Allyson In Between ✔︎

Chapter Nineteen | Part 1

| photo by Lucas Pezeta from Pexels |

I should eat breakfast. There's plenty of time, and maybe a slice of toast will settle my nervous stomach. I make my way down the stairs and then detour to the side-light window beside the front door. Like the view is going to be any different than it was from my alcove window. It's still raining like crazy and Noah's car is still not in our driveway. Because he's not supposed to be here for another twenty minutes.

Someone lets out a groan—loud and frustrated. I turn back to the staircase, even though I already know it's not coming from upstairs.

"No Steven, you are being an asshole! You can't micromanage Allyson's first week home from two-hundred miles away."

Whoa. So this is what it's like to hear your mom yell obscenities at your dad. I edge along the foyer wall. The kitchen light is on but it's empty. I guess Mom is in the laundry room?

"That's the point," she spits. "You have no idea how difficult this is—because you're not here! Your sage advice isn't helping me deal with Allyson's migraines. And Lindsay is..."

I hold my breath, inching closer, but there's nothing to hear. Either Mom is holding back or Dad finished the sentence for her.

"I can't do this anymore," she says. And it reminds me of her sigh of surrender that day in Faircrest's cafeteria—when she dismissed Lindsay's disturbingly unresponsive behavior. Except now it sounds like Mom is giving up on all three of us.

I go back to the foyer and open the door—with every intention of leaving the house. But the sky is all puffed up in angry shades of grey. Rain is drumming the copper roof of the small porch. And there's water standing on the front lawn. I wish I could escape to Noah's grandparent's house like I did in that text.

"Then come home," Mom says, her voice raising an octave with each word. "Come home, Steven—and be helpful for a change."

I don't like the person I was before my accident, but right now, I couldn't agree more with the words I don't remember writing to Noah. And Lindsay said it too: Mom's not the same person she was in North Carolina.

"Do not tell me to calm down," she screams.

I could go back upstairs, I guess, but I'd still feel trapped—by the rain, by Mom's hostility and the clock, which is not moving fast enough. And there's no way for me to escape this house because I can't drive a...

I have a car!

It's parked in the garage. Safe from the storm and closed off from my mother's ranting.

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There's just enough light coming through the row of tiny windows stretched along the top of the garage door to help me navigate around to the driver's side of the small silvery-green sedan. I climb in, eager to close out the oily-engine fumes. But sitting behind the steering wheel feels unnatural, so I scoot to the passenger seat. And now I'm sitting right in front of the glove box. I lift the latch—not really expecting to find anything inside, just hoping. But no, there aren't any Raisinets. Not even a lingering chocolaty smell.

I can't know for sure, but I think... No, I believe. A boy who would go through the trouble to sneak Raisinets into a girl's car—so that she would find them when she's feeling sad—would have to like her as more than a friend.

But I'm not that girl anymore and Noah probably knows that better than anyone.

Lightning flashes. The thunder rumbles, slow and steady, vibrating the car windows. I open the door—because the air in here is stifling—but the garage fumes invade, stinging the inside of my nose. I pinch it closed as I climb out and make my way around to a pedestrian door that must lead outside. I have to yank hard to get it open, and there's no roof above the brick landing. I step out anyway, into the pouring rain.