Chapter One: A Bad Reaction
It was on a Friday when I finally decided to stop sleeping on my mother's sofa.
Perhaps it was the scorn in her voice when she walked into the living room that morning and told me to get a life. Perhaps it was the twisting in my gut when I checked my cell phone to find no messages from anybody who wasn't a robot trying to scam me. Perhaps it was my incredible pride that forced me from her home.
I don't know about you, but I went with the pride excuse. It was the only option that let me keep some of my dignity. Not that there was much left.
Personally, I blamed the economy for my lack of success. Then again, we all do. You have to blame something, and technically I couldn't see your country's financial failure. Like any other human being with a functioning brain, I didn't want to own up to the fact that I didn't really have much post-secondary education. I was a cashier. Big whoop.
Anyway, my job was irrelevant. The morning of that fateful day, I was just waking up from a particularly creepy dream involving pea soup and Minecraft creepers when my mother, in all her 'I'm up at six in the morning looking absolutely fabulous you lazy moocher' glory, sauntered into the kitchen in her light pink business suit.
It was all a front of course, my mother hadn't worked since the Watergate scandal way back when Nixon was present. No, she'd just go sit in the park and look like she was waiting for somebody important. I would have called her a hypocrite but screw it, I was living off of her pension more often than not.
That morning she looked particularly angry. A vein in her neck was bulging and a dark red flush stood out against her pallid cheeks. I could tell that she had just gotten of the phone with my father, who seemed to enjoy having conversations with his ex-wife at the oddest hours of the morning. I remember I rolled over and scrunched my face up as the late-morning sun rays shone in my eyes through the open window. A slight breeze pushed my hair in my face as I struggled to make a coherent greeting.
It came out like a muffled goodbye. It was not my finest moment.
I could practically hear her blue eyes rolling in their sockets as she bustled over to the kitchen to make herself a coffee. Perhaps she had closed her eyes for a moment and had allowed her mind to wander off to distant places where she didn't have a daughter who temporarily forgot that she was sleeping on a sofa and fell onto her nice floor when she rolled out of bed. To be honest, it's what I would have done if I was in her place.
"Good morning." I managed to croak, placing my palm against my flushed, aching forehead. That morning I was nursing a hangover, I might add, which might have attributed to my mother's next question.
"I'm assuming that you raided your father's liquor cabinet?" She asked in a clipped voice and I gave her a sneer. She gave me a sharp glare with those eyes of hers and the corners of my lips pulled up into a sarcastic smile. I couldn't tell through the haze of my half-awake consciousness she happened to be pleased with my change or more annoyed. Most likely the latter.
"How d'you guess?" I asked in a groggy voice that was not my own. I managed to sit myself back on the sofa upright, covering my eyes and exhaling. Despite my tired state, I could tell that my mother's keen, pearl-earring clad ears still managed to pick up the note of bitter sarcasm in my voice. Her response was in an even more restrained tone as she attempted to keep the anger she felt towards my father contained while dealing with her rage towards me. Sometimes I felt so bad for that woman.
"It was easy." She responded. Her teeth were clenched, I could tell. She sounded just like she did when I was a little kid. The only trouble was that now I was afraid of it. "I assumed that you didn't have any friends to go to a bar with, and so naturally you would stay home." I rolled my eyes in a similar way that she did, it was a family trait, or so I'd been told.
I honestly hated what I'd inherited from the admittedly lacking genes of my parents. From my mother; her sarcasm, my father; a disregard for human feelings. What a pair those two made. Apparently they destroyed a lot of lives together.
"You're almost right." I said with a passive glance towards the old woman. I knew how much being wrong pushed her buttons, and how I'd already had my finger jammed pretty hard on them to begin with. Still, I couldn't resist.
There was a moment of pause in which she retrieved a mug from the tallest shelf and turned the kettle on. I knew that she wanted nothing more than to ignore me and maybe slip back into her fantasy world where I was a doctor or a therapist or something. Still, I could hear the steady cracking of her determination. She was curious to know what she'd gotten wrong. It was a powerful feeling as I heard the thin glass wall around her being broken down even more. This continued until she finally spoke again.
"Where did I go wrong, Winnifred?" She asked, a malicious smile in her voice although none was on her pink lips. She knew how much I hated my full name. Well played, old lady. Well played.
"I didn't take it from the liquor cabinet." I said, finally feeling well enough to stand up and walk around the short, low coffee table, flexing my arms. I was satisfied when I heard a crack from my neck as the pressure was released. "I took it from your room." I threw my head back and let out a laugh.
"That's where I keep my vintage!" She said with a squeak in her voice as her neck vein began to bulge again. I found myself laughing again.
"I know." Her blue eyes grew hard and glazed over a little bit as her rage built. You could almost see the flecks of red in her eyes as she got angrier and angrier. I realized then that I probably should have lied. Then again I wasn't good at that either. Usually they were way too complicated, I probably took the term 'the key is in the details' too seriously.
"You know, I think your going a little too far with this 'temporary living arrangement'." She said with a stern note in her voice as the kettle whistled and she removed it from the stove top. She had her favorite mug out already with her preferred brand of instant coffee already measured out in the bottom. She seemed to be seething underneath her skin as she poured the hot water over the grinds and stirred up the strong mixture with a spoon, clinking the side of the ceramic mug twice as she reached for the sugar. Maybe she had OCD, she'd done the same thing for as long as I'd been living.
"No, I don't think I've gone far enough." I began to defend myself. I knew where she was going with this, it happened every couple of months.
"Yes, yes you have." She said, taking a sip of her coffee and walking around the kitchen island that she had installed six years ago. "You are a grown woman." She paused, placing her mug down on the coffee table and putting her hands on her hips. I moved away out of habit, just in case she got caught up in the moment and threw something. "Physically." I rolled my eyes. "And grown women do not live with their mothers', they get out there and they get married and have children!" Her voice raised on the last syllable. I feigned a yawn of boredom.
"Boring." I said in response. "Who wants kids? Or a husband for that matter. They weigh you down, I want to fly!" I stretched my arm up to the ceiling for emphasis. It was my mother's turn to roll her eyes.
"But you're not flying, Winnifred, you're sleeping on my couch." She informed me flatly. I sneered at her and whipped around to make my couch. I placed the pillows on the left end and adjusted the crumpled blankets so that they looked decent. I stood back and admired my handiwork as my mother added a bit more cream to her coffee.
My eyes widened as she did so. My mother never put more that a tablespoon of cream in her coffee unless something had been done to massively irk her and she couldn't get to her scotch in time. I knew that I was in for it big time as she put the carton of cream that was thankfully missing child-free and turned to me with what would have been a genuine smile.
I knew that my mother hadn't smiled since I was six and her attempts to do so to gain my trust resulted often in bitter failure. It was then I knew that something was deeply wrong.
"Sweetheart," She began to say, pausing to take a sip of her coffee. I shuddered, my mother also never called me sweetheart, and if she did, I would have told her to stop. "You don't have to do that." She said, gesturing to the half-made couch that served as my bed. I gave her a confused look. I was sleeping in my mother's living room out in the open, where any visitors could see me and she didn't want me to make my bed?
"I don't?" I asked in an odd tone and she shook her head.
"No, dear," I flinched again as she used another pet name. She always called me Winnifred -although I much preferred Fred- sometimes she just refereed to me as 'daughter' and in rare cases, the failure. All those I could live with, except maybe Winnifred, but never dear, that was just too odd. "In fact," She continued, "You never have make my sofa up again." I cocked my head to the side.
"Why?" I asked as her grin widened. "Are you moving me to one of the guest rooms?" I asked hopefully. Apparently my mother didn't think that freeloaders' deserved to sleep in an actual room. Maybe that idea had changed.
"No, it's not that." She said and my hope died. "I said that you never have to worry about making my sofa again because I'm not letting you sleep on it anymore." All of a sudden, her gaze went hard and the false happiness in her voice melted. My mother was back. "You have been living here and asking more and more of me every passing day. You can't hold a job, your life is a mess and you haven't had a boyfriend since..." She trailed of and I scowled. "Ever!" She finally exclaimed and while i was certainly terrified, I still found it in myself to cross my arms in annoyance.
"You want me to go?" I asked, feeling rage that was entirely akin to hers bubbling up inside of me.
"Yes." Was her stoney reply. I found myself completely dumbstruck at the moment when a good insult would've been a nice thing to deliver. I opened my mouth but found no words coming out. I closed it tightly and fixed my mother with a hard glare.
"Where do you suggest?" I replied in a clipped voice when my ability to speak returned. For a moment, I saw a flicker of doubt in her eyes, like a dying flame. As if any love she felt for me had finally gone out after years and years of getting nothing in return. I watched, horrified as she stopped loving me. After the moment of shock in which I was, again, struck dumb, my mother blinked and seemed to fight to find the right words.
"I don't care." She finally said and that was the final straw. I shouted something I would regret later at her, something that made the cold look in her eyes freeze further before whipping around running towards the door of my mother's house. I needed to get away from her, and I did not want her standing over me while I packed. I needed to clear my head and decide what I was going to do. It was entirely different from what I wanted, which was to have a happy, successful life.
I took my keys from their place in the foyer on the way out, stopping only to grab my sweater to hide my pajamas and to tug on my boots. I threw open the door and felt a sense of pride when I let it slam so hard that I was sure my mother would need a new one.
I emerged from the house to find that the sun had hidden away behind a large, dark cloud. Minutes later, the sky opened and the rain fell hard against the cobblestone driveway in front of my mother's home. Driving would be dangerous but I was too busy seeing red and plotting my mother's horrible death to realize that. I wrenched open the door of my embarrassingly old and under-cared for truck and got into the front seat. The seat was slightly wet from the rain that had fallen through the open window and I cursed under my breath as I manually rolled up the pane of glass with the use of a crank.
My windshield wipers were no match for the torrential downpour as I pulled out of the driveway and headed down the tree-barred street. Everything was so dark, despite it being only eleven o'clock in the morning. I could barely see a thing, not just because of the rain, but by the fact that my vision was so clouded with rage towards mother.
How dare she force me from her home? I tried my best out there in the big, scary world. Of course, I did run back with my tail between my legs, but reality was frightening and I was perfectly content to stay locked up in the house where I was born. The real world was a damaged place where sad, lonely people attempted to lead happy, boring lives with other sad, lonely people. It was monstrous to behold.
I really did want to fly, to find the place where I belonged out there without having to worry about ending up dull and forgotten. I thought I could hide from it, but my mother seemed to want me to face it as soon as possible. There were times that I truly hated her.
As the rage cleared from my vision and I found myself able to think rationally again, I found myself turning down an old trail. All around me were trees off all shapes and sizes. The road beneath my tires was bumpy and I felt a headache and nausea set in as I was jostled about. The rain lashed down on my windshield with surprising force and it became harder and harder to see.
I had no idea where I was, and if anybody had asked; I was not afraid. That was, of course, a lie. I was terrified but had no choice but to keep driving. If I stopped, I ran the risk of getting a flat tire and then walking home in the rain and possibly catching pneumonia. So I drove on, struggling to see out f the small window of clear glass that my wipers managed to make.
I think it was about twenty minutes of blind driving that I realized that the path was missing.
How did this happen? I asked myself. To this day, I still don't know. Perhaps, in my anger, I failed to notice that the road curved to the left, but I can't be sure. All that matters was that I knew I was in trouble. The bumping and jostling increased as I drove further in and out of the corner of my eye, I saw that the gravel road beneath my tires was no longer there. I was driving off road in a truck that could barely take the highway. That was when I began to panic.
I clutched the steering wheel so tight that my hands hurt as I attempted to keep my truck from swerving and hitting something. My efforts were a complete failure, for not a few meters in was a rather large tree planted right in the center of the clearing I was driving through. It was not until the last moment that I saw it, and by then it was too late.
Once I made impact, my engine was compacted. My tires squealed against the wet earth, but I could barely hear it as my front window was smashed into a thousand pieces. My seat belt locked into its place, choking me like a noose as I was thrown forward towards the broken glass. I heard screaming. Fear hit me as I wondered if I hit some other unlucky person lost in the woods. It was a moment before I realized it was me doing the shrieking.
Pain hit me with full force as my neck snapped back. If it broke, I could not feel it. I couldn't feel anything after that momentary flash of bright, hot burning. And then there was nothing. I felt myself slide down the seat.
Maybe I was asleep. Maybe I was dead.