Jessie
My mom keeps a lot of baby pictures of me in the foyer.
I thought it was silly for a long time, all of these pictures and memories. I haven't looked at them since I was maybe thirteen. But here I am, sitting on the floor in the dark, headphones in my ears as the flashlight from my phone shining down on them.
I'm holding Mom's favorite right now in my hand. My face is covered in cake at my first birthday, blue and white icing all over my face and a smile very evident under all the colors. Next to me is Mom, pointing at the camera while I stare at her and she is laughing at me. The bond we've shared these last eighteen years. The times I've gone to her, and the times I've looked up to her. All the memories we've accumulated, all the laughs we've shared and girl dates we went on together. When I fell on the playground as a child I ran to her. When I needed a dress for the sixth grade dance she dropped everything and we ran to the mall across town. When I needed braces she gave up popcorn for two years so I wouldn't have to suffer alone. When I had my first kiss I went home and told her about it first. When I thought I was going to go to prom alone she told me to march up to a guy and ask him myself.
When I was attacked, she did everything in her power to make sure I was okay.
My mother has been a saint and has been there for me all the time. For years I didn't even need to ask for her help, she'd just know. We have a relationship that I know most girls would dream of having with their mothers.
As I look down at this photograph of us from my first birthday I can't help but feel pain in my stomach.
I could have this with my kid, the one growing inside of me right now. I could love him/her, I could care for them every day of my life.
How can I though, knowing where they came from? Can I love something that I didn't even consent to have? Do I want my first time to result in a child I have to raise for the rest of my life? I don't want to make this choice. I don't want to take the life of a being, and I don't want to have it myself. I don't want to allow it to grow for nine months, remembering his evil voice and his touch on and inside of me.
I shudder.
I readjust the headphones in my ears as the next song comes on.
It's ten-thirty now and I realize that I forgot to text everyone that I made it back to my house. I immediately unlock my phone and type it into the group chat.
Jessie
Got home 5 minutes ago, safe and sound. Hope everyone else is all right.
I then turn off the notifications in the group chat and turn the music up just a little bit.
I have to make a choice. This baby is going to define my life whether or not I have it. Whether or not I keep it. It's going to mean something when I want to have a serious relationship, or if I try to get pregnant again in my life, or if I have it and give it away. There are a million downsides for both choices. What are the upsides?
Not having a baby in my freshman year of college, or having a child that will forever be mine.
Are those pros enough to outweigh the cons?
I don't actually know.
I skip the next song on my playlist and hear the familiarity of the intro to the next song. I shudder again as I feel tears in my eyes and I look at the baby picture again.
I can't make this choice. There's no way I can do this...I can't do it.
I need my mom. I need to talk to her. It all boils down to those four words. I need her, and I think I always will. Maybe Patrick can help too.
'Today we will sell our uniform, live together, live together'
I knock on their bedroom door, knowing that whatever we all decide together tonight, will impact me for the rest of my life. And I'm okay with that.
Ben
I close the door to the men's locker room in the back of the 24 Hour Gym. The loud speaker is a bit easier to hear in here, and it crackles above me, talking about something that is too difficult to make out.
No one is here to work on moves with me, or anything for that matter. Why would someone come to the gym after ten at night to work on wrestling moves? I honestly wouldn't know, since this is the first time I've done this myself. I just wanted to get away, be alone. There's so much to process after tonight. Not just with everyone, and not even just with Jessie. But there are things I need to think about with myself.
I'm staying here in August. Everyone is going to moving on to bigger and better things. Hell, even Randy has a plan, taking another year at the community college. But me—the one who couldn't get into college this entire time—I'm here because I have to be. I don't want to be left behind. I don't want to go backwards. I'm barely graduating as it is, but I don't want to be the failure that I feel like I've always been for the rest of my life. Beth and Dad took so much time to help me, and this is how I'm repaying them?
I have to go home and tell them about this. I have to admit that I've failed them. I have to face them both and admit defeat. I know Beth will be kind to me, she's been kind to me since she and Dad got married. I know Dad won't be extremely angry, but I'll get that disappointed face he loves to give me when I fuck up.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath, trying to think a bit straighter.
There's got to be something I can do to help myself.
A song starts playing through the speakers and strangely enough, it plays clearly, as if all the issues it had before were never there to begin with.
My phone chimes from a text, and a quick glance tells me its Jessie. She's home safe. Thank God.
I breathe in again.
I throw off the bathing suit I've been wearing all night and throw on my work out shorts from the duffel bag. I then pull out a water bottle I'd tossed in there hours ago before I left the house. Slamming closed a locker and clicking the lock into place, I head out of the locker room to the track upstairs. I just want to run. I want to run around and try to clear my head some more. I want to see if an answer, some fucking answer will pop into my head.
I start running and don't stop for a solid minute, finishing the first lap in that time frame. I keep jogging the track, listening to the music in the speaker, listening to my feet pound on the track floor, listening to my heart pounding in my ears.
I stop after four laps and look in the long, wall length mirror. The music has gotten louder and I can hear it over my heavy breathing.
'We played hide and seek in waterfalls, we were younger, we were younger.'
When I get home, I'm going to look up summer courses at the community college. I'll talk to Dad and Beth in the morning about all of this, get it straight with them, make sure they're okay with this. I'll get some credits, apply again to colleges, and then go for another scholarship. I have a plan. And that's something I didn't have for the last year.
"Next semester," I nod to myself in the mirror. "Next semester I'll get out of here. But for now, I'm going to focus on getting there."
I smile at myself, knowing that there's finally something to work with and I take off running again, determined and finally feeling a surge of happiness flow through me for the first time in...months.
Mason
I click Jessie's message and see that she got home safe, happy to know. I've been sitting in the car for the last five minutes since I pulled up to my driveway. I had cut Elise's engine, and she and I sit quietly in the dark. I'm afraid to go back in there, afraid to talk to my father and deal with his rage.
Tonight made me seriously realize that I've been letting this problem go in terms of my father abusing me. I know it's not right, but the fact that I basically had to repress a memory of my father proves that this problem has gone on long enough. I need to go in there with 911 waiting to be called on my phone in my hand and talk to my father straight. Things need to change. Watching everyone tonight admit his or her flaws makes me realize my biggest one is my father.
I take a step out of the car, trying to be as quiet as I can. I slowly lock Elise and start walking towards the house, taking deep breaths. I pull my phone up and I dial 911, and then lock the phone so I don't accidentally call. I walk slowly up to the back door, doing my best not to open it too loudly.
I don't have to worry about waking anyone, since my mother is sitting at the kitchen table.
"Mom?" I ask, quickly closing the door.
She looks up at me and immediately stands to hug me. "Oh thank God," she murmurs. "I was so worried."
"I went to Shannon and Randy's," I say through her hug. "What's wrong?"
She stops hugging me and grabs her purse off the table, which I hadn't noticed was sitting there. "We're leaving tonight. He's upstairs, passed out drunk. I can't do it anymore, I can't let him hurt you, I can't let him beat you up. So many nights I've let him hurt you and this family, without saying so much as a word to him, without trying to stop it. You are such a beautiful child, Mason, you have so much to offer. That piece of shit is going to do everything in his power to tear you down. Well, I've had enough. Go, hurry, and grab some things. We're staying in a hotel while I get ahold of a divorce lawyer."
She's speaking so fast nothing is registering in my head quickly enough. "What?"
She touches my face with her hand, so gently. "I've failed you as a mother, Mason. I should have been protecting you. This entire time you deserved to be protected. How can I call myself a mother if I've let the man I once loved beat the child we brought into this world?"
"Mom, slow down, it's okay. Why are we leaving?" I need to understand why she's choosing tonight.
She moves out of the dark shadows of the kitchen into the moonlight, and I see it. There's a bloody line on her face.
"He threw a beer bottle at me. All this time I just kept telling myself he would stop. I don't know why he chose to take his anger out on you, baby, but it stops now. We're leaving tonight. Please, go grab your things, I can't be in this house much longer."
I have the urge to go upstairs and hurt him, to teach him a lesson. He's hurt me so many times, but he's never touched Mom. But I can't. It's pointless, because he's a drunk fuck tonight. But tomorrow he won't be able to hurt me or anybody else. Tomorrow, we'll be gone.
I nod to my mother and I take the carpeted steps two at a time and race down the hall to my room.
Luckily, I don't have too much that I deem "personal belongings". I grab my school bag first, because there is still a week left of school, and then my duffel bag. I throw in some clothes and my toiletries, then grab a few photos off of my desk and then I pick up my laptop and toss it into my backpack.
The photos are of the group, taken over the last several years. There's also one of Sandra and me. I debate taking it with me, because we are still friends. But are we really? Did I really leave her with any ideas that we might be friends? I leave her photo on the desk and I grab the charger to my phone and a few books and head out the door. This room doesn't have much in it, but it does have a lot of painful memories.
Mom instructs me to follow her to the hotel in her car, so I drive behind her as we go down the street. I don't even look back at the house. I just know that I won't miss it.
I'm going to text everyone in the group chat explaining tonight later on. I want them to know that I'm out of that house, most likely for good. Mom takes a lot to get riled up. I'm surprised she didn't leave Dad years ago for his abuse, but leave me with him. I guess the bottle hitting her made her realize the wrong she's been doing all these years with him. And with me.
I turn the radio on in the car and some song comes on that I don't recognize.
The song some how makes me think back to Sandra. I'm not upset that I did it in fact, I'm actually content with my choice. I thought that some part of me would regret the break up. I'm sorry for hurting her, that's for sure, but I'm not sorry for finally letting myself go from her. Sandra wasn't right for me. She wasn't right for me anymore and I just didn't know it. I'm glad we are over, because that just means that I'm able to find somebody better for me, and she's able to go find someone that can love her completely and fully.
Maybe that's part of it. Maybe I just couldn't love Sandra one hundred percent because I was too busy playing catch up on my feelings for Makayla.
Makayla. She was right this whole time. I should have seen it, and I wasn't paying attention. She's the one that I've been into. But she didn't give up on me, as a friend or in liking me. And finally, my brain has caught up to her.
I grab my phone at a red light and I go into the group chat and click on Makayla's contact info. The music gets a bit mellower on the radio, and I turn it up just slightly.
'We played hide and seek in waterfalls, we were younger, we were younger'
Maybe instead of planning everything out like I've done my entire life, I should just take this one step at a time. Dad's going to be gone for good; my mother is going to be free from his clutches, and me?
I'm going to try and fix the mistakes I've made.