Just Another Reason I Could Never Forget You

It had been about three days, and I hadn’t left the house. Not to see Marissa, not to go to the store, not even for some fresh air, I just padded around the house in my pyjamas and my slippers, drank copious amounts of coffee and stayed inside my head. I spent most of my time in my room, to avoid my mother mostly, but honestly I wasn’t moping.
When I left here the first time, I’d sobbed for days, almost literally. It took me over a week to reach Arizona, having to pull over for 30-minute stints every so often just so I didn’t end up killing myself from lack of concentration and the god damn tears and the actual physical pain in my chest. And then I’d pull into the least sketchy parking lot I could find to sleep for the night and I’d spend half of it staring at the roof of my car, the other half dreaming about Alex. Well, I said dreaming, what I meant was I had dreams and they quickly descended into nightmares, Alex and I would be blissful and happy and then he’d just… lose interest, and Jodie would swoop in and I’d be watching them kissing, watching him tell her how much better she was than me and—
Well, the point is, I wasn’t doing any of that this time. I had missed Alex so hard it hurt me back then, and John had been my rock ever since and yet I just… felt like nothing had changed? I knew I couldn’t call him and talk absolute nonsense with him, but I also knew I had Marissa and she was better than John because she didn’t want anything from me that I couldn’t give her.
That of course led me right back to watching TV on my laptop in my childhood bedroom in my jammies and frankly, it wasn’t a good look on me, but what else was there to do?
“Go take a fucking shower, you’re gross, Rae,” a disgusted voice let out from my doorway, over the top of Meredith actually admitting her feelings for Derek. I rolled my eyes at the familiar mother hen tone in Marissa’s voice, pulling my other earphone from my ear and trying not to look as disgusted with her for showing up as I was with myself for her seeing me like this.
“Why? I’ve got nowhere to be,” I snapped playfully. “If I shower, I’ll only be gross again in 2 hours from the nap I’m gonna have at the end of this episode.”
“It’s fricking 9am, you’ve clearly already caffeinated,” she looked pointedly at my empty cup on the bedside table, which I didn’t have the heart to tell her was yesterday’s gross mug, “and you need to get the hell up not go back to sleep.”
“Urgh, what do you want from me?” I whined. “Why does no one ever just let me wallow anymore? You’re all so healthy nowadays. It’s like you talk about your feelings or something and it’s honestly disgusting.”
“We are healthy, it’s called being an adult. Now get the hell up, your dad is taking us out for the day.” I frowned suspiciously at her and she ignored it entirely. My dad hadn’t taken the pair of us anywhere since we were 13 and Marissa had slept at our house every day for a week straight, all the while the two of us hounded him to take us to the city and buy us ice cream by the river.
“I don’t like this,” I told her, pushing myself up from the bed and making my way to my drawers. “You two are up to something and if I wasn’t so god damn lonely, I wouldn’t be putting up with it.”
“We know and we don’t care, see you in twenty.”
An hour later, I found myself in a café something stupid like a 10-minute drive from my very own house, looking over food I could very easily harass my mother into making me in my very own house. If I wanted half burnt pancakes, I’d make them my damn self while moping.
Sorry, no, I’m not moping, that’s right. That’s the story.
“So,” Marissa started slowly, glancing at my dad as if gauging his reaction to everything she said. “What’s it like being back permanently?”
“I’m not back permanently,” I replied monotonously. “Maybe until the New Year, but not permanently.”
“You’re going back?” She asked, incredulous. I rolled my eyes.
“Of course, I’m going back. I have a life there, a college to go to, an apartment currently abandoned... stuff to do.”
“You haven’t even applied to ASU yet! You know you could just apply to UB and not have to go all the way back to the other side of the country, right?”
“Right,” I scoffed. “I’m not 18 anymore, I don’t run away from my—”
“Liar.” I scowled at her words, trying not to snap at the interruption. “You’re the same fucked up girl who left here three years ago and you’re still running from the problems that girl left behind then. Do you not think you should come home, get over your shit with Alex, work out this bullshit with your mom and, oh, I don’t know, get your fucking life together? Stop hiding from us, Holly.”
“Are you kidding? Dad, are you going to let her try an intervention on me or something? You’re the fucking shrink here, come on.” I was exasperated, as my dad turned to me, raising his eyebrows slowly, just oozing the ‘well, how does that make you feel?’ therapist vibe I knew for a fact he used on his patients.
“I know you feel smothered by your mother, Holly,” he told me levelly. “You’ve always been more independent than she likes to think you are and I can see how that could be frustrating, but that’s no reason for hostility and flightiness.”
“I didn’t—I—” I stumbled for a second, knowing that I could argue all I wanted but the man would just sit there as cool, calm and collected as ever as I got more and more frustrated. Besides, he was—no, he wasn’t right. He couldn’t be. I took a breath, trying to collect myself or at least appear collected. “My mother smothering me from the moment of my birth has nothing to do with my wanting to go home. I might occasionally become hostile, which is the smothering, I guess, but maybe that means you should try some of your psychobabble on her? I’m trying to be sensible about this.”
“Okay, let’s unpack that,” he started, almost forcing me to roll my eyes at this wording. ‘Unpack that’ my ass. “What about this makes you feel like that’s the sensible option? You have rent to pay, a whole life to start again almost from the beginning, a college to enrol at which you hated the first time around. And this is better than staying in a home I’m already paying for regardless, with people you’ve known your whole life and love you, and a new adventure at a new school you’ll probably enjoy more.”
“And I’ll be there,” Marissa chipped in. “To support you and help you where I can.”
“Why should I give up?” I replied stubbornly. “Why should I make it look like that shit was too hard and I couldn’t cope? I can do this, I know I can do this if I just give myself another chance.” The pair of them looked at each other, exchanging knowing looks like they’d finally solved the puzzle that was me. What had I said? I hadn’t admitted to anything, least of all that they could be even a little right about what I was feeling right now.
“This isn’t a defeat, Holly,” Marissa said soothingly. “I don’t think anyone would see it that way. You’re not running from anything, you’re not hiding or giving up on anything. You’re coming home, where you belong, where your family is, and making a new start in familiar places.” I paused, feeling like a child as my eyes began to sting with small tears desperate to leave my eyes. I didn’t want to cry again, I’d held it in so well for days, and I definitely didn’t want to do this publicly, however I felt myself inadvertently whispering;
“It makes me feel like John has really gone.”
I stared at her as I said it, not able to stop myself from saying it, but she always got the truth out of me in the end. Is this why I had been wandering around my room so lost for the past few days? I felt like I didn’t know what to do without him around because he’d been by my side almost constantly for 2 years and I didn’t know what I used to do without him.
“Oh, sweetie,” she cooed back, coming over to and pulling me into a hug I was sure I needed, but definitely didn’t want. “He’s not gone, you both just need time before you can be friends again. It was a weird situation and you did what you could, he’ll see that someday. But coming home or staying there doesn’t change that anyway, it probably makes things better.”
“You’ll come with me, won’t you?” I asked, desperate for the support. I couldn’t pack up in that place without someone to stop me from making some sort of terrible decision, like drunk dialling John and falling back into that mess all over again. “I know I need to be alone for a bit, but I can’t be alone.”
“Of course I’ll come with you,” she told me. “Do you really think I’d let you go by yourself?” I breathed a sigh of relief, having finally agreed to give up on my stupid ideas and just come back where I belonged. I knew I’d come out with no intention of letting them get into my head but, damn, these two were good and I should have known better.
Something about this decision felt, I don’t know, healthy? Like, this is what I had needed since I left the first time and it had taken me this long to realise it because I’d cut off my conscience almost when I’d left Marissa behind, because no one knew how to make me admit what I didn’t want to like she and Jack did, never mind when she roped my dad into it with her. I mean, him being here alone had told me that she had roped in the big guns and was preparing for something, and yet he’d hardly had to say a thing.
I knew I needed time, at the very least. I would come home, I would sort my life out, make a plan, fix myself as best I could and just see where life took me.
“Well, I guess I’d better call your landlord and hire a truck,” my dad chuckled.

Notes