Chapter 1: Leaving

Leaving

I stood in the pouring rain watching the cold wind toss the American flag in wild directions. The rain bit into my face forcing tears to spill out and crawl pathetically down my cheeks. I always knew that there would be moments when I would never want to wake up or live any longer. I was experiencing one of those moments again.

I looked down at the knife in my hands. It had been years since I had thought about suicide, thought about the sweet release it would bring. There were white scars on my wrists; so many times I had tried to get away from reality through cutting them.

I remembered the drugs and their dulling lullaby of colors. I remembered my fall into their simple caress and the ease of the torture. I loved the highs I would climb to, the peace and the freedom, having no cares except when I would get my next hit.

Falling from that peak, I would find the reality and I would be swallowed up by all that I did not want to be so. I would be taken into the despair once more. I would crawl back to the thoughts from which there was no escape.

Suicide had been a simple seven-lettered word. Its meaning I had known to be nearly as simple as the word itself; the intentional taking of one’s own life. I knew that there were people who took their own lives for different reasons like shame, guilt, desperation, physical pain, depression, and emotional pressure. The list went on but the one thing that I took note of was depression.

That summed up what I felt; extremely down, like nothing in the world could ever be good again. With the sliding door of the rain soaked sundeck closed, I sat with my back against it, holding off the tears with all the strength I could muster. My strength alone wasn’t enough though and soon my tears wet the high perch. There were no drugs that could have taken me away, for when I had come back from my best friend’s funeral, I had sworn off them forever. For all the times I had stood strong, it was not the time to crack, but even so, I felt happening.

I felt the hairline crack that would grow into a deep and jagged ravine. With all my strength, I willed it to disappear but my power alone was nothing to the crowbars that pried against my breaking heart. I felt like nothing could ever hold me together.

I needed to die. I needed the simple escape.

There had been so many times in my life that I had thought of suicide. I had always thought it was stupid, pointless. Who could ever be dumb enough to want to commit suicide? I had asked before but never really learned the answer. I had heard of people who took their own lives but I just thought they were weak and couldn’t handle their problems.

Back then, the hardest decision I had to make was what kind of ice cream I wanted or what game to play. What a naïve fool I had been. Things changed and I understood more. I knew what it was like to have pain running deeper than just a stubbed toe. I had experienced cutting my wrists to get away from everything on the inside.

I had much knowledge of pain and hurt. It had vastly expanded since thinking a broken arm was worse than a broken heart. So much was different and sometimes I found myself missing the days when the only kind of pain was physical and the only decision was whether to have a chocolate bar or ice cream.

Though I didn’t want to die, I just didn’t see the point in living anymore. I knew that I had thought of suicide as a crazy thing but I felt insanity closing in. So many times I had thought of that stupid thing but I had never really considered it for myself.

All of my previous beliefs changed in one pivotal moment. Suicide seemed like a very easy way out of the pain filled life. It was just an option that became more than sane. It became an idea that turned into a plan; a plan that I so desperately needed to carry out.

I knew I was going to take my own life and nothing in the world could stop that. It would happen whether someone knew it or not. I couldn’t live knowing that I was just a thorn in everyone’s side.

I could feel every single tear sliding down my cheeks and I couldn’t help but hear their fighting words over and over again. I remembered the way that my parents, Tom and Teresa, yelled at each other when I was younger. I was so young but there were things that I could never forget. The memories may not have lasted but the feelings were eternal. Pictures faded, frames rusted, and memories fell into the dust, but the emotion would always be there. There, within all the lies and all the broken promises, lined up was the assassination of emotions, ready to be taken on one by one.

They had screamed at me so many times and it became too often that it stopped breaking through my shield. I became accustomed to the constant fighting that it just stopped bothering me.

For the first time in what felt like forever, I felt myself breaking. I felt the warmth of the tears on my cheeks and the taste of the salt as it neared my lips.

Fresh tears broke through the barriers and I found my lip quivered as I held back more tears. I didn’t understand my efforts because the tears just started falling once again. Not even that many tears could ever surmount the pain I had suffered through.

I felt like I was dying and no one could stop that. Why would anyone want to stop me from enduring the destructive pain? Maybe I wanted to die. Maybe that was all I wanted in the world.

Their words were just a memory but the memory was so strong in my mind that it might as well have not been a memory at all. Just like a jagged rusty saw, I was cut and poisoned. I was tired of healing the wound; it just kept coming back even harsher than before.

There were so man tears and I wondered why I even bothered to question how many there were. The words far outnumbered the wet drops that rolled down my cheeks. There were so many tears.

I wanted to tell myself that they were just words but they weren’t; they were devices used for torture. I wanted to ask myself why that happened to me but I knew exactly why. I knew the precise reasons to why they did such mean things to me.

I had been broken and there was no repair for the piece of glass. I loved to think of myself as safety glass because it was so rarely broken. I broke that day and nothing in the whole world could change the fact that I was beyond repair.

Even safety glass could break and even I could cry.

My back held the door of the sundeck closed as tears rolled sadly down my cheeks. I didn’t bother wiping them away. It was too pointless to waste the effort. I stood and pulled open the door. My feet found their way towards the kitchen where I placed my own murder weapon back in the drawer.

I couldn’t give up. Now that I had grown, I had changed, and learned that there was more to life than just the pain and the bad. I just had to look for the good, even though it may be hidden within the darkness.

I made my way outside and stood on deck, listening to the rain, listening to the sound of my heartbeat loud in my ears. My mother would come home soon and she would question me, ask why I was home though it had happened too many times before for her to really need to come home.

My bad behavior had caught up with me and I was in a three day out-of-school suspension. That meant three days at home with her. And when I got back to school, I would probably have to sit in a shrink’s office for the next few weeks. As if being home with Teresa wasn’t punishment enough.

Frozen water hung in icicles on the edge of the high storey of my mother’s apartment. The small sundeck I stood perched on faced the rising sun but I could not see its beauty through the thick globs of rain fell through the darkened, gray, sky. It was a mere glow on the misty horizon. It reminded me of how my future looked; a small glow at the end of a dark tunnel. It was already a dying hope for me. It was one of those moments when I knew that I would never want to wake up once I had fallen into a deep sleep. I could only agonize in the nightmares of my life.

Dreams were torturous when I always woke up. Sleep rarely came and some nights it didn’t come at all. There were nightmares that dared to return and even finding reality could not take it away. Some days it felt as if the true nightmare was my life, my life which I could not escape.

Neither asleep nor awake, day found me and I pulled through, pushed forward. I attempted to make it through the long periods where there was nothing but my own mind, my own mind that cruelly tried to destroy me. It was the thoughts, stabbing at my sanity until I was nothing but tears and a broken heart.

I had not fallen, for that was for the weak, for those who pretended to be what they weren’t. I couldn’t say that it did not hurt, because it did hurt. There was pain in the thoughts I couldn’t escape. I had to hold on, torturous as it was, had to ignore the pain, futile as it was.

My fingers had slipped ever so slowly, and if I fell, there was no way to rise again. I was no angel, no wings or a halo. I was forgotten brutally beaten until there was no way to rise. For once, I wished I could fly. I wished I could take to the sky and soar above all that burdened me.

My brothers would cry out for me and they would say that I had left them. And so I clung, in wait for reality to fade and meld with my dreams.

I had dreamed with a broken heart and there was no truth except that waking up would always be the hardest part. It was the worst torture, unbearable in ways that not even words could describe, painful in ways that I never thought possible. So there, within reality, within my insufferable dreams, the torment remained, always and forever an inescapable truth.

“Ashley,” I heard my mother calling out my name as she walked in the front door, even though no keys had jangled. Our apartment was never locked; we had nothing that was worth stealing. Teresa had returned from her precarious work as a bar waitress on an apparent emergency, only to leave again after she had dealt severely with me – ‘severely’ being the operative word in the case, as it was in most cases. “Ashley?” Her voice grew impatient as I stood silently on the sundeck refusing to answer for the moments that truly mattered; the silent ones. I couldn’t even say that it wasn’t my fault that I was at home on a school day because it was my fault that time, though it usually was my younger half-brothers. “Ash!” she yelled out again. Her voice was nearly screaming as she walked through the small apartment. I could, however, try to deceive my mother into thinking that it wasn’t really my fault. “Ashley Marie!” my mother’s voice was growing desperate though she hadn’t even looked for me. I heard her high-heeled footsteps running across the new hardwood floor. Her worn-out heels were probably wrecking the floor though it could hardly get much worse. She was my mother and I didn’t understand a single bit about her though I’d lived with her for my whole life, with the exception of a few days that I had spent at my fathers. Sometimes, I didn’t want to understand anything about her but other times I wished I knew what she was thinking. Most of the time I didn’t even need to question what she was going on in her head because of her simple mind that rethought the same thoughts every time the same incident occurred.

“I’m here, mom,” I called out to her. The scuffling on the floor stopped and the small feet seemed to turn in a round-about circle that brought her closer to me. The feet came closer to the sundeck and my mother’s small, burned, hand turned me around to face her.

I hated being called Ashley. It reminded me of the past and it reminded me of whom I had been. Ashley was Teresa’s daughter, dismal drug-addicted excuse for a human being. Trevor had called me Ash and that was why I changed my name. He made me into the person I was. Though pieces of my past remained, I stood strong with the future that he had shown me. Trevor was my life, my guardian angel, my brother.

I didn’t even care that her hand had a small red scab on it. She had probably done something stupid at work. That didn’t surprise me; nothing could surprise me about my mother now. I could tell that the burn was small and round. It was probably a cigarette burn to add to the multiple other small, round, scars that layered her old hands. Teresa was nearing forty-two years old but still thought that she was twenty-one. She practically lived in the big-city pubs.

Her life was all for the party even though her children suffered for the wants and desires that fueled her every-day life. My two younger half-brothers were barely old enough to understand the concept of life and partying. One of them wasn’t even old enough to walk and yet he would probably never learn; no one would ever be around to teach him how to move one foot after the next.

“Ashley,” Teresa said, “I want to know what happened today. The truth too, none of the ‘usual stuff,’ ok?” Teresa’s face was worry-struck and scared; she was a good actor, I had to admit. How could I ever take her seriously? Her overly done makeup was more than enough for me to laugh about but her clothes just added to her unbearably slutty and disgusting look. It was all for her job at the pub, for the guys, for the party, for her new husband or, I should say fiancé.

Michael was still her fiancé; she had been engaged with him for nearly ten months yet she couldn’t afford the wedding and he was too selfish to pay for it. He was one of those men that only had one intention for relationships with women.

I sighed. The pointless discussion that my sickening mother and I would have about my poor behavior wouldn’t last long. How I loved the concept of hypocrites. I would be back in school before the week’s end. Sometimes I wished my suspensions could last longer but other times I was just glad to get back to school and away from my mother’s repulsive lifestyle. I smiled as honestly as I could, but sometimes honesty wasn’t the best policy. In times like those, lies were needed to be successful. Lying was wrong but sometimes it became necessary. “Mom, some jerk from the grade nine P.E. class started pushing Spencer around.”

Oh, sweetie, I could almost hear my mom’s words already. I knew what she would say because she said it every single time; the same words, the same response, and no steps taken to help me or my younger brother out of the swamp we were sinking in. Spencer was my half-brother. I didn’t know why I protected him at all. It seemed so pointless but it wasn’t right to just stand around and watch him get himself into problems he couldn’t deal with.

Still, as much as I hated Spencer, I couldn’t let him turn out like me. I wouldn’t let him become the person my mother had let me become. He was too important to be left out in the rain, to be left in the grasps of Teresa. So, with all my might, I shielded him from harm, no matter where it came from or what might become of it.

I didn’t have any full siblings, as much as it was to my chagrin. Teresa had slept with more men than I wanted count and that was the only truth I could bring myself to live with. My mother lived in other peoples’ houses more than she did ours. I would say other men’s houses but sometimes they weren’t single. I rarely saw my mother around, making dinner the way she once had.

At times, I remembered the bitter-sweet smell of her perfume in the morning when she got up early to make me breakfast; it had only been me at the time. It reminded me of the life I once loved, before she lost her job and went to work at the pub. Even then, she would often come home just to spend time with me but as I grew older that lessened. It hadn’t been long after when I started getting into drugs, almost as if to fill the void that my mother’s absence left.

“Oh, sweetie,” my mother said out loud, “What did you do?” Fake concern had entered her soft voice as she tried very weakly to feign care and affection at the same time. For her, it was a feat still unaccomplished; impatience had already leaked into her voice. She was probably missing a party at the bar; who knew what she could have been doing in that small bit of time. She could be making money stripping. I didn’t know what she could be doing or even what she would have been doing had I not been suspended and been forced to come home for a few days which, indirectly, forced my mother to come home to deal with me. Even though Teresa and I had been through the suspension routine, my mother still thought it was necessary to come home each and every time.

“I stopped him and I basically said back off. He didn’t so I stepped in between him and Spencer.” My words sounded duller than ever. I added a sigh to amp the effect. I didn’t really need to do anything to deceive my mother; she never noticed when I was lying anyways. There were only three reasons that she never noticed my lies. First of all, she was usually drunk. Second, there was the smoking every single day, which counted as being stoned. The final and third reason that she had never noticed was because she didn’t really care what went on in my life. I didn’t know why I even bothered to force expressions that I used so rarely onto my face.

Anger was my most used expression. I knew that I used it far too much. Some days I found that there wasn’t really any other emotion that worked for the situation. Anger was my reflex action; sometimes I couldn’t stop it. Other times it depended on whom I was speaking to.

“I told Jason to back off, again. He got mad at me and tried to push me aside so I let him taste a bit of my fist. He didn’t take it so well. After recovering, he came again so I let off a few rounds. Then, Mr. White came and summoned me to his office.” Here were the moments that my other unused expressions became the ultimate for the lies I wove.

Mr. White was the school principal. I had never liked him even from the start. It made me despise him even more the way he always sided with the suck-ups like Jason David. Who knew teachers could be so bias? I did, and that’s probably why I had gotten into so much trouble over the years. The teacher’s liked to have their pets and I was, most definitely, very far from being one of those.

Though years had passed, my reputation had stuck, strong as the memories of my past life, my memories of Trevor and the drugs, the life that had been following in the footsteps of Teresa. That had changed though, and all that remained was the empty void where Trevor had been stolen from. Drugs had filled the void when Teresa left and Trevor when he took me away from my addictions. I lost the only one who ever cared about me though and suddenly I was alone.

“I went reluctantly with Mr. White. Jason was off the hook, of course.” ‘Like he usually is,’ I would have added had my mother not been in been recently in love with his father, Alex David. Her relationships never lasted long; she had only ever experienced lust.

Yet again, I had gotten in trouble for defending Spencer and Jason’s father had been summoned as well as my mother to have a group discussion with the principal. The discussion went well but after Teresa and Alex had been caught, by one of the teachers, making out. For once in my life I was grateful for Mr. White. I didn’t even want to know what other sibling I might have had if the principal hadn’t caught them. I didn’t think I could have handled being indirectly related to Jason David.

“Mr. White told me I would have to start behaving well or get expelled. Also, I can’t keep going around picking on little Davy otherwise he would expel me, even though Jason David is older than Spencer by a year. I tried to tell him that Jason was bullying Spencer but he didn’t listen. He then said, ‘I’m really sorry Miss Logan, but you will have to be temporarily suspended for a few days. The rest of your teachers and I will have to discuss your future. Whether that future includes this school or not, your behavior from the moment you return from your three day out of school will decide. Use your time at home to think about whether you want to go to school.’ Quote, unquote.” I finished my story with another dramatic sigh, for my mother’s sake of course. I didn’t really care if I got in trouble anymore. I got the same punishment every time and it wasn’t actually that bad. Once I got used to the fact that there really was nothing to do, I had been forced to start getting creative. I had been forced multiple times to get extremely creative. I was glad that my mother worked most of the time; if she knew about half the things I had experimented on, she would have killed me.

Teresa looked sadly at me. It could have been a sincerely sad face had her words not been impatient. “I don’t know what to do any more. Ashley, you get suspended, Spencer gets bullied, and Michael changes the wedding date…” She trailed off.

I sighed, resenting the fact that she would not call me Ash. I rolled my eyes, listening to her continuous babbling.

Michael Shelby was the man Teresa had met him in the pub almost ten months ago while serving him and his fiancé, who broke up not soon after. At the time, Teresa and Michael were both drunk and extremely sick from the drink. Delusional, they went to his place and had sex. Teresa got pregnant so they decided to get married. Michael kept changing the day of the wedding. I knew he was cheating on Teresa, like he cheated on his fiancé. She knew that too but refused to admit it. My new half-brother, Clayton, had been left with Spencer and me while my repulsive mother went out for more parties than she could afford. I hated both Teresa and Michael. They were one of the main reasons for my decision to leave.

“Mom,” I said quietly. Yes sweetie, I heard her words again in my head. Her mind was much too simple. Every word was used repetitiously as if it had been rehearsed; I had experienced the lines far too many times in my lifetime to even care that they would be once again repeated now.

“What sweetie?” Teresa took my hand in hers. I pulled it out as quickly as I could; who knew what she could have been doing at work for the morning shift. She had, as scripted, been drinking in the morning and it was still only first block when I had gotten suspended.

I didn’t take long to get into trouble. Most of the teachers at the school disliked me anyways and so were happy when I got banned. Though only temporarily, it still excited them to see me leave.

I was surprised to be off a word. People in plays made mistakes, except that wasn’t a mistake; it was just another translation for the same play I had seen too many times over. “I have been thinking about this for a while,” I hesitated, pausing for only a moment. Why would I do that to Teresa? She couldn’t even take care of herself and, realizing suddenly, that was probably why I had to do it. It was a very short moment that I paused for. “I want to go live with dad.” I waited patiently, carefully interpreting her expression as it played out plainly across her face.

She was silent for a moment. Still receiving my words she finally said, “But you are with your daddy. Michael is your daddy.”

That was the only conclusion she could come to? I didn’t believe that she could be that delusional and that stupid but there she was. She was that messed up and that lost in her life. I silently yelled at myself. I had known she would think that Michael was my father. Of course, it was obvious. She was delusional, hadn’t she always been? She had been as long as I could remember. That might have been after she moved to the big city. though. Either way, she was through the normal stage of life.

“Teresa,” I nearly yelled, trying very hard to keep my cool, “Michael is not my dad. I mean my real dad. You know, Tom?”

For a moment it looked like she faintly recognized the name. “Tom?”

I had never seen anything more than acted expressions and actions on my dear mothers face but, suddenly, for the first time ever, I saw a pain that was burrowed deep behind my mother’s eyes. I pushed it aside, ignoring it and continuing on.

“Yes, Tom Logan!” I yelled, finally venting all my anger and frustration on her. She deserved it; she deserved a lot more than I was giving her. She deserved a world of suffering for the life she had forced upon my younger half-brothers and me. My anger raged and I fought back the tears that would inevitably come.

“What about Spencer, and Clayton, and me, and Michael?” She stammered, her run-on sentence continuing pointlessly. Her face was losing its color and fast. Her expression was caught between confusion and complete understanding; she knew the names but not what she was speaking about.

“Ter-Mom, Spencer is coming with me! Spencer wants to come with me! Clayton is your accident. If it were possible to ask him if he wanted to come, I bet he would! You can take care of yourself. Michael is just plain pathetic. Spencer and I want nothing to do with you, or Michael, or anybody at school. I am tired of your big city life. I hate that you are never home, that you are always out partying. We’re leaving this stupid place whether you like it or not.” I paused for a moment letting my words sink in.

Teresa stood for that moment staring desperately at me. “You mean I have to take care of Clayton? I actually have to take responsibility?” Had it been further possible, even more color drained out of her face as she whispered the last word. “But Tom…” recognition filled her eyes along with tears. Was she really crying though or was it just another performance to go along with the multiple others?

From the corner of my eye, I saw through the open sliding door of the balcony. Spencer was stepping into our shared room, looking in our direction. I looked back at my mother and glared. “Yes Teresa, you will have to take responsibility for someone else and not just your stupid, pathetic, unbearable self. We are leaving.” I couldn’t control the built-up anger that had caught on fire like dry wood in a dead forest. I vented the years of rage in the words I spoke.

“Ashley Shel-” Teresa screamed at me but I cut her final word off.

“It’s ‘Logan’ Teresa, L-O-G-A-N! Ash Logan, not Ashley Shelby, or Ashley [find out Spencer’s last name],” I yelled back as loud as I could. It hurt my voice to yell so loud but she needed to hear it none the less. She needed a lot more than just a brain makeover.

“I don’t care,” Teresa yelled. She was so close I could feel her spit spraying on my face. I felt the small drops hitting my cheeks but the cold rain washed it away. I could smell the alcohol upon her breath, particularly containing vodka. I hated her more than anything; even more than the guys that picked on Spencer, which was pretty darn bad. I nearly hated her more than Michael but that might have been over-stepping it.

“You will not call me ‘Teresa,’ you will call me ‘mom!’ I am you mother! I am! I am! I am!” She had begun pounding her fist in midair almost as if there should have been something there that she was pounding at but her fist only found cold rain and air. The small scab was only a blur in the circular waves her fist made.

I felt the words coming up like puke, “And I wish you weren’t my mother!” It wasn’t the kind of puke that I didn’t want though. I wanted to say those words more than anything else that I had wanted to say in my entire existence. There was a lifetime of hate behind the words that spilled like puke onto the high storey.

I forced my way by Teresa and walked into my room, scowling at her stupidity. My suitcase lay underneath my bed where it always was, ready to go anywhere at any time. I retrieved it, placing it on the floor in front of my dresser. Spencer’s was already packed and waiting on the other side of the room. I threw my clothes in my own suitcase, randomly selecting only what I would need for the snow borne city of Easthunt. I didn’t even bother to slam it shut as I knew Spencer would mention something I had missed; he almost always did.

He didn’t mention anything, nor did he slam my suitcase shut. He went to the kitchen to retrieve the phone and called my father.

The reason we had both decided to move in with my father was because he was the sanest. He could be crazy at times but most of his insanity was just for fun. He was bearable to live with. Spencer’s father was some-what like Michael; he had ditched our mother when she told him that she was pregnant with his child. Neither Teresa nor I had seen or heard from him since. I remembered him well, remembered the fights, the yelling, and the tears. I had only been Spencer’s age when it happened.

Teresa sat at the kitchen table, a liquor bottle in one hand, a cigarette in the other. She wasn’t really there, delusional and mentally lost as ever. She would take one huge, long puff, and then an even bigger, longer, swig of whatever it was that she desired to drink. It smelled like whiskey of sorts but I couldn’t be sure.

“Ash, pack Clayton’s stuff. We’re not leaving him with her; he would be dead within the hour,” Spencer told me kindly. I fully agreed, listening and doing so, wondering desperately what my father would say about me coming live with him and bringing all my half-siblings along.

I would be bringing all of my siblings along. They didn’t deserve to suffer along with my mother while she defiled herself more than was necessary. Could it be possible for her to be even more unclean?

After, I hurried back to the kitchen to see what Tom had told Spencer. I found that there was not a need to ask; Spencer’s smile told me everything I needed to know.

We couldn’t just hop on a plane and go. It wasn’t that simple though with all my heart I wished it could have been. Neither Spencer nor I had enough money to afford a plane trip to Vancouver. We would probably have had to take some money from Teresa but even I, who had taken from my mother before, knew that stealing from someone as broke as her was wrong. I wished that I could say I had never done it before but I had and didn’t want to ever again or even then when we needed it the most. It was wrong and I knew it. I could ask her for money but I seriously doubted that she could afford to send just me to live with my dad, never mind the other two half-siblings. Both Spencer and I would have to pay for the full cost. Clayton could possibly go for free.

What would Trevor have done in this situation? I wanted to ask him what to do but he wasn’t around anymore. He was gone like the air that left my chest when I thought of him.

I sighed. Maybe there really was no point in leaving the city if we couldn’t even afford to get out of it. I tried not to cringe at the thought of staying with Teresa for another few years but couldn’t bear it long enough let it get further than my own mind. I knew that I couldn’t handle living with my own mother for even a few more years. I didn’t even want to live with her for even a few more days. The thought of having to suffer with her alcohol addicted lifestyle was painful so I chose not to have to bear the thought very long. I pushed it out of my mind and left it alone only thinking of ways that my half-siblings and I could escape my mother’s cold, controlling, grasps.

Trixie would have been able to help us but she was at work. It hit me then, harder than I had ever known was possible. The answer lay right there, undiscovered until it hit me. I didn’t understand how I could have missed it.

I didn’t know how or even why I had begun thinking of just not showing up for my job the next day but suddenly the thought was in my mind and so was my escape plan. I didn’t need to take anything from my mother at all. Time was short as I hurried towards the front door and pulled on my converse. I couldn’t think of any ways to explain my plan to Spencer so I gave him the look that warned him to wait for me.

I caught the elevator with the old couple that lived across the hallway and rode down to the main floor with them. It wasn’t a long ride but I spoke with my neighbors and they asked me why I wasn’t in school. I didn’t want to explain that I was suspended or that I was moving so I simply told them that I was on vacation and probably wouldn’t be returning. They smiled, understanding. They let me hurry out ahead of them and I jogged down to quit my job.

I worked at a little candy shop around the corner from the building my family lived in. It was extremely small but always smelled of fresh candy since the young kids and even teens came in every day. Trixie Harper was the owner of the petite little shop. She was a little on the pudgy side of the scale but I understood why. She was always there whether one of her employees was at work or not. She might have thought that we were bad for having jobs while school was in or she might have thought that we were thieves and stole her freshly made goods. Either way, I knew my boss would be around.

“Hey Trix,” I smiled as I entered the store. She was sitting behind the counter reading her baking magazine. I didn’t understand how she could just sit for hours and hours reading ingredients from a lame book. That would bore me half to death and back again. Trixie was another one of the reasons I experimented at home while I was on suspension. She was the one who showed me most of my tricks and I just tried them over and over again at home until they were perfected or renewed.

“Ash,” she said putting her book down, “What’s up? Are you suspended again?” She knew I got suspended a lot and that my mother worked in the pub across the street from her candy shop. “Come to work again ‘cause you’re bored?” She added a dainty laugh and smiled.

I nodded. “Yeah, I’m suspended again but I’m not here to work. I’m going to be leaving for a town called Easthunt so I won’t be here at work ever again.” I explained hurriedly about where and why we were going and Trixie listened carefully and with concern - real concern. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner but Spencer and I weren’t sure if we were going to go quite yet. We are sure now, though.” I finished with as honest of smile that I could get to pass through my stiff lips.

She laughed. “So, in other words, you need money or you’re here to say goodbye.” She walked slowly over to the cash register. It was more of a waddle than a walk but still, she made it over by moving her feet one after another. Sometimes it surprised me that she even could walk but she managed it fine without any help at all. I suddenly thought of Clayton being able to learn how to walk someday. He would take his first steps and fall into my arms. I would be so exhilarated and even I would be smiling.

I tried to laugh too but it didn’t turn out too good. It sounded more like a dying animal than my laugh. I hadn’t heard myself laugh in so long that I had forgotten what it felt like, what it sounded like. “Both, I guess. Thanks for everything, Trix. You really are the greatest.”

She handed me a wad of cash and smiled. “Anything for you, Ash. Just stay out of trouble and don’t let any of my other employees find out that I gave you money.” She laughed and opened her arms. I embraced her and thanked her sincerely for the money and everything she had ever done for me which just happened to be a lot; it was a lot more than Teresa had ever done for me. I left the little candy store with a few candies for Spencer and Clayton. Trixie really was the kindest person I knew.

It didn’t take long to get what we needed for the flight out of town and we got it quickly before heading to the airport to catch the plane.

Even as I boarded the long white beast that would carry my younger half-brothers and I across skies, I knew more than anything else that I wouldn’t ever come to regret my choice to leave the party-like life of the big city that I had been living with my mother for so long. I couldn’t even bring myself to regret the fact that I was leaving my very own drug fed mother to fend for herself in a city as large as that. I honestly couldn’t bring myself to care.

Maybe I didn’t want to care about how I had left her; alone in the empty apartment with nothing but her drugs and booze. There was a time when I did used to care and I did want Teresa to be the kind, loving mother that she should have been but then again, there were other times when I just wanted to give up hope that she would ever be normal and have a life of her own. I had given up on my mother for the last time and finally I was leaving, unable to regret moving away from her at all. I was going to live with my dad and I would enjoy every single moment I spent forging a future for myself.

I had been told so many times that I looked like my mother and that was like a nightmare coming true. I did look like my mother, though I hated to admit it. I had her curly red hair and defining eyes that sat directly above the same nose. My eye color wasn’t even my fathers. I didn’t want to look in the mirror at the person who had ruined so many lives with her desperate, slutty lifestyle.

I thought back to only hours before, to when I had told Teresa of my plan to leave her for the last years of my life that would be spent at home. I had told her I would be going to live with my dad and I couldn’t seem to push the last image I had seen of her out of my head. I didn’t think of it though. I didn’t even want to know that was who my mother was. I didn’t want to be ashamed of my life because of her so I worked harder to push the image out and, finally, it faded like the last of the raining clouds as the long plane raised itself higher into the sky.

Flights were short when I thought up a story for myself to be in. I told that to my brothers and it worked for them. For me though, there had never been any fairytale to dream of being in. There was only the reality of life and the cold facts. There were only the memories that I never liked to enter into. The hours dragged themselves out into what seemed like forever and they lasted for a very long time. I wished they would disappear but they didn’t. They pulled in strong lulls and maddening caresses.

The hours never ended and I had to count down the seconds to make sure that the time didn’t stop. I had to make sure that each second was accounted for so that I knew the time was passing.

I thought back to Trevor, wishing that I hadn’t hurt him. I loved him like a brother and I had destroyed him. I was sorry. I regretted so much of my life and so much of what I had done. I had changed though and I felt like I owed the world, my life to him. I had to spend every waking minute helping people.

Though changed as I had, there was no way to help my reputation and so I was always going to be known as a druggy, part of the wrong crowd. There was no way to become a better role model for those who had seen me at my lowest. I would always be part of that blackened mark on the world. Forever, I would be linked to the darkness and the drugs. Not even moving to a new town could shed that label from me.

My father was probably ashamed to be related to me and I could not blame him for that. If my brothers had known, they would never want to hear my name again.

I had given up on my own life many times, begging for death to take me away. It had never happened and I found myself alive to experience the pain of life. I had stood and faced death, begging for it to take me, yet I stood, untouched by its hands. I hated life because I still lived.

So many times, I had sat with a red bottle of pain killers, containing exactly one hundred and nineteen of the pills, in front of me, considering how many it would take to kill myself. I had counted them multiple times, the full number taking them out and the full number placing them back in the bottle. I thought about suicide and how many people would miss me but I couldn’t come up with any names. The very first time, I dropped only two while placing them back in the red bottle. There was no one to save me from myself. There probably wouldn’t even be a funeral.

I remembered the moments I had wanted to die and how much I had spent begging for the black hands to steal me out of the life I lived. I was born into the wrong family and I should never have had to be part of the life of pain and destruction.

I became too tired of wanting to die to ever be okay.

Turbulence buffeted the plain and somehow, after everything I had ever experienced, after leaving Teresa, I found myself wanting the plane to crash, wanting to die.

I had dreamed of escape. I had dreamed of getting away. Long before, I had even dreamed of suicide. If there was one person who could stop me, it was Trevor. He knew; he was the only one who could see the pain that I hid and the hurt behind my shadowed eyes.

After I lost him, I dreamt of him saving me from the life that I didn't want to live. The pain killers were sitting in the cabinet, there for me to steal. For life had I wished for and yet it was the tears that remained the one constant, there when the pain had passed. They knew that it would all come crawling back, the pain, the hurt, the hope of suicide, and the tears would remain.

Finding my escape, my sweet release, I could not leave life.