysfunction.

Ephedren.

Illegal weight loss supplement.

Finesteride.

Male pattern baldness.

Xanax.

A benzo for days when the four-car garage just isn’t enough.

Valium.

For when the Xanax isn’t enough.

It wasn’t until later as I laid down to go to sleep that I remembered Sasha’s mom was the journalist who’d written the exposé about my mother for our town’s newspaper. It was a page-long article highlighting the darkest points in my mother’s pitiful life, and it was printed in the same newspaper that later ran her abbreviated obituary.

I wondered if Sasha’s mom had come clean about her family’s own dependencies in that article, or if all 2,000 words had been reserved for my mother’s demons. Maybe she knew as well as I did that there’s power in shining light on other people’s secrets; it makes it that much easier to hide yours in the shadows.





Chapter Twenty-Six


Lilah





The next morning I made my way downstairs to find Chase and my dad in the kitchen making breakfast. Chase was scrambling eggs, and my dad was mixing pancake batter. I hated having Chase there; his casual presence seemed wrong in every way.

“Morning Lil,” Chase said as my dad tipped back on his heels to kiss me on the top of my head.

“Morning,” I responded weakly. I'd already seen everything I needed to on the way down the stairs and his affinity for low-slung sweatpants was starting to annoy me.

“You know one day I'm going to go in my closet and find that all of my t-shirts have disappeared,” my dad noted with a smile.

I’d started stealing shirts out of his closet when I was younger and I’d never stopped. They were old and worn and they smelled like him. I wasn’t sure why I still wore them, but I had no plans of stopping.

“You can borrow some of mine,” Chase whispered so my dad couldn't hear over the sound of the whisk.

I ignored him, trying hard not to imagine getting to sleep with Chase's scent wrapped around me.

Once they finished making breakfast, we took seats around the table and I tore into the pancakes, appreciating every maple syrup-covered bite.

“What do you have planned for today?” my dad asked the table.

“I think I'm going to work on the garden,” I replied.

He nodded. “It's a good day for it. We could clear some of the beds and then head up to the store for some planting soil.”

“I can help,” Chase offered.

I was staring down at my eggs, but I could see him watching me out of the corner of my eye. Gardening was the one thing my mom and I had done together before she passed away. My most vivid memory of her being happy was when we gardened, so to bring Chase into that equation seemed like I was somehow stomping on her memory.

I tightened my hold on my fork as they waited for me to respond. I couldn’t say no. It would raise too many questions and I didn't feel like explaining my convoluted reasoning to anyone.

“Actually, I just remembered I have some homework I need to finish. Maybe I’ll start on the garden next week.”