Page 16 of Advice from a Sunflower

She’s following me up the stairs now, matching me for every step. I’m surprised she can keep up the way she is after she’s been losing her breath so easily from the baby. If I wasn’t so pissed, I’d be turning around to make sure she was okay. Instead, I spin at the top of the stairs to get in her face and make sure she hears what I’m about to say.

“No, it’s not me he likes. It’s never been me. He’s always loved you, just like everyone else. Me and Eli have only ever been friends, and now we can’t even be that because you went and stuck your big nose where it doesn’t belong.”

How could I be so naive?

I make my way to our room and grab my suitcase, slamming it onto my bed. I planned on doing my last-minute packing tomorrow, but right now sounds better if it means I can get out of this hell hole any sooner. Marnie hasn’t walked through the doorway yet. I can see from where I stand against my bed that she’s stuck in the same spot, a look of total shock strewn across her face.

“I can’t believe how ungrateful you’re being. I was trying to help you and you spit in my face! You clearly don’t see things the way they really are. You’ve spent so much time alone, you can’t even recognize when someone genuinely wants to be around you anymore. It’s no wonder no one around here bothers with you. You’re just a rotten troll who’s going to be stuck by yourself forever.”

Fat tears are streaming down her face now, but before I can reach out to comfort her or apologize, she’s already running down the stairs and slamming the front door. I abandon my packing mission and plop down onto my bed, allowing myself to consider for just a moment that Marnie’s right.

It just doesn’t seem plausible, and even if it were, Eli should have told me how he was feeling himself—without intervention from my pushy sister.

Why would he wait until the night before I’m supposed to leave this place in my rearview mirror to come clean? For all I know, this is all a sick joke they’re playing on me and I fell right into the trap. Marnie and Eli have probably already met up with Emma to rehash the night, telling her what a huge success it was and what a pathetic loser I am. The pitiful virgin who gave it up to the first guy who offered, truly believing his feelings might be real or genuine.

I knew I should have trusted my gut. I knew it all seemed too good to be true, but my stupid brain took a vacation and let my foolish heart take over the one time I needed it.

I fall asleep next to my suitcase and don’t wake until the morning with just enough time to pack my things and leave. Marnie stayed out all night, not even bothering to come home and see me off. Somehow, despite the betrayal I felt from her and Eli the night before, I walk away from our childhood home feeling gutted by guilt. As if it were me who had meddled. As if I were the one in the wrong.

Marnie and Denise always have a way of doing that to me. Turning the tables and toying with my emotions to get out of feeling things on their own and accepting that their actions had consequences. I’ve always been the one to pay.

Chapter 9

Lyla

18 years old

Marnie has her baby on Thanksgiving, two weeks before her due date. I had a plane ticket purchased to fly in within two hours of finding out. It wasn’t my mother who called me with the happy news, or even Josh. It was Lottie, a midnight Labor and Delivery nurse who’d visited the diner regularly after her shifts while I worked there.

She was bursting with contagious excitement over the phone, practically screaming into my ear that the baby had come and that she and mom were doing perfect. We each exchanged a few squeals before I asked where my mother was. Her voice dropped a few octaves as she held the microphone right up to her mouth, muffling her words a bit so no one else could hear.

“She left about an hour after she was born. Said something about celebrating with a few friends. Marnie begged her to at least call you before she left, but she was refusing. I told them I’d take care of it, and then Denise left.”

Typical Denise. Turning something that had virtually nothing to do with her into a reason to soak up the attention at church. We haven’t spoken since the day I left for Cornell. It was one of the first times she had ever acted like my leaving was bothering her.

“You’re still serious about this whole college thing? Come on, Mouse; wake up. You can go off to that ridiculous school and rack up your student loan debt all you want, but you’ll never be able to get The Hollow out of you. It’s inside of you. Regardless of how much you wish it to be true, you’ll never be better than me or your sister.”

She leans back into her recliner and slams her coffee mug onto the side table with a loud thump, her lifeless eyes never leaving mine as I process the cruel words she had just spoken.

I was standing at the front door waiting for a taxi when she finally decided to speak her mind. Surrounded by everything I owned—all of which fit in one small suitcase sitting at my feet and a second-hand laptop bag strapped around my shoulder—I’d never felt smaller. There was no apology in her voice. No shame for the words she had just spewed to her daughter, who was doing her best to better her life and break the cycle that had begun generations before all of us.

She wholeheartedly felt that was the truth. That I’d never amount to anything more than she was: a lonely single mother living off welfare in a town that did nothing more than eat away at its residents. She didn’t even bother to recognize that I wouldn’t be taking a single loan out for school. I had earned my entire tuition, room and board, and living expenses through hard work and scholarships. She was just angry that I wouldn’t be staying here to worship the ground she walked on anymore.

Just as I opened my mouth to speak, a yellow cab pulled in front of the house and honked three times. I held a finger out the door to signal I’d just be a minute and then turned to my mother, who hadn’t moved a single muscle since she dropped an atomic bomb on my chest.

“I’ll call when I get there. Love you, Mom.” I took one last look at her dead, black eyes and then walked out the door.

When I called the house later that night, no one answered. I called repeatedly for three days straight until a very annoyed Marnie picked up and informed me that Denise was ignoring me and that I was interrupting her nap. That was the last time I’d bothered to dial that number again and Denise made no moves to reach out since.

The ladies at the diner held a baby shower for Marnie a few months later. Denise got into a fight with Tina and refused to help with a single thing. She claimed that Tina and the other ladies were stepping on her toes as a mother. That she was supposed to be the one to host the baby shower for her daughter. They went back and forth for a while until she finally got her way and didn’t have to lift a finger. Tina was apologetic toward Marnie, promising that she had no intention to step on Denise’s toes, but to her knowledge, there hadn’t been anything planned, so she decided to step in.

Tina was right, though. Denise had been refusing to acknowledge the pregnancy so long as Marnie refused to heed her warnings and fall under her control. It wasn’t until other people took interest that she realized it might look less godly for her to ignore the pregnancy altogether, so she started participating.

I only knew all of this because Josh had gotten a new job at the plastic factory one town over and surprised Marnie with a new cell phone. She texted me constantly and we talked on the phone as often as my school schedule would allow. I wasn’t sure what changed her mind about me, especially after the argument we had the last time we spoke in person, but I decided not to question it. If Marnie wanted to be close again after years of icy distance, I wouldn’t be the one to stand in the way.

She did make a point to leave Eli out of every conversation we had, even though I knew Emma would still be keeping tabs on him while he’s away. I made sure to leave that night exactly where it belonged: in the past. Filed away with the rest of my stupid, naive decisions, never to be thought of again.

I sent my regrets for the shower, claiming I had three exams to cram for and couldn’t get away. It wasn’t a total lie. I did have exams to cram for, only they weren’t administered for a couple of weeks after the shower. The truth was, I wasn’t ready to go back to The Hollow. Not yet. While I know I'll never forget the place that made me who I am, it was almost too easy to drive away and barely think of again.

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