Page 4 of Gone Away Home

That damn file has been mocking me for far too long. I’ll pull it up on my computer and try to work on it here and there, but I think my block has only gotten worse.

You know what could help and give you the inspiration you need.

I shove the thought right off a mental cliff to its death. Because it’s safer than facing the truth of it.

I do know what could help me with my writer’s block when it comes to my book. But I can’t conjure up a mental image of the one person who I’ve felt a true, deep, and right connection with. He’s off limits and when I think about him, pain is inevitable.

For all I know Dustin is on leave right now and shacked up with some girlfriend. I don’t think he’s married, but only because our parents would have mentioned it. Well, assuming he would tell them.

Dustin graduated from high school a year ahead of me, and then disappeared. He didn’t leave many traces of himself behind in Jasper Ridge and I’ve felt the loss of him for the last 14 years.

At first, honestly, I was worried something had happened to him. My imagination was running wild and all I could picture was him somewhere dead in a ditch. But when Thad, his dad, and my stepfather, finally got ahold of him almost a week after he left, he found out Dustin had enlisted.

Enlisted.

He didn’t even say goodbye to me.

I suppose he didn’t owe it to me to say goodbye. It’s not like we were close, but I thought—no, it doesn’t matter what I thought.

With a shake of my head I stand up to head to the kitchen in my little cottage style house. I’m in desperate need of something to eat, but right now the only thing that sounds even remotely appealing is the pint of cookie dough ice cream in the freezer. Over the years I’ve learned it’s one of the few things that help with the feelings of desolation and loss which always creep in when I think about Dustin.

I’ve gotten much better when it comes to thinking about him over the years. It helped when I stopped writing him letters after I graduated college. Up until then I thought, maybe, we could have some sort of relationship. Be family.

We still had a connection, even though the last thing I wanted was for Dustin to think of me as his sister. I have never considered him to be my brother.

Stepbrother.

Thinking back to the day at Millie’s Diner when our parents dropped bomb after bomb on us is difficult. I had no idea Mom was dating anyone, let alone seeing Dustin’s dad. From the lookof shock on Dustin’s face, which was so handsome even then, he had no idea either. We were blindsided.

I felt something die that day. It became shriveled up and black. I had no idea what it was, but I hoped it was the crush I had on Dustin from the moment I saw him on the first day of school. Everything in me leaned toward him, but he barely looked my way.

Now, I know it wasn’t my crush which took a header the day our parents told us they were together and getting married. It was my heart.

The rest of high school was a blur of awkward moments while I tried to play the role of the perfect daughter and the loyal sister.Stepsister.It was exhausting.

When Dustin left, things felt lighter in terms of the house and the tension there, but something was missing in my life. I wasn’t ready, or able, to identify what it was. It’s one of the reasons I wrote to Dustin.

I wanted him to have a little bit of home, and maybe some hope, while he was off and doing something which wasn’t easy to do and required sacrifice. I knew the choice he made in his life would challenge him and I was sure he would excel, but the thought of him not feeling supported hurt me. I needed him to feel a connection to where he came from.

Nothing stopped me from missing him. The loneliness was difficult to breathe through and I didn’t have anyone I could talk to about it.

That’s why, when I graduated with only Mom and Thad cheering for me in the stands—not Dustin, because he never came back to Jasper Ridge again—I was looking forward to going off to college. It felt like it could be a fresh start and I’d be ableto find myself while filling the void I had been steadily ignoring for years.

I wrote to Dustin all throughout college because I was still clinging to the idea of him needing family. Right after I graduated and was trying to figure out what to do next, I realized I missed Jasper Ridge. It wasn’t a difficult decision to head home and figure out my next steps from there.

Coming to that conclusion made something very clear—Dustin was gone, and he wasn’t coming back. He didn’t have the same need to find a home. He was thriving in his life, one which had nothing to do with me or our small hometown.

With a long, hard look at myself, I faced some truths. One of them was the fact that I was in love with Dustin and had been since my first day of high school. I was angry, so fucking angry. At myself for trying to bury the feelings instead of moving past them. At Dustin for leaving and never looking back. At our parents for falling in love.

The last one made me feel like a shitty person because Thad loves my mom the way she deserves to be loved. It’s the whole reason I buried my feelings for Dustin and exhausted myself trying to create something normal out of my own heartbreak, blind to it as I was.

I sent him one last letter and I said goodbye. I had to. For myself.

Letting go? Well, it still hasn’t happened. I’ve tried. Moving on isn’t easy when your soul feels like an anchor instead of wings.

My phone ringing has me practically jumping out of my skin. Was I just staring into space, something I do whenever I thinkabout Dustin for too long? Maybe, but I’ll never admit it out loud.

I’ve never admitted anything when it comes to Dustin out loud. That would make it all too real and the feelings I have for him shouldn’t be real. Theycan’tbe real.

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