No Pads… No Helmets… Just Memories!

I let out an internal sigh getting up from my seat to reach for my backpack in the overhead, barley making out scattered apologies at each person I bumped into or elbowed frantically trying to grasp the black bag. "Here let me help you with that" a voice spoke in a thick New England/Boston accent reaching his hands into the overheard grasping the strap with his long, thin arms with ease, "this one right?" The boy with dark mussed hair said and all I could do was nod and shoot him a slight smile in thanks as he pulled it out placing it in my hands.

I threw it onto my back turning away from the boy not even giving him a second thought as I walked down the isle of the now nearly vacant airplane keeping my head down. I fished my phone out of my back pocket as I stepped out into the gating area. I hastily turned the device on frantically searching the overhead signs to navigate the vaguely familiar airport to baggage claim. It’d been two years since id been in this airport, well two years since I’ve been in the Maryland area at all actually. The reasons and the story behind it are far more complicated and heart wrenching for my thoughts to bear at this point. Our mother had left us, run out, and abandoned us. Divorced my dad and disappeared without a sound. Maybe if I was just a bit older or just a bit smarter, I would have seen why she had left, and that it was better for me and my twin brother Rian that she was filtered from our lives when she was. Our father soon re-married to a perky woman named Julie who I had come to know and call my mother, she on the other hand loved us as if we were her own and it seemed to dawn on me as we grew that she was troubled that she never saw us in our younger years and watched us grow, but Rian and I loved her all the same. It wasn’t till the summer going into our 8th grade year that the damsel that was our birth mother resurfaced, demanding her rights to us which she had willingly signed over years before. Without a second thought I had shut her out, not wanting to look at the woman I was nothing but a spitting image of, I wanted to be nothing like her. Since she had first left she grew ill, her bones stricken with a marrow eating cancer, her hair grew thin and straw like, the color sucked from her skin and muscle falling off of her leaving her looking like the hollow mess of a woman she truly was.

For many months she would find me, walking home, at home alone, on the streets, and would pull me aside and demand id pay attention to her, to accept her, that if I didn’t id go to hell and that she was giving me a chance to right my wrongs, that her issues were somehow my fault. I didn’t know better then, I didn’t know her words weighed no truth and her issues were far larger and older than any one human being, but I was an easy target, young, small, and gullible. Her words still rattle around in my head from time to time, the image of her violently shaking and fighting for air as the doctor’s pulled the final plug on her life allowing her lungs to collapse in on themselves, as I sat, just a simple thirteen year old girl, doing as her dying shell of a birth mother wanted as her last dying wish, to have me watch her leave this earth, the image forever imbedded in my brain, but that image wasn’t nearly as bad as the emotional scars her words had stricken me with. Her words stung far more than any time she had ever hit me. I was mocked and beat up for my home life in school and around town, I was just a kid, a sad, confused, miserable kid. In one last hope for refuge I begged and begged my father to allow me to leave and live with my uncle and his wife and young daughter in Washington, but I could only stay for two years, that was the agreement with my dad, so there I was, a week and a half before my junior year would begin, returning to the place I once called home, but also called hell, I didn’t know what I was returning to, but what I did know would be beyond the doors of the airport, was my dad, a real mom to me, but also the one kid who understood EXACTLY what I had gone through and managed to stick through it, fighting his own battles, he was my rock, and my brother I wanted to see Rian again more than anything at this point.

Running a hand quickly raking my fingers through my hair I divert my eyes from my fellow passengers meandering towards luggage claim as my eyes fell dimly on my feet, the escalator moved at what seemed like snail’s pace, I just wanted to be home at this point. Sure I knew returning wasn’t going to be easy, everyone would have a lot of questions I wasn’t even sure I knew the answers to, and I was already preparing myself to live in a world that had so oddly adapted without me with ease and would have to fight my way back into my friends lives, well most of them that is. I knew at least one seemed to use me leaving as an excuse to finally rid me from there, well his life, so I wasn’t even going to bother with that war so soon. I just wanted nothing more to see Rian, my dad and Julie right now and go home and sleep in my own bed again. Sure I loved Washington, and it was a safe haven for my for the time being, but all being there really did was prove me a coward, that all I did was run away from my issues, but not anymore. I stood as the conveyer belt jolted into motion and I waited from my two rather large, and immensely overstuffed suit cases to roll around. I waited for what felt like ages till I noticed a black suitcase and a large navy duffle bag with little pieces of baby blue and gray ribbon tied to the handles of each indicating mine from the rest. With not so much ease I lifted each individual bag off the belt and to my feet adjusting my backpack before pulling at the handle of the roller and slinging my duffle over my shoulder. I walked with all my positions dragging behind me towards the doors near the busses and shuttles.

“Jasey!” I heard my name called in an almost not familiar enough voice and a smile broke on my face as my head snapped to the right seeing Rian running towards me, our dad following behind.

I all but blatantly dropped my bags where I stood ran at my brother, throwing myself into his arms and breathing in his safe, sweet scent. It was then I felt like ever leaving was the stupidest thing I could have ever done.

“Rian” was all I could make out muffling into his shirt as he just bound his arms tighter around my considerably smaller frame.

“Jasey don’t ever leave again, okay?” he said swaying side to side in the hug and I could only nod my head and bite my lip. I stepped back his hands sliding up to firmly grasp my shoulders as I looked up into his soft brown eyes that were filled with nothing but our dad, it was a comforting change compared to harsh edges of my gray blue ones that only looked like our birth
“mothers” that I was forced to look at for the past two years.

“Jasey-bear!” another voice called and something between a yelp and a squeal escaped my lips as I broke from Rian’s arms running into my father’s open grasps. I’d never been so happy since id left, I was reluctant to return, knowing everyone had moved on without me, but there, then, in that very moment I couldn’t have asked for anything else.

As I stepped out of his embrace I felt his eyes rest on me, truly taking in my appearance, sure they had gotten my school photos and photos from soccer games and video chats from time to time but by the mere look on his face I could tell seeing me in the flash was much different, and I must have changed more than I thought from grade 8 to 11. His gaze quickly grew uncomfortable for me and I grew antsy fidgeting, lightly pulling at the strings of the few woven bracelets scattered on either wrist in the silence.

“Maybe we should get home, Jace you must be tired from the long plain ride!” Rian said stepping up beside me placing a hand firmly on my shoulder as I relaxed. All I did was let out a light yawn and nod, I was never one to be able to sleep on planes, or trains, or anything like that, and with a layover in Boston exasperating the total length of my travels I was beyond tired and just wanted to be back home.

Notes

okay so i know its not all that good or all that long, but bear with me people!
the rest of the boys and some others will be making there way soon!
please give me any feedback you have
and thanks for even reading this, that alone means so much to me:)
thanks
Sarah XO