Page 9 of Second Chance Ex
“Prue, stop!”
I turn, finding Joey right there, a little breathless as he stares down at me with what appears to be genuine confusion in those big, beautiful eyes of his, eyes that are, today, the color of a stormy sky.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, his eyebrows drawing together.
I almost laugh. Is he playing games, or is he naturally this clueless?
He’s still holding onto my arm, like at any momentI’m about to make a run for it. It’s almost like he knows me too well.
I could tell him the truth, but honestly, what would be the point? I’d only make even more of a fool of myself. So, of course I lie. “Nothing.”
“So, why’d you just run off like that?” He finally releases his hold of my arm, tucking his hands in the pockets of his shorts.
I avoid his gaze, choosing instead to stare at the flannel shirt he’s wearing over his varsity football t-shirt. It’s like he’d been in such a rush to get dressed this morning that he looped one of the buttons through the wrong hole. My fingers itch to reach out and fix it, but that would be a very girlfriend-y thing to do and, let’s face it, that’s not my role in this situation; he’s made that abundantly clear.
Lying again, I finally say, “I need to go to the bathroom.”
When Joey doesn’t say anything in response to that, I look up, reluctantly meeting his eyes, but then I find something in them I hadn’t been prepared to see, something that only makes me feel even more pathetic than I did moments ago. Regret. He regrets kissing me. He regrets this weekend.
Joey presses his lips together, eyes flitting between mine as if he’s searching for the right words to say in an attempt to break it to me gently, but I don’t allow him the chance. Instead, I hurry off in the direction of the nearest bathroom. And, thankfully, he doesn’t come after me.
By the timeI make it home, gone is the confident girl who left the house this morning. The hair I spent over an hour straightening is now in a messy braid. The mascara I carefully applied is nothing more than a slightly smudged memory, wiped off with my tears and some scratchy paper hand towel in the girls’ bathroom after my encounter with Joey. Even my cute blouse has been covered up by the Rosewood High hoodie I keep stashed at the bottom of my locker. Not even the low-lying scent of my mother’s caramel fudge brownies causes me to perk up.
I can hear Mom in the kitchen, and normally I’d go in and see her, scavenge for food, but instead I head straight for the stairs, doing all I can to avoid her and the onslaught of questions she throws at me at the end of every day. But I barely manage to reach the third step before she’s right there, peering up at me through the balustrade.
“I have a headache,” I say before she can beat me to it. “I’m going to lie down.”
Her thin brows bunch together. “Shall I bring you some soup?”
I suddenly feel bad and my shoulders sag with resignation. I manage a smile, despite how much all I want to do right now is go upstairs and bury my face into my pillows so I can cry. “No. But thanks, Mom.”
She nods, eyeing me curiously.
I continue up the stairs, but I’m stopped half-way when she calls after me. “A letter came for you. It was stuck on the front door when I got back from the grocery store.”
A letter? I turn, watching Mom as she grabs something from the hall table, handing it to me. Anenvelope. A plain white envelope. No address, no postage stamp, nothing but my name scribbled almost indecipherably. I take it from her, my interest sufficiently piqued.
“Let me know if you need anything, Prue Bear.” And with that, my mom thankfully turns and walks back into the kitchen.
I stare at the envelope as I continue upstairs to my bedroom, and once inside, I drop my bag on the floor and flop onto my bed, tearing it open to find a three-page handwritten letter, and my heart clenches in my chest with the very first line…
Dear Prue,
I know you hate me. Trust me. Most of the time, I hate me too. But I need to tell you something. I need you to know the truth, the fucked-up part of me that no one else knows, not even Ryan and he’s been my best friend since we were 5. And since I know you won’t stop to hear me out, well, here it is.
When I was 6, my little sister, Emmy, died. She had cancer. Leukemia. She was only 4 and she was dead after only a few months of being diagnosed. It hit my mom really hard, and it ripped my parents apart. Mom started drinking a lot and taking pills. She was never the same after Emmy. WhenI was 8, my dad started cheating on my mom. To the point where even at 8 years old, I knew what was happening. I think he wanted to leave her, but he was too scared because he knew how much she was hurting. He didn’t want to add to her pain. At least, that’s the way he tells the story now.
One afternoon my mom forgot to pick me up from school. She always picked me up because she refused to let me ride my bike to school like Ryan and all the other kids. I begged her to let me, but she said no. I didn’t realize it at the time, but now I know it was probably because she’d already lost my sister, so she was more protective of me, afraid of losing me too. She drove me to school and picked me up every day. Except this day she forgot. I sat at the school gate for hours. Well, it felt like hours, but was probably only about 30 minutes or so. Anyway, I ended up having to make a run for it because it started pouring with rain. When I finally made it home, I was soaked through. And I was so pissed at my mom because if she’d just let me ride my bike, I’d have made it homebefore the rain, and I’d have been nice and dry, eating a bag of chips, watching Family Guy or some other inappropriate shit I shouldn’t have been watching at that age.
I remember trudging upstairs, soaking wet, making as much mess as I could on the rug with my muddy shoes. But when I walked past my parent’s bedroom, that’s when I saw her. Mom. She was on the floor. At first, I thought she was just down there, looking for something under the bed. But as I got closer, I noticed she wasn’t moving, and she was really pale. Almost gray. Like a ghost. I fell to the floor, crawled toward her, screamed out for her. But she didn’t stir. I got as close as I could and that’s when I realized she wasn’t breathing.
Somehow, I managed to call 911. The ambulance came and took her away. Mrs. Murphy, the nice lady who used to clean our house came and sat with me until Dad got back from the city. When we made it to the hospital, the doctor told us that my mom was in a coma, and she was on life support. Then Dad went off with him, away so I couldn’t hear, but I could hear. Thedoctor said my mom tried to kill herself. She took a heap of different pills she shouldn’t have because she wanted to die. He said there was no other reason for anyone to take that number of pills. She was in a coma for two weeks, and when she finally woke up, she had permanent brain damage. Dad shipped her off to a care home—the best money could buy, according to him—but she passed away a few months later.
My mom left me at the school gate in the rain that day, because she wanted to die. She was never the same after Emmy, and after she tried to kill herself, she was all but a shell of the mother I knew and loved. And even though it hurt like hell, I knew when she passed away that it was the best thing for her, that she could finally be happy with my little sister.
My dad moved his shiny new girlfriend into the house a few months after Mom died, despite me begging him not to. Now, it’s just the two of them, and I’m nothing more than the kid that lives here in their house, the future football star he might claim again one day, depending on whether Imake it or not. My mom and my little sister are like long-forgotten memories, ghosts from a past life that occasionally walk the halls at night.
So, you’re probably wondering why I’m telling you this. Well, the thing is, Prue, once upon a time, my parents loved each other. Theirs was the kind of love some people spend their whole lives waiting for. But then they lost Emmy, and it all went wrong. And I was forced to live through the hate and the resentment, the screaming and the fighting, and it fucked me up.
