I think about Chase and his visit weeks after he's gone. Since technically I was allowed to be gone for twenty four hours we spent the whole next day together as well. Even I know the visit while on one hand was so he could say he saw me with his own eyes he probably knew I was at my wits end. A whole year of no contact other than the staff the facility and the other rotating mental patients was just making me feel like it wouldn't ever end. We went to a movie. He brought me more clothes. We had breakfast, lunch, and dinner and ice cream at a bunch of fancy places I didn't even think were out here.
We walked around a park and talked. He mostly talked and I listened. I didn't want to talk anymore. I didn't want to argue and I didn't want to yell.
He had a fancy hotel not far from Watkins. It was nice to sleep in a bed bigger than a twin. Not have someone clocking you in the shower. No bed check. Though, I swear Chase put his finger under my nose at one point in the night. There were two queen beds. He slept in one I slept in the other. That morning before he took me back we had a decent breakfast from room service.
"Rylie still misses you," He looks to me to see my reaction. I bite the inside of my cheek.
"He'll get over it," I sound too nonchalant even to myself. I feel bile rise in my throat.
"You and I both know he won't," He gives me a pointed stare, "Cameron and Carter might," I feel something I don't like in my chest, "They still ask about you from time to time but I think they've accepted you might not come back. I think even though he's just angry right now Rylie still waits for you. All them do but Rylie the most. He'll never stop waiting for his friend. His sister."
"I was never their sister, Chase."
"You are."
"You just won't quit will you? You said everything is up to me and yet you're trying to plant these seeds to make me want to go back to them. I don't know what I want but I do know if I decide to do this—To keep myself here—I want to do it for me. Only me. Not who might be waiting. I want to do it for the person I have to look at in the mirror everyday and wonder how the hell it came to this," We stopped eating at this point. He regards me softly. Derrick wasn't his biological parent but somehow he looks like him.
"Then do it."
Relentless.
When he dropped me off it was later than I was supposed to arrive but luckily Casey was willing to break the rules for me.
"You won't come back will you?" I lean through the window. Various shopping bags on the ground by my feet. I know he won't. Now I had to decide if I wanted life. If I wanted to stay. I thought about leaving. I always thought about leaving but I can't leave. I can't because I just can't. I know I can't. I never get past the packing stage. I'll grab my duffel and then place it back in the closet. It was pathetic really. So many others left as soon as the clock hit twelve. Once you turned eighteen it was all voluntary.
"You want to do it by yourself. If you expect me to come then you'll do the work because of me. That's not what you want," I know I said it but...no he was right. Of course he was right. Derrick was his father.
I know I look like a kicked dog. These thirty six hours were the most I felt since I don't know when. It was the most normal days I had in a year. It felt like how things were when I was back in the city. Casey grabs the bags and tells me I have five minutes. I give him one last long stare. Like I was committing it to memory. I had his number. I could google his name and get all the pictures I want. This was different. It was like they were all here and somehow doing all this through him. I think I was going insane or maybe that's how much of a force Derrick and his family was. Even not all here.
