Take My Advice

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

            I walked home, kicking leaves as I went. They’d fallen not long before, crispy little red and yellow things all over the sidewalks and filling up the gutters, and they crunched under my feet as I moved through them.

            I didn’t know what to do with myself when I got home. It was still morning—not even midmorning, actually—and the house was dead silent. That was fine by me, but after several minutes of staring at the wall, I had to get out. I had to go somewhere, think about something—anything.

            I’d been saving up for a car, but didn’t have one yet. And my mom had taken hers to work. I went out to the garage and pulled my bike off the rack. I hadn’t ridden it for a couple of months, but that was okay. The tires were fine and I coasted down the driveway with my ear buds cranked up high.

            One pedal after the other after the other. I rode until my thighs were burning, then stopped to see where I’d ended up. I was on the outskirts of town—I’d never ridden that far before. I saw a diner up ahead and ducked in to use the bathroom and grab a snack, and then I was on my way again. I just needed to be out, to numb my brain.

            I gave out when I reached the small forest a couple miles outside of town. Developers had been after that spot for years, but the owner refused to sell. He said he needed a little bit of wildness in the middle of our world of civilization and concrete. I remembered that because I’d been the one to write it up for the paper. I didn’t really get what he meant at the time, but now, sitting on the ground on a bed of pine needles, my knees pulled up to my chest and a canopy of branches over me, nothing but the wind and the chirp of birds to keep me company—I knew, and I understood.

            I’d been pushing back the conversation in the counselor’s office, refusing to think about it, but now I could. Mrs. School Counselor was an amazing lady. She always had my best interests at heart, and I knew she wasn’t trying to hurt me. But when someone peels away your mask and points out your Phantom-like features beneath it, there will be pain. Lots of it.

            It was time to be honest with myself—really, really honest. As I let my mind wander backwards, clear back to when I was little, I remembered overhearing my mom and dad fighting one night. They yelled back and forth for a few minutes, and then my dad left the house and drove away, the tires of his car screeching on the street. It was dark in my bedroom, but a little sliver of light shone under my bedroom door. I remember being scared, thinking that we wouldn’t be a family anymore. But then my mom came in and tucked me in, just like always, and I figured everything was fine.

            That was it. That was the moment this had all begun for me.

            Pretending everything was all right, moving forward like nothing was wrong, painting bright faces on dark thoughts. The fighting continued until it simmered down into cold avoidance, and because it wasn’t loud, I was able to ignore it all the better. I threw myself into writing, and the better my grades were, the happier my parents seemed to be. If I could just keep performing, just keep being the perfect daughter, the lid would never have to pop off. I could distract them, give them something to be proud of, a common interest. I would be the glue that held our family together.

            And it worked. Until it stopped working, and I felt as though I had colossally failed. That my accomplishments weren’t enough anymore, that I wasn’t enough anymore.

            Tears ran down my cheeks, and the pain in my chest was almost unbearable. I knew I shouldn’t feel this way—I couldn’t control whether or not my parents still loved each other. But no matter how logical I chose to be, I was still that little girl in the dark bedroom, staring at the sliver of light under her bedroom door, wondering if her whole world was going to break apart and what she could do to stop it.