By the time Jack and I got home that evening, Mother didn't have supper done and no one was complaining. I frowned and didn't say anything. Maybe she didn't want to cook and was going for a leftovers thing. Jack wasn't having it though.
"Hey Penny, what's going on?"
Jack and Maddie aren't Mother's biological kids. James, Natalie, and I were surprisingly enough. Mother wasn't but two years older than Father but had produced a kid who was a couple years older than Maddie and I with my jackass of a biological father.
"We're going to the Acker's house for supper. They've invited us," Mother said as vaguely as she could. None of us said anything but James looked at me like he expected me to back out of it. It wasn't wrong of him either.
Our families have been friends for a long time but normally when we have supper together, we invite them over. It was always easy to get out of the dinners then. I could claim I had a project to work on or that I needed to go help out old man Davis. There was always an excuse so that I wouldn't have to eat with her, see her, or even listen to her. I'd fake a sickness but her laughter...it resonates.
So we all went to load up. It seemed stupid to take three vehicles but we did. We're a big family, close too, but there were just some things we couldn't be too close with and one happened to be car rides. It sucked bad enough that four of us had to fit in my pickup even for a few short blocks.
We arrived at different times. Jack and I came in last partially because I couldn't get Jack to calm down about going to her house without her there. He was so sure that the dinner was the announcement of her death but...I couldn't believe it. There was no way Savannah could be dead.
Jack walked in before me, greeting Beth and Henry with a hug and a handshake. Beth smiled at me before running off to the kitchen with my mother. And Henry? Well, Henry still hated me for what I did to Savannah so he nodded to be before taking my coat and hanging it in the coat closet with everyone else's coats.
"So how's it going, Henry?" Father asked.
He looked so small compared to Mr. Acker who stood at a shocking 6'4" with his elephant skin boots on. Father was maybe 5'11" on a good day and plumper than Mr. Acker who looked like he still worked out. And I knew for a fact that he did. Savannah and him lifted weights at the school together on the off season and went for runs every morning at three o' clock sharp. I remember seeing them when I had gone up there late one evening to find Jack after a cross country meet.
"I'm a little worse for wear. How're you, Michel?" Henry asked, rubbing at his shoulder.
"Better," Father replied and continued, "James is home because of some accident that made students evacuate campus. All the kids are doing fine and even Penny's good too."
Right at that second, Carter walked in. Carter was a shit with a mouth the worked about three times faster than Maddie's. Seeing his brown hair, brown eyes, and tanned complexion made me wonder how him and Savannah were even siblings. Their attitudes and mannerisms were alike until a point. But Carter was the exact opposite of redheaded, "green" eyed, paled Savannah who couldn't tan to save her life. (One thing about Savannah's eyes: from all of the time I spent staring at them, I had come to the conclusion that they did not really want to settle on a color. Most called them green so that's what I put into her small description.)
"You're actually here, Oliver?" Carter snapped as his eyes landed on me.
"Carter," Henry ground out warningly.
Carter rolled his eyes and shut the television off, trying his hardest to avoid Natalie. No one said a word for some time after Carter had settled in beside Jack. I watched how they had interacted the whole time, my mind going over all of the ways that Jack had been welcomed into the family.
"So James how's college?" Henry asked, sitting forward in his recliner.
"It's nice I guess. Lots of people, lots of classes, and way too many early mornings," he chuckled along with a couple others. Everyone seemed so relaxed here except for me.
I knew this house better than any of my family members did but it felt foreign. It was like the house was telling me that I didn't belong and for once, I agreed. No one would be able to convince me otherwise.
"How's that truck of yours, Oliver?" Henry asked. I swear to God he was the king of small talk. Savannah was good at it but nothing compared to Mr. Acker.
"She just broke 200,000. I just replaced the tranny, first time she's needed it," I replied almost stiffly.
"Well, if you didn't drive like you do, you wouldn't have had to replace it," Henry said right before my father did. I knew what my reckless driving was doing to my pickup. Savannah had let me know.
"Yes sir," I said with a nod. "How're things with the oil patch?"
Henry grinned slightly like I had asked the right question. Maybe this was the question that would stop him from grabbing that gun from the mantle and putting a bullet in my ass. But he just nodded and said good before launching into a short story about finding another dog out near Huberton.
"Supper's ready!" Beth called before Henry could move on to Maddie.
Out of respect, I stayed sitting until most everyone was up and in the dining room. I knew I didn't have a place, not with all of my false alibis. Jack casually pointed to the seat beside him. I knew that that seat was the one next to Savannah, the one seat that would remain empty.
Beth waited until we all had our stomachs full before smiling sadly. Her brown eyes were full of unshed tears. It pained me to see her so sad because of the simple fact that her and Savannah looked so much alike except her cheekbones weren't as prominent as her daughter's and her jaw was a bit more square.
"Savannah's gone," her voice cracked as a sob rang out. I looked down at my plate quickly, unable to look at anyone right now.
Gone? What does gone mean? Gone like dead? Or is it the kind of gone that they aren't sure if she's alive? Maybe it's the kind of gone she's been wanting for a long time-the one that was full of bright city lights and failing and trying again. That has to be Savannah's type of gone.
"What?" Maddie asked, clearing the silence.
"Savannah ran away, taking the 2010 with her and most of her stuff. Since she's eighteen they can't really do anything unless they want us to press charges for her stealing the pickup but...that won't keep her here," Henry said like he knew that she had been planning to leave all these years. But he didn't, not like I did. Not like Jack did.
"So you're just going to let her go?" Jack asked. He was angry. No...angry doesn't cover it. Jack was downright pissed that they'd just let her go like this or maybe it was that she never said goodbye.
"We don't know where she went and the theft would only stay in the state of Nebraska," Henry replied.
I looked up to see Carter stand suddenly and point at me. "This is your fault! She left because of you!" Then he left up the stairs to his room. Hers was one door down from his and right across from the bathroom. And I wanted to see it. I had to know what she left behind.
"I'm sorry about him. He's taking it very hard," Beth said once she was able to talk again without cracking.
Carter and Savannah were close. They were the closest siblings I've ever been around and always had each other's backs. I'd never heard a bad word come from either of them about the other. Savannah told me the reason once was because "not everything is a perfect as it seems" and left it at that.
"It's okay," I said quietly and stared at the staircase.
Then suddenly everyone was talking at once about where she might have gone or why she went. Natalie wondered how anyone could just up and leave without thinking about their family. Funny, I thought Maddie would be the one soulless enough to ask. Jack was saying that she was just playing a joke because she wouldn't leave without saying goodbye. And James? James thought that she was dead somewhere because she "lacked common sense and survival instincts" which made Henry pissed as hell.
"What did she leave behind?" I finally asked. Beth stopped talking to mother instantly and stared at me. Maybe she thought that I was in cahoots with Savannah and was just gathering the rest of her things.
"C'mon," Beth said to me and stood from the table. I sat there for a while, dumbfounded that she'd actually let me go up to her runaway daughter's room, and then I followed.
Her pictures were still up, the ones she had taken. They were hung up in the staircase, vibrant and full of things that were too pretty for me to look at. I passed by a picture of her and Carter. Her vibrant smile was morphed into laughter and her eyes were closed. Her red hair was cropped to her chin so it was before the days of her pixie. This must be her freshman year or early sophomore year.
I turned away and caught sight of the mirror decoration and followed the stairs up to look into. This was her favorite decoration in the house despite all of her photography. I looked into the mirror and saw my own green eyes staring back at me. Quickly I moved away and walked down the hallway to her room. Once I was inside, I flinched.
Beth had turned on the main light instead of the Christmas lights that were hung up all around the room and woven in between the rails of the headboard. I flicked the light off and plugged in the lights, letting that be the source of illumination. It was softer, sweeter...it was everything Savannah wasn't.
"Shut the door," Beth ordered. I shut it and saw pictures and notecards and drawings covering the back of it. What surprised me was the picture of her and me sitting on the hood of my pickup in the middle of the field with the sun setting. I remember why that picture had been taken and every little fight that had led up to us heading out to that field. Luke Bryan had been playing from her phone.
"She still loves you. I don't get it. Like what did you do to make her fall so hard?" Beth asked and sat down in the creaky chair at the desk. I grinned as I remember how it had become creaky.
"I was what she needed. Past-tense," I replied and began to look around at the poster-ed walls that managed to cover the soft crème colored walls. I admired to artwork on the chalkboard wall and chuckled lightly at the small penis drawn in the corner. It was probably done some time ago but she hadn't seen it or did and didn't care enough to erase it.
"Or maybe she was what you needed-past-tense. You made her need you-present-tense." Beth sounded so much like her right now.
I lifted the mattress and saw her green journal lying there just waiting to be read. I used my foot to bring it to the floor then dropped the mattress, uncaring as to the state of it neatness now. Savannah would kill me if she could see what I was doing right now. Beth gasped like she hadn't expected that to even be here. I didn't expect her to leave it behind either. This had all of her private thoughts that she wouldn't say out loud.
"I don't want to read that," Beth said and stared at it as if it was Satan himself. I leaned down and picked it up, running my finger over the small, loopy cursive at the bottom.
"What if the answer is in here?" I asked her, tossing the journal on the bed. I went over to the closet and opened the door to see it completely wiped clean. The only thing that remained was a pair of brown boots that she hated.
"She took it," she said, ignoring my question.
I stopped looking and closed my eyes. Savannah wouldn't have taken it, not after what I did to her. She gave everything back that I gifted her by putting it in the driver's seat of my pickup one day in school. The only thing that was missing was that bear. God, she hated it and had called it Giggles just for emphasis. Every time I came over I would have to drag it out of the closet and put it on her bed. I thought she had burned it.
"She slept with that bear every night for three months after...and then it sat right in this chair," Beth said and stood from the creaky chair. "I'm going to go entertain. Stay up here if you like."
Beth walked passed and put her hand on my shoulder before leaving and shutting the door behind her. I moved away from the closet, shutting the door in the process. Suddenly I was on her bed and the journal was in my hand. There had only been one other time that I'd held it.
If you ever hold this again, I'm gone. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it. I won't be back and I won't be the Savannah Acker you're dating. I'll be someone else with a better tomorrow.
God, I had hoped I'd never hold that damned journal again. But here I was, willingly opening it. It opened easily to the journal entry on December 4, 2014...the exact day.
It's not my fault. It's not his fault. I would like the respectfully place the blame on time. It's like this:
Two people can be utterly meant for each other but if the timing is wrong, then they're wrong.
Everything is about the bloody timing. And timing fucked Ollie and me over. But, you know what? That's okay. I'll be okay. He'll be okay. The one I'm worried about isn't even around anymore. I'm really sad that he had to be buried.
Oh...she's talking about Sir Nicolas, her dog that had taken a liking to me. Sir Nicolas and I would always chill whenever Savannah was getting ready or doing anything that I couldn't be involved in. I'd been crushed when he had died but nothing close to what had happened to Savannah.
I flipped a couple of pages and see the date has jumped to January 20, 2015. I skim the first couple of paragraphs and see that they're related to her cousins and how annoying they can be. Some visit must have taken place. I don't remember seeing them in town or her leaving. Then there are the next couple of paragraphs:
Bridget told me not to worry about him anymore, but I can't help the fact that I have to watch out for him. Jack told me he doesn't know what he wants and that it'd be better if I went on to the next guy. Maddie says almost the same thing. I know that they're right.
Oliver...he got to me. Normally people don't get to me and that may be because of how I was raised. I was raised to be one of the guys. Feelings aren't a thing that I'm supposed to come by easily and I don't! That's the bloody problem. Oliver's a bloody problem.
I'm sleeping with Giggles still. I'm sorry I'm so weak.
And that's where it ends. The ink is smudged slightly at the end like she had cried and wiped it away as best as she could. I frown and flip to the most recent entry. It's dated December 13, 2015. That was Friday. She wrote in this thing every single day but the Saturday and Sunday before she runs away? Was she too busy getting ready to take off?
Carter's doing great. He smiles at home again and I can hear him playing his Xbox. He still refused to be in the same room as anyone for too long so school is draining him horribly. I've learned his limits and know what days to push him. I'm glad that I got two hours today. They were the best two hours that I've had in a couple of months. I think Carter will be fine without me. College is coming up anyways so he'd have to get over the fact that I won't be around anymore. Visits will be scarce anyways.
Mum's still quiet around Dad. I think she's walking on eggshells. Dad isn't going to blow again. I think she's just tired of being with him as sad as that may seem but I know when people aren't in love anymore. Mum isn't in love with Dad anymore even though Dad loves her more than he'll ever be able to get out.
Jack and Maddie are getting along again. I'm glad Maddie dating Darrien didn't tear them apart. They're all each other have to be perfectly honest because they understand what one another are going through. I'll never quite understand what Jack is going through despite how close we are. God, I'm so glad that I've been able to be friends with them. They're amazing people.
Penny will be here for Mum. Penny is such an amazing lady and despite what others think, I think she raised the most amazing kids. They're loyal and kind and everything that anyone could ask for.
Mansfield is empty for me now. I'm finally ready to go despite the fact that I'll be missing some key points in my life (graduation, senior prom, New Year's with my class and a few others, the graduation party, the goodbyes, etc.). No one understands what I'm going through, probably because I never said anything. This journal is the only thing I need for anyone to understand.
I regret not saying goodbye. But I regret not saying goodbye to Ollie the most. I think he deserved an explanation.
That's where it ended. I frantically flipped through the rest of the pages and prayed that there was more. But this was just like Savannah. She would say what she wanted to and run off without another word. Just like what she did with that stupid, fucking funeral for Sir Nicolas. Just like every damn time before.