Abby

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

"We've decided that we need to get your sister away from here. She won't be done with her sentence until Late August, and then she'll go straight to rehab for another month." Aaron nodded, and his father searched his face for input. There was none. Abby had only been gone for a few weeks, and his son had already mastered the stone-cold stare out of emotional preservation. He hated it. "We don't think it's fair to move you to another school, another state, for your senior year. Especially because football will already have started. We don't want this to hinder your future. So, your mother is going to move with Abby. And I'll stay here with you." The whole idea was bullshit. Aaron wanted to say as much. But with Abby locked up, he tried to be easy on his parents.

"Can we afford two houses? Isn't that ridiculous?" They couldn't, and it was.

"Your mom and Abby will get an apartment. We're just trying to get her through high school. Give her roots somewhere else. And we'll have to move into something cheaper and smaller, maybe even rent an apartment since you'll be off to college in a year anyway." The idea just kept getting worse.

"No." Aaron said. His father wasn't sure to which part he was saying no.

"I know it's hard to leave your home. I kn-." He cut his well-meaning dad off.

"No to separating our family. Again." His dad knew this would be hard. But Abby couldn't stay here. This was their last attempt at saving her.

"We can't let Abby come back to this place." His father admitted. Aaron had suffered so much for her addiction.

"Then we all go. We all go with her. Wherever you want to move her." His loyalty to his sister was moving. An example for all of them. He hugged his son who eventually hugged him back.

"She's so lucky to have you." He whispered.

"She'd do it for me. I'm lucky to have her." He replied.

...

"She's on some kind of hunger strike. She won't eat." The doctor said. "She's dropped twenty pounds on an already thin frame." The doctor had been waiting for visiting hours. She'd flagged down Abby's parents as they checked in. Jennie and Aaron went straight in to see Abby while her father talked to the doctor.

"I thought once she knew she was staying here, that it was only for ninety days, that she'd kind of perk up, so to speak." They were past the hardest part, they thought. No jail time. Ninety days with credit for time already served. She was a third of the way through this nightmare. Rehab would be a piece of cake after this. And then the probation until she was eighteen. That would be easy as long as she started fresh like they had intended. He was tired. Tired of this life that Abby had chosen for herself. Tired of putting on fake smiles, tired of the constant ache in his heart.

"Just talk to her and let me know what she says. It's not unusual for girls to lose weight in here. It's stressful. And they haven't learned how to cope with that level of stress yet. Their old coping mechanisms often what landed them in here." He nodded, not trusting his voice. The doctor left him to see his daughter. He sat down next to Aaron. He was laughing, Abby was smiling. And not the fake one she gave her parents, but a real one. He was retelling the All-State lacrosse game he'd played in.

"I swear, I body checked that kid, and he flew easily ten feet backwards through the air before he hit the ground. I was like the hulk. Well, now they call me the hulk." He reminisced. When he was done, Jason saw his in.

"I just want to say this to get it out of the way." He was always the bad guy. "And then we can laugh together some more." Everyone's face fell. "The doctor is concerned that you've lost so much weight." Abby nodded.

"I know. The guards think I'm on a hunger strike. They won't even let me have free time unless I eat."

"Well, are you?" Aaron asked.

"Not on purpose. I wake up with a lot of anxiety. The feeling makes me think of the anxiety I felt the first couple weeks, awaiting my fate. My sentence. And it reminds me of that feeling I'd have when I hadn't had drugs for a little while and I needed a fix but couldn't get my hands on one. And my body feels all of those things physically, like an illness, like the flu. And I struggle to eat two bites even..." She was being honest. That was her thing now. She used to be druggie thief Abby, and now she was honest Abby. It sounded more like an eating disorder than a hunger strike to Jennie. Her new way of coping. One nightmare after another. Rehab was on the horizon. Aaron nodded.

"She's right. I feel it too. Only reason no one's noticed is because I'm trying to keep weight on for lacrosse and now football will start in a month. I'm too small for college football. Coach already had me bulking up." They shared a moment between them. The twin thing.

"Sometimes I really really hate the twin thing." She said, starting to cry.

"When the fuck did we turn in to a bunch of crying babies. All we do is cry. It's pathetic." She laughed. He said it trying to make her laugh. She dried her eyes. "It's fine. The twin thing. I don't get to see you enough so I like feeling what you're feeling." She smiled, so appreciative of how much he loved her and was willing to do for her.