Page 15 of The Significance of Moving On

It was bound to happen. I screwed up by kissing him. Had one too many breakdowns. I’m just some girl he rescued one night, and I went and kissed him. He doesn’t need this, to be dealing with all my crap.

Looking around my old bedroom, I’ve about got the whole thing packed up in cardboard boxes. Casey rented me a storage locker for the stuff I’m going to keep. The rest will be sold, donated or thrown away. I can’t remember ever seeing the room stripped this naked. No curtains, no bed linens, bare lavender walls in need of a good scrub down, a blue mattress and white box spring.

Now I don’t know what to do. They’re still having a good time down the hall without me. But I’m not going to them. Kelsey—I didn’t even ask her to come. And Demetrius? He’s only here because he’s trying to get lucky with the girl I didn’t ask to come. Well, then I guess Idoknow what my next move will be.I am so out of here.

The hallway is empty when I head down the stairs, free and clear outside into the fresh air. We’ve been shut up inside for hours and it’s warmer now than when we started.

Without thinking, I start to jog across the street but the action jostles the wound at my chest which hurts like a sonofabitch and I slow to a walk. Once inside Casey’s house I grab my purse and cell from my room, possibly temporary room, then head back outside and start walking again, unsure of what I’m looking for, but I’ll know it when I see it.

At the end of the street I turn left just letting my feet lead the way up the uneven sidewalk. It’s hot. Strands of blonde hair stick to the back of my neck. I reach into the front pocket of my purse for a hairband, pulling the sticky strands back into a ponytail. It’s only when the quasi-obscene remarks reach my ears that I look to see a group of utility workers who apparently appreciate the snugness of my tank, the shortness of my shorts and the way the ponytail hangs down my back.

I wave and shoot a little smile as I pass. Being a girl in the world today, it’s safest to acknowledge them and move on quickly rather than ignore them. All they see is the outside anyway—the butt and the boobs. Not one of them sees my sadness from losing Tom or my humiliation from kissing—and probably losing—Casey, too.

They don’t even glimpse the dark eye-circles which is all I see when I look in the mirror. I’m the girl who loses her marbles in one breath then hits on her roommate in the next. I haven’t even told Casey that when I’m actually able to dream at night, it’s nightmares. Terrible nightmares. On those nights I lay awake in bed and hear Casey yelling his brother’s name, stuck in his own nightmare in the next room, and wonder if having me in his house isn’t bringing back the pain for him.

“Sweetheart, you’re killing me,” one of the workers calls out.

Oh. I startle and stumble over my feet, laughing at myself. Until he called out, I forgot they were there.

Face bright red, best to keep moving. That’s when my destination reveals itself. I hit the mom and pop pizza joint. Bet everyone working hard back at Tom’s house would enjoy a pizza break. I push through the door and head to the rear of the restaurant for the takeout counter.Betsiisn’t working the floor, but an older man with a big belly and broad smile steps up.

“Why, hello,” he says through his broad, toothy smile. “What can I do for you this fine day?”

“Uh, I’d like a meatza and a cheese, both large.”

Anything to drink, he asks. I opt for a six pack of Coke. Everyone likes Coke. I think it’s one of the commandments—Thou shalt drink Coke.

After waiting at one of the small two-person tables during the mandatory time it takes to make and bake the pies, I awkwardly carry the boxes and the six-pack he was gracious enough to put in a plastic bag for me back to Tom’s place.

My rowdy utility workers are gone when I pass by again. I wonder if my friends even know I’ve been gone? Judging by the happy sounds funneling outside when I open the front door, they have no idea I’d ever left or maybe they’re just happy I did. Either way, I set the food on the edge of the dining room table before jogging up the stairs two at a time to fetch them. The happy sounds cease as soon as I walk into the room.Awkward.

“I got you all lunch,” I say and leave before someone tries to pretend this whole ‘Chantal’slost her mind’ thing isn’t bringing everyone down.

Then I race back downstairs, and slip outside once again, this time to the backyard because eating with them is just a no at this point. When I slip off my shoes, the soft grass squishes between my toes like the old days. Tom had put in a small pond a few years back. I sit along the bank to watch the tiny frogs sunning on the lily pads and dip my finger into the warm water, causing ripples to break across the surface.

This, right here, is another last in the mounting pile of lasts I’ll share with my big brother. Maybe I should go away for a while. Not that I have much money left after what Tom did, but hopefully enough for a bus ticket and food. I have no idea where I’d go, only that it has to be somewhere I’m not seen as crazy Chantal. Or if I am, I won’t give a crap because they wouldn’t know me there, and I wouldn’t know them. Maybe there aren’t any people at all where I’m going. Becoming a hermit for a week or two to sort myself out might actually help. Communing with nature. Isn’t that what people who have lost their way do?

Before I chicken out, I slip back into my flip-flops and leave through the side gate back across the street to Casey’s house, pack my clothing into my smaller overnight bag and leave a note for him:

Going away for a while. Please

don’t throw my stuff away. Will

collect it when I get back.

Thank you for everything,

Tally

It takes me about an hour and a half to reach the Greyhound station on the other side of the city, which is pretty good time because ours is a spread-out town, not up like with skyscrapers. This part of Saginaw is an older, decaying neighborhood with boarded up buildings and broken window storefronts. The Social Security building, local television station and phone company remain some of the only viable businesses left, those and the civic center.

The people don’t smile much over here, even when I smile at them first. Not that I blame them. A man offered me money for sex when I stopped to rest against a light pole. Hard pass. Then another man followed me for several blocks before I remembered that being loud or acting crazy, generally drawing attention to yourself, might help detract potential predators from coming after you. The rest of the walk was uneventful.

So this is where my life has taken me, standing inside a Greyhound station in the worst neighborhood in the city, once again by myself, concentrating really hard on the bus schedule because I have absolutely no idea where to go from here. None. And crap if someone’s finger doesn’t tap dance on the back of my shoulder. “If you value that finger, you’ll remove it now.”

“Well I was just going to say Chicago is nice this time of year.”

Casey.

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