The (Im)Perfect Escape by Amanda Rose
Chapter One
Regret.
It’s a poison that pollutes every part of my being, clouding everything.
Regret.
It creeps up on me when I least expect it and drags me down with it. It doesn’t think of others, but only its vile, egotistical self.
Regret.
It can swallow me whole, leaving nothing for anything else. The former me will be no more. It’ll make me become a whole new person—someone the old me would despise.
Regret.
It’s all I have left.
I drank the poison.
Now I have to live with the consequences.
<><><>
June 6th – 3:16 P.M.
“You want me to do what?” My jaw drops, and my eyes widen.
“We just think this is the best option for you, Lila.” Grandma reaches over the table to pat mine. I snatch it away, not wanting to get stabbed by one of her stick-on talons.
“Best option? Ugh, you make it sound like I’ve contracted some rare illness. Since I’m apparently dying, you’re shipping me off to some deserted island where I’m going to be eaten by wild tigers. Or pandas!” With each word, the hysteria grows in my voice. My fingers start tapping a fast-paced, jaunty tune, and my leg starts beating to the same speedy rhythm. “Either way, I’m not going! I don’t have any Survivor-type outfits, so this isn’t going to work.”
I can’t believe they think this is a good idea. Whoever told them this was a genius arrangement is going to pay. My grandparents really can’t believe this is truly a viable plan of action. It’s more likely that I’ll get mauled by said panda than actually have this work!
“Take a deep breath, Lila.” My grandfather rubs the back of his neck. Concern swirls in his eyes. His thin lips form a frown.
I take a few deep, cleansing breaths, and feel somewhat better. Although, my hands start to shake which presents a whole new problem. Great; just great. What am I supposed to do now?
My finger starts to twirl a loose strand of my hair to satisfy its need to move. Out of the corner of my eye, I see my other hand start to shake. “I seriously don’t think this is the best option. I love being here with you guys.”
“But I don’t think it’s best you stay with us right now. Not in your frame of mind. You need to stay with someone that knows what they’re doing.” Grandpa narrows his eyes at now other shaking hand.
“‘Not in your frame of mind’? You make me sound like I’m insane.” Quickly, I slide that hand under the table and out of sight. Ha! You can’t see them now, so take that! Did…did I really just think that? Maybe I really am losing it.
“After the accident and what happened with Tori, you just haven’t been yourself,” Grandpa says.
My grandma quirks up one of her pencil thin eyebrows at that remark. “Hey, being insane isn’t all that bad. Remember what I told you, Lila? You just tell everyone that you’re insane, so when they call you that, you can tell them, ‘I told you so.’ It works perfectly.”
Seriously, Grandma? We’re talking about a matter of life and well, not death per say, but still! I love your insanity, but save it for another time. I have my life to save here.
I shift in the wooden chair. “Grandpa, I just don’t understand why I have to spend the summer with my stepmother who I haven’t seen in years. Yes, I’ve been acting a little strange since what happened with Tori, but still. Sending me off to stepmommy boot camp is not cool.”
“She’s a therapist, so she can help you.” My grandfather stands up, stretching his long, lean legs and heads to the sink to get a glass of water. His hand shakes as he pulls a cup out of the cupboard.
“Oh…Oh, bleck. You’re sending me to live with a shrink? That’s so mean of you. What did I ever do to you?” Huh. Maybe that explains why everyone called her, Doctor McQueen. I’m learning new things every day!
He rolls his eyes. “You’re going to spend the summer with your stepmother. End of story. Look at it this way: she lives on a beach, and she said that lots of teens live there in the summer. I’m sure you’ll make a bunch of new friends and get that tan you want so badly. You’ve been complaining about not having one, since you moved from Florida.”
Perking up at the tanning comment, my grandma pipes in like usual, “And cancer. You’ll get cancer.”
“See, sending me away will give me cancer. You don’t want me to die, do you? You’re obviously out to kill me!” I point one of my skinny fingers at Grandpa in hopes that it’ll intensify the situation. He just raises a snowy white eyebrow lazily. Drat.
Isn’t that what you deserve after what you did? To suffer and pay for your choices?
I take an uneasy gulp and grip the armrest of the chair I’m in. Hesitantly, I bite down on my lip, and shift my position in the chair again. My leg does a little jig when the shifting doesn’t settle the anxiety. Go away, voice! If I have any hope at getting rid of that evil thing, maybe it really is down in Texas. Even though I don’t want to go, this could be the perfect escape. Internally, I shake it off and focus back on my grandparents’ antics.
My grandfather’s jaw clenches. He narrows his eyes at Grandma, who’s completely oblivious to it and doing her little “I’m so innocent; just look at my pretty blue eyes! I’m not doing anything—muhaha!” face. He knows that her kooky statements are just adding fuel to my totally-not-wanting-to-go-to-spend-my-summer-with-a-weirdo-shrink-stepmother-even-though-there-is-a-beach fire.
“Lila, please don’t make this any harder than it has to be. It’s going to be great. You’ll meet new people, go to the beach every day, and get away from all the stuff here. I know you want that.”
I absently swing one of my legs back and forth. Should I tell them how I really feel? Not just what they’ve gotten from the school counselor and surmised from my recent breakdowns. It’s just going to make them want to send me even more. What’s really so bad about Texas anyway? Besides the unexpected change and new unfamiliar scenery, they have cool accents, and I heard it’s a pretty cool state. Why wouldn’t I want to go?
“I guess I do want to get away from here. I really wasn’t looking forward to seeing my mistakes front and center, where they will be if I stay.” My gaze drops down to my lap, and I keep crossing and uncrossing my legs. “The judging and stares are fine; I can handle those. But the pity glances they give me and the fake sympathies are the things I can’t take. I don’t want people’s pity. Pity isn’t going to make anything different.”
“Sweetheart…” My grandma trails off, and nibbles on her bottom lip with her eyes apprehensive. For once, she’s actually serious.
As I trace one of the swirls on the table, I finally look up at my grandfather’s warm face. He would be so happy if I go, and who knows? Maybe Stepmommy does have all magical powers that will heal me up or something cliché like that. I don’t know, but I’m not one to usually think things through.
I tap my fingers on the table again. It’s now or never. Preferably never, but that doesn’t seem like something that’s going to happen in my lifetime. “Fine, I’ll go, but I refuse to act like I like it. See my face? See how it’s pinched up and is basically saying screw the world? Yeah, this look’s not leaving any time soon. I hope you know that.”
“You know your face could get stuck like that. It could ruin your whole image. And we could never get you that coveted position as the go-to actress for the SyFy channel.” Her eyes are wide, and there isn’t an inch of humor on her face. My goodness, the things she decides to take seriously…
“Josie, just…no. Don’t fuel her insanity.” My grandfather pauses and looks at me. “So, you’re agreeing to go? I don’t have to carry you out kicking and screaming?”
Am I really agreeing to this? Huh. I did lose what little is left of my sanity then. “I’ll wait to kick and scream until I get to my great and magical stepmother’s house. I’m sure it’ll be a good conversation starter.”
“I’m so happy you’re doing this, Lila. It’s going to be the best thing for all of us. You’ll be a whole new person when you come back from summer break. I just know it!” My grandfather breaks out into a huge grin.
Whole new person? I’m waiting for the “Hopefully, not whole new person like the pod people kind” comment from my grandma which is bound to come soon. Truthfully, I just want people to forget about me. Forget about what happened and just get over it.
<><><>
June 12th 2: 34 P.M.
Statistically speaking, planes are the safest form of transportation.
I still don’t trust them.
Something about being thousands of feet in the air just tightens my stomach into knots. Threatening to have yet another panic attack landed me on a train to the small town in Texas on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico where my stepmother lives. Well, at least to a city where my stepmother can pick me up to take me to her house. Who knew Texas had awesome beaches? I sure didn’t.
The stop in Arkansas takes much, much longer than usual. I jiggle my leg, and keep looking out the window. We’ve had a couple of random stops along the way, but it’s usually people running and screaming from this contraption which usually takes up to five minutes at most.
However, things get a lot more interesting when a guy my age struts into our car and plops down in the seats across the aisle. He huffs a sigh and slumps down in the big, fuzzy, gray train seat. His matching gray hoodie surrounds his shaggy dark brown hair. I can’t help but stare at this newest addition. I thought I was just going to have to deal with the crinkly newspaper old dude that I gained in Missouri.
Things get boring again after the thrill of a new person dies down after, oh, about five seconds. I dig into my bag, but only end up with a crumpled ball of paper, one pathetic piece of gum, and a magazine from three years ago. Why couldn’t I have some interesting hobbies? For at least the next half an hour, I imagine kicking rocks to placate my boredom.
I watch out the window for a while, but all I see is trees, trees, some cotton farms, trees, buildings, and oh, did I mention more trees? Checking my watch, I see I still have a little over fifteen minutes left on this train of torture. The chugging of the wheels is grating on my last nerve. I try to keep track of trees a couple of states back but lost count at three hundred and ninety-five. The wrinkling of the old man’s newspaper jolts me out of my mini-tree obsession. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.
The guy my age instantly bolts upright and starts blinking rapidly as if he’s in a daze. Either he just saw the Bat signal, or he was asleep and just woke up. I’m guessing it’s the second one when he swipes at his eyes a few seconds later and pulls out his iPod. After slipping in one of his ear buds, he turns up the volume so loud I can hear the rock song he’s listening to.
I twirl one of the strands of my hair, wondering what my stepmother will be like. I haven’t seen her since my father’s funeral. Is she still considered my stepmother now that my father’s dead? This is just going to be awkward. Totally and completely awkward. Taking my grandfather’s advice, I called her last night.
“Hello?” She even sounded like a therapist. She used that stern, yet gentle tone that drives me nuts.
I take a big gulp. “Um, hi, it’s Lila.”
“Oh, hello, Lila. How are you feeling today?”
Feeling? I thought all those jokes about therapists talking about feelings 24/7 weren’t real. Could I switch spending my summer at her house to spending it under a rock? I thought I would rather talk about my feelings with a rock instead of her. I once found a good friend in a rock that looked like George Washington. I called him Georgie Jr. and…Never mind.
“Nifty. Just nifty. My grandfather told you about our plans, right?”I stared at the photo frame of Tori, my other friend, Jaymey, and me taken during last year’s summer break.
“Yes, I know you’re coming down to stay with me for the summer. It’s going to be so lovely to have you around. You’ll love it here.”
I shook myself out of whatever daze staring at that picture had put me in and started spinning in my desk chair.
“That’s debatable.”
“I’m sure you’ll love it. Your father thought this place was wonderful when we went on vacation here.”
Instantly, I tensed and stopped spinning. I wasn’t sure if she got the memo that we don’t talk about my father—ever. It’s kind of an unspoken rule at my grandparents’. They didn’t want to be reminded that their son’s life was tragically cut short, and I didn’t want to remember the fact that I’ll never have my father to walk me down the aisle or be there at my graduation, which is only a short year away. If this was any indication of how this was going to go, I wasn’t sure how I was going to survive. All this feeling and “remember when” stuff was going to kill me.
Finally, I snapped out of it and found the courage to answer whatever it is she said. “Just peachy.”
Awkward silence filled the phone line, and I was at a loss of what to say. Truthfully, I wasn’t trying that hard. I didn’t want to go, but I didn’t want to stay here. That was the only reason I agreed to this bound-to-be-a-disaster vacation.
“So…I’ll see you when I pick you up from the train station then?”
“Uh huh. Just look for the girl who appears to hate the world, most likely wearing the frilly unicorn sweater that Grandma really wants me to wear. I shouldn’t stand out too much.”
As she chuckled, she said her final goodbye and hung up. This is going to be the summer of awkward silences. I’m going to be a master of that art when summer ends. I’ve already had some practice with it lately, but by the time I get home, I should be amazing at it. Is it sad that this is all I have to look forward to?
Hearing someone clear their throat near me, I snap out of my reverie. iPod Boy’s staring at me. I haven’t decided if it’s bordering on the creepy stare side or not. When we make eye contact, he gives me a smirk and swivels to face me. “You’re new.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Exciting, I know.”
The smirk grows. “No one new ever really comes to town. You’re new, though. New, sarcastic meat. Interesting.”
“Yup, I’m just your average sardonic meatloaf.” I add in a little arm swing to really drive the point across, and even throw in a smirk of my own.
After brushing choppy bangs out of his blueberry-colored eyes, he shrugs. “I think you’re more of a pork chop in all seriousness.”
“Awesome. I’ll be sure to write that on my tombstone. ‘Here lies the more of a pork chop than a meatloaf girl.’”
Seriously? Is this for real right now? I can definitely say that how he has whipped through this banter without even blinking an eye amazes me, but the fact that we’re talking about how I’m different types of lunch meat is a little oddball. I wonder if I hid under my seat, would he notice? This conversation is starting to get somewhat weird. Wait, it’s only now starting to get weird?
A brief smile flickers across his face, but disappears as quickly as it comes. It’s replaced with that smirk he’s been wearing for the past few minutes. “Where are you from?”
“Where are you?” One of my eyebrows quirks up.
He tilts his head to the side which just put his bangs back in his eyes. “Obviously from the town we’re heading to. The only people that come here are the tourists that get lost. You don’t look lost. So, where are you from?”
“Chicago.” I shift in my spot and resist the urge to start tapping my fingers.
“Are you spending the summer here with a family member or something?” He narrows his eyes at my dancing fingers.
Quickly, I stop and stuff them in my shorts’ pockets. “Or something.”
“Way to be descriptive.” He rolls his eyes. “I’ve never met anyone who can skirt around a subject so effortlessly.” He shifts his position in the seat, so he’s fully facing me now.
“What can I say? If it was an Olympic game, I would win gold.” Somehow, I shift unconsciously to face him. Stupid involuntary body movements.
A ghost of a smile plays at the corners of his mouth. “You’re an entertaining person, you know that?”
I twirl a strand of my hair. Should I tell him why I’m here? What have I got to lose? “I’m spending the summer with my stepmother.”
“Who’s your stepmother? I probably know her. Sadly, I know about everyone in that whole town.”
Biting on my lip, I wonder if it really is that small of a town. I’m used to Chicago. Big city, bright lights, traffic, nobody really knowing about your life unless you just so happen to go to a small private school where your life’s spread right out there in the open like one of those tacky tabloid’s covers. Are small towns really like everyone makes them out to be? The everyone-knows-everyone feeling and a gossip mill that’s bigger than all the lies I’ve been feeding myself that everything’s going to be alright?
“Her name is Genevieve McQueen. Really tall, a shrink, and kind of stern-looking.”
Nodding his head slowly, he seems to be making a mental picture of her in his head. “One of the few people that actually moved to our town willingly. I didn’t know she had a husband, let alone a stepdaughter.”
I turn my gaze back to the window and almost choke out of the words that come out of my mouth. “My dad’s dead, so, yeah, that should answer that question.”
Why did I even say that? It’s not exactly what you tell a person the first time you meet him. It’s not like I even had a real connection with the dude. Even though he’s entertaining, I kind of want to swat him with a fly swatter.
Yup, that confirms it. I’ve officially cracked like an egg. I’m the Eggman. Well, Egg-woman or whatever.
It’s dead silent for a minute, before he gives a muted, “Oh.”
“Yeah.” I yank on a strand of my hair.
After a few seconds of awkward silence, he speaks, “Well, thanks for the sharing session. I have to go collect now.” He stands up and tucks his iPod into one of his hoodie’s pockets.
“Collect what?” My eyebrows knit together.
“Oh, Max said that he would pay me twenty bucks to find out all about you and why you were coming to our town so he can be the star of the gossip train and get a head-start on what’s the deal with you. He doesn’t like to admit it, but he loves the attention. Surely, getting the gossip about you is going to get him that golden star. Gossip is like their crack.”
My mouth forms a perfect o. He has to be joking about the small town thing, right? This place can’t be that cliché.
“Thanks for helping me earn easy money.” After giving me a smile, Train Guy makes his way to the other side of the car to where the old dude—Max, the apparent wannabe gossiping queen, wait, king—is seated and crinkling his way-too-noisy newspaper.
That was surreal. Quickly looking away, I frown out the window. If this is any indication on how this summer’s going to be like, my past may not stay hidden. If these people really are gossiping instead of dancing queens, who’s to say that they won’t uncover all the hidden skeletons in my closet?
Gently laying my head against the window, I suddenly have a pounding headache, and the toxic odor of the chemicals is so not helping it. I close my eyes, willing it away. Just what did I get myself into? Why couldn’t I have a cool aunt or something that was going on some European vacation where I could meet hot Italian guys, and nobody would know anything about me since half of them wouldn’t even know English? Or what about the awesome uncle that let me have free reign of the house while he worked? Just anything but this.
Karma’s a bitch.
I hear footsteps coming closer to me. “Erm, are you okay?”
“I’m just nifty.” I give him a weak thumbs up.
“Uh, okay…”
Opening my eyes, I raise my eyebrows at him. “I’m fine. You can go away now.”
After staring at me for a minute, he shrugs. “Okay then. You know you’re kind of confusing. You have that whole sassy thing going on.”
“Sassy?” My nose scrunches up.
Almost as a challenge, he raises his eyebrows slightly. “What if I did?”
“I don’t know. I was just wondering.” I shrug and turn back to the window. He has to be vamoosing away soon, right?
“Uh huh.” He slides back into his seat, his hoodie falling off his head. He runs a hand through his ruffled chocolate brown hair.
“Yup.” I roll my eyes.
The train starts to slow, and the brakes screech. I wince, and I grit my teeth as the brakes continue to cry. I grip the armrest of my seat, willing the sound to go away and just leave me in silence.
Screams erupt in the air, piercing the otherwise silent night. The sickening sound of metal against metal twists my stomach into knots that can’t be untied. The metals collide and grind together, sending off a horrifying cry that sounds like something is dying. Glass explodes everywhere and falls like deadly raindrops as my head bounces back and slams into the headrest of the seat.
Suddenly, I feel like I’m about to be sick. I need to get off this train, this deathtrap on wheels. “Are you okay?” Train Guy asks somewhere in the distance.
I look up. He’s near the aisle chair. I take a few deep breaths and concentrate on coming up with another sarcastic remark. In the end, I deal with just answering his question. “I’m fine. Just not used to trains.”
Whether he notices the tremor in my voice or not, he doesn’t mention it, but changes topics. “So, I never got your name. Might as well get it before we get off.”
After grabbing my bag, I sling it around my shoulders. I turn my gaze to him and see him reaching for his own bag as well. Do I want to tell him my real name or not? Instead, words tumble out of my mouth before I can stop them. “Becca.”
“Becca? That’s a nice name.”
Yeah, too bad it’s not my real name. The train comes to a stop before I can even think about telling him it’s not that. Where did Becca even come from? I quickly mutter a goodbye to him.
Rushing out of the train car, I really hope this small town’s big enough that I don’t have to run into him again. He’s annoying, and I’m sure he’s wondering how sane I really am with the way I reacted to the use of the brakes. I think his use of the word sassy brought it on.
After I jump off the final step, I take a deep breath as I look around the platform. Here goes nothing.