I missed Dad. The last time we spoke, he was too strung out to truly talk. Mom said he’d taken a sleeping pill because his insomnia sucked, but I knew better. He was fucking up and she didn’t know how to tell me.
She hadn’t canceled my flight, though, so she must’ve still planned on having me in London. I couldn’t deny wanting to go there for so long, to be with them, be a part of their life as they lived their dreams. Every part of me begged to be loved, since being starved from it for so long.
I headed to my room, wondering if this absence of Andy would be a more permanent avenue in the future. Should I move out sooner rather than later? I was sure my parents would easily approve of the move so long as I didn’t fail miserably at being responsible.
With getting a job at the tattoo shop, I could be pretty set without their money in a few months. It paid well, it even allowed for me to get tips.
The entire place seemed like a mess, but it felt like home when nowhere else did.
Heading to my closet, I grabbed my travel duffel and prepped it for my trip. If I waited until the last minute, I stressed more than needed just to fucking pack something simple.
I wasn’t like Cars or Andy when it came to an outfit selection, but somehow, my anxiety tended to weigh me down when it was the most inconvenient time.
“Toland,” Andy’s voice sounded out, unsure. I turned to my door and looked for her, but she had to be in a different room. I’d wanted to see her for so long but she’d been dodging me. Now, she was here and the mixed emotions hit me.
“In here!” I responded, making sure she could hear me.
She came into the room, her face crestfallen. “Hey.” That single word sounded so helpless, broken. She never sounded this uneasy, and the realization had me setting down my bag.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, wondering if something happened while I was at work today. My skin still burned from the newest stretch of shadowing I did on my tattoo. Her eyes shone with tears as I got closer, the way they glistened like water when the sun hit right had me pausing. “Did someone hurt you?”
It wasn’t unusual for me to go to that place. Where men hurt women, took advantage, and made them upset. My hackles rose with worry. She seemed defeated, her appearance full of sorrow and an emptiness I felt oftentimes. The way her face held so much depression hit me square in the chest. It took everything in me to keep the distance between us. Which was odd because I kept my distance to avoid the emotions for her rattling in my brain.
Andy separating herself the last few weeks leading to today showed she wanted to forget the blowjob and boundaries we crossed. I respected her enough not to push it, even if it killed me inside. Like now, she barely stood upright, as if the weight of the entire world held her down as she tried sifting through it. People often called others their anchor. Was that because they kept them still in a moving ocean or boxed them in a watery prison with no escape? Either way, an anchor seemed more of a death sentence than a beneficial partner.
If I described Andy as something, she’d be the ship’s captain. The heart of it all. She’d be the one who kept it together, forced its movement, and gave it power.
She was the ship in its entirety.
The lead, while I followed.
“Talk to me,” I pressed, my chest aching in a way I refused to accept. Acknowledgment, fear, it kept me rooted here. Did I fuck up? Was there something I did to make her look like the world just ended?
My room felt smaller as she stayed still. Vacant. She didn’t move, but my eyes caught her as she began to fall to her knees. Not wanting her to hit too hard, I rushed the five feet to her and slowed her descent.
“Please talk to me, little demon,” I begged, hating the name slip. She probably wouldn’t appreciate it either, but in her disarray, she didn’t mention it.
I kneeled, holding her to me and she just sobbed. Rocking against me like the waves in a torrent storm, she let it out. Tears wet my shirt as she held it to her face. It physically pained me to see her so helpless like this. She couldn’t even muster the words because she fully screamed out her pain.
Tightness overwhelmed my chest and throat, feeling the desperation in her cries. It was like crying out for help and not having the words or voice to describe what was needed.
Her whimpers destroyed me, reminding me how I’d be unable to fix anything. Because whatever happened traumatized her and those memories would last forever.
The unease I felt intensified as she shook even more in my arms. “It’s okay, I’ve got you,” I tried reassuring her, my voice cracking at the end. Something about the ones I cared about crying unsettled me in a way I couldn’t explain.
“No, it’s not,” she croaked right before hiccupping. My body zapped with awareness, a synapse of sparks overcoming my skin. She gripped me, her hands bruising with how she clung to me. It was just her and I in a room that somehow felt so small at the moment, but what weighed her down seemed astronomical and while I asked for her to talk, worry kept me from pushing too hard.
“Tell me what happened.”
She loosened her grip on my shirt, her fists still held against me. “Have you been online?”
Shaking my head, a dark thought sank into my gut, one I’d never give in to. “No.” The word came out broken. I avoided it my entire life, hating social media and how they painted my parents’ lives. Royce taught me early on to be a person of the real world and not the internet one.
He wanted me to live.
Experience.
Be a part of life and not an onlooker.
It made things easier, saving me from my dad’s overdose and the cheating rumors. My parents were always big news, especially if my dad missed an award show. I kept myself as uninvolved in their world as possible.
“Good,” she stated solemnly.
“Why?” My voice came out as that of a child—one who didn’t ever allow myself to truly live a life as a child, forced to grow up too young. “Don’t say it.”
Our eyes connected, the redness of her face making me hurt more and more as each breath beneath us pattered out.
Time ticked by.
A second.
Minutes.
I let out shaky breaths, trying to muster up the courage to be brave and ask what my dad had to have done. I didn’t want to know. It hurt to think about. He wouldn’t do that two days before my birthday, right?
Tick.
Tock.
Tick.
Tock.
Time froze as I closed my eyes, braving the reality I might be facing. “Did he overdose?” I finally allowed myself to ask. She shook her head sadly, her lip wobbling. If he didn’t OD, what had her so upset?
“I wasn’t supposed to tell you.” Her chin quivered as a new rush of tears escaped her.
“Tell me what?”
She closed her eyes as if seeing me was too painful while uttering the words. “They wanted to surprise you for your birthday,” she croaked, her face scrunched up in so much pain. “Their flight was hours ago.” Her explanation didn’t make sense. She lacked the depth of words and information, only offering a morsel. Her body shifted but it was from the tremors shaking her entire frame. “They didn’t make it.”
They didn’t make it.
Make it where... to the airport?
“Who are you talking about?” Questioning the possibilities had the information clicking in my head. Information that wouldn’t quite stick.