Page 13 of Unbound
My truck’s parked at Beck’s cousin’s house in Eugene because I don’t want Mom or Red to know. The last thing I need is another “get your shit together” speech from them. I’ve heard them so often they have no affect anymore. And here I give Tyler a hard time when I was just as stupid.
When my arms are full and my guitar is on my back, I write a note to Mom and Raven, and then leave it on the counter.
I don’t sign it because why bother? They’ll know who it’s from. I’m the only one who will ever leave a note like this. My twin sister, Raven, she’dneverdo this. She and Ma tell each other everything.
Red, my older brother, he’s too fucking noble to ever leave town. The oldest, the one with the determination and ability to run the family business, he’d rather stay and make a life in a town that’s taken everything from him, including his wife.
Me… I’m not like either of them, and it’s something I’m reminded of daily.
Once outside, I shut the door quietly. The sky’s pink with the rising sun, Beck’s pale yellow Fairlane standing out in the shadows created by the last bits of the night.
I don’t look back once we’re on the road, but I think of Nova. My niece, her chocolate curls and bright eyes peering up at me last night when I lost my head and threw a cooler full of beer. The fear and sadness in her expression is a haunting memory I’ll never shake. She doesn’t need to know this guy, the one who shouts and screams, takes and never gives, uses and abuses until there’s no one left.
I hate Sophie for letting me use and abuse her, inside and out.
I hate myself more for doing it.
Leaving isn’t an action for me. It’s a consequence. It’s a means to an end of something I started. A condition in which I have to live with and is the only place left to go. It’s the rest of forever and my absolute penance.
Maybe then, maybe when I’m gone, these few fragments of what’s left of me might possibly become something more. Even if I don’t understand my thoughts, they’ll be there, and she’ll be better off.
