That Pivotal Moment

Chapter 19

I could barely sleep that night. I tossed and turned the whole damn time, my mind never stopping or slowing down. It was about nine in the morning when I heard a knock at the door of the guest bedroom.

"Come in," I said. Jenny came in with a warm smile.

"Good morning, Hayden. I hope you slept okay. Alex is ready for a ride to get your truck when you are. I think he's anxious to see his sister."

He wasn't the only one. "Yeah, I'll be right out."

It didn't take me long to grab my stuff, before making my way out to the living room where they were waiting. I've been waiting all fucking night for this, but I was not looking forward to going back to where it happened.

"All right," Jenny said, "let's get going."

Twenty minutes later, we were pulling up to Alex's house. We thanked her for the ride before walking up to the front door.

When Alex pulled out his keys, he hesitated, the key hovering by the lock. I didn't blame him. I didn't want to go back in there either. He looked to me for...something. I didn't know what he wanted me to say or do. I was almost as fucked up in the head right now as he was.

Trying to keep it together I said, "It's okay. We can do this."

He didn't say anything back as he unlocked the door and entered the house, with me following behind him. Standing inside that house was indescribable. I looked at the stairs. When I kept closing my eyes last night all I saw was Gabby getting pushed down those fucking stairs, screaming. Now...same fucking thing. I went to the bottom of the stairs where I found Gabby's unconscious body. All the blood was cleaned up. The only thing left was a stain of where it was. Who cleaned this? Then it hit me. Brad. He must have come back by here after he left his aunt's.

Alex walked past me and headed upstairs. I followed behind and went into Gabby's room.

I looked around, trying to see if I could find something that reminded me of her in here. I was surprised that the room was pretty bare. No pictures on the walls, no posters. Nothing. I tried to find her some clothes, just in case, and grabbed some of her books. I was going to come back by another time and pack all her stuff up and take it to either my place, or where Alex was staying.

She didn't need to come back to this fucking hell-hole. She didn't need to be reminded of what happened here that night. Of the pain she suffered. None of it. No, there was no way in hell I was going to let her relive that.

When I was finished, I went into Alex's room and asked, "Just about ready?"

"Yeah," was his instant reply.

He came out of the room carrying two duffle bags and started down the stairs. I followed him out of the house, and we loaded the stuff in the car. Once everything was ready, we were off to stop at my house.

The drive to my mom's was a little longer. Took us almost thrity minutes from Alex's. I told him to wait in the car while I went to get what we needed.

Packing up clothes for me and my mom went by faster than I thought possible. I hardly paid attention to what I grabbed and just threw things in a bag.

When I was about to leave my room, an image of my dad in the hospital came to my mind. I heard his voice clearly. "You run after that girl, Hayden Price, and you are not the son I thought you were. What about your dream?"

I looked around my room and saw all the trophies I won since I was six. I went up to one and looked at my name inscribed on it. Next thing I knew I was throwing all of them on the floor. They weren't me. At all. As I stood there and caught my breath for a moment, I didn't look at all the broken trophies in my room. I just grabbed the bag...and left the house.