Notes ~ I wasn't going to write a sequel to this, since it
didn't really begin as a coherent idea, more of a 'late night writing whatever
strangeness came into my head' session. But so many people asked me to
continue, I thought I'd be nice and oblige. What can I say? I'm a feedback
whore.
The small town comes gradually into view, revealing
itself to be nothing more than a group of dusty houses, a motel and a gas
station. John fills up the car, while I hurry inside for a packet of
cigarettes. As I stand at the counter to pay my eyes are drawn to the array of
liquor lined up behind the shop clerk. I feel that itch in my veins that makes
me long for the rush of alcohol in my system, makes me ache for the burn on my
tongue and the warmth in my belly. It would be so easy right now, just to ask
for that half-bottle of whiskey. To feel the hard glass in my hand then unscrew
the cap and smell the sharp, heady scent, to disappear into the bathroom and
take a long gulp, letting the liquid hit the back of my throat and work its way
into my blood, gradually diluting my pain…
I hurriedly hand over the money, walking out without the
change, before the last of my resolve is shattered. Then I chain smoke three
cigarettes in quick succession, brutally crushing the butts underneath my heel
when they are finished.
I catch a weather-beaten local watching me brazenly,
staring at the rich strangers with the flash car and the fancy ways. I bet he
wonders what we're doing here, deep in the vast and empty desert. Well, I
wonder too.
"Excuse me," I call over to him.
He simply raises an eyebrow and turns away.
"Hey!" I persist, demanding his attention. "Where's the
nearest pay phone?"
He runs his eyes lazily down my dishevelled figure,
raping me with his gaze. "That'll be down in the General Store, little lady."
"Well, where's the general store?" I ask impatiently.
He nods in the direction of the gas station. "You're
lookin' at it. Ask Bud inside."
Turning exasperatedly away, I head back inside the shop
and address the clerk, trying my best not to look at the shiny bottles as I do
so. "Could I use your phone, please?"
"You could borrow my cell," John offers, and I flash him
a guilty glace.
"I have to call Luka."
"Oh," he replies and walks away.
I am ushered into a back room, and pointed in the
direction of the phone, the clerk standing over me as I prepare to dial. "Uh, this
is a private call," I hint for him to leave.
I punch in the familiar number, holding my breath as I
hear ringing on the other end. What am I going to say to him?
"Hello," Luka answers.
I pause before speaking, my voice caught in my throat.
"Hello," he repeats. "Is anybody there?"
"Luka?" I blurt out suddenly. "It's Abby."
"Abby? I've been worried sick about you. I tried calling
your apartment, the hospital, everywhere… Where are you?"
I take a deep breath before answering. "Somewhere in the
middle of Arizona."
"Arizona? Why?"
"It
was the first flight we could get out of O'Hare."
"We?"
He asks, the first hint of suspicion and hostility leaking into his voice.
"John's
here with me."
"Carter?"
He fairly yells. "You're in Arizona with Carter."
"It
seemed like a good idea at the time," I reply in an apologetic tone.
"And
now, now what does it seem like?"
The
clerk appears hovering at the door once more. "Listen," I tell Luka. "I have to
go, I'll talk to you when we get back, okay?"
I
replace the receiver quickly and hand the guy a five-dollar bill, rushing out
of the store before I can stop myself from buying that six pack of beer I
glimpse in the corner of my eye, and guzzling the cool liquid straight down.
God, a cold beer would be so good right now, so refreshing, and it would just
give me that extra kick to get through the next few hours…
I
shake my head, trying to dispel the urge.
"What
did Luka say?" John asks, feigning disinterest.
I
shrug. "Not much."
"So,"
he says tightly. "Do you want to drive?"
I
automatically catch the keys he tossed in my direction. "What are we even doing
here, John?"
"I
don't know," he replies. "You were the one who wanted to come."
"I
was drunk at the time," I protest. "I'm not exactly at my most rational when
drunk. If I'd said I wanted to pony trek in the Himalayas, would you have taken
me?"
"Come
on," he emits a short bitter laugh. "This is hardly Nepal. You said you wanted
to get away for a couple of days, so now we're away."
"Away
in the middle of nowhere," I bite back. "Do you even know where the Hell we
are?"
"Sure
I do," he replies. "We're in Grantsville – " he points at the town's 'Welcome'
sign – "Grantsville, Arizona."
"Why
thank you for making that exceptionally complex deduction," I say
sarcastically. "And where, pray tell, is Grantsville, in relation to anywhere
resembling civilisation, that is?"
He
digs in the glove compartment of the rental in search of a map, finally
locating one and pouring over it. Finally he stands up straight again and
points in the direction we were travelling. "The Nevada Stateline is about 100
miles west on this road, then it's a little further on to Vegas," he turns
around. "Or we could head back the way we came to Phoenix. We can catch a
flight back to Chicago from either city – since I'm assuming that's what you
want to do."
I
nod curtly. "So, which way? Onwards or back from whence we came?"
He
thinks for a minute. "We should carry on – after all, there's no going back is
there?"
"No,"
I agree in a quiet voice. "There never is."
~~~
The rest of the trip is spent in a semi-awkward silence.
I turn the radio on and we listen intermittently to country music, letting the
sad lyrics and the slow, sliding melodies provide a depressing soundtrack to
our trip. We swap over the driving a couple of times, both of us tired now, our
bones aching with fatigue and need for our equivalent pick-me-ups. I saw it in
John's eyes when we stopped for a bathroom break. He had the haunted look of an
addict. I touched his arm in private understanding and the connection between
us flared once more, before being stifled by the hot, oppressive atmosphere of
the car.
While John drove I tried to sleep, managing short catnaps
filled with disturbing dreams of Luka's dark eyes and my mother's manic
laughter. He's a good man, Maggie had said. And so is your friend
John. She was right. Right about both of them, so why do I keep hurting
them so much? Or can I just not help it? Do I destroy everyone and everything I
touch – my legacy from her?
We reach Las Vegas suddenly, the city looming straight
out of the desert like some bizarre mirage of concrete, steal and neon lights.
The temperature seems to soar even higher, what few breezes there are halted in
the shelter of the tall buildings, the pollution hovering like a blanket over
the colourful metropolis.
John turns the rental car in at the airport and I
disappear into the bathroom to change clothes and clean myself up a little. I
wash away the road dust in the small sink, turning the white tile a dirty red
with sand, and almost regret this trip ending. Because when I go back to
Chicago it will be real, not just some distant nightmare, My mother will be
dead and my boyfriend won't know me and my best friend will hate me for
stringing him along like I have.
I want to turn and go back on the road, to do it properly
this time, to make the escape I longed for in the first place. But I know it
won't work, for exactly the same reasons this trip has been a disaster. We
can't leave our troubles behind – they don't stay neatly filed away in places
or people, they live in a tangled mess in our heads and follow us wherever we
go.
Eventually, I drag myself away from my reflection in the
mirror, unable to stare any longer at the face I now don't recognise as my own.
I see more and more of her in me every day. I have her hair, her
cheekbones, her hollow eyes ringed with dark circles. The older I get, the more
changes that occur inside me too, I become more and more screwed up – just like
Mom. I seem to be accumulating problems. A string of failed relationships. An
aborted baby. Alcoholism. Getting thrown out of medical school. My greatest
fears are being realised and my tenuous control over my life is gradually
slipping away. The worst thing is, I don't know whether it's her doing
this to me (the inevitable influence of biology and learned behaviour slowly
distorting my mind), or whether I'm doing it to myself. Maybe in trying so hard
not to be her, I forgot to concentrate on the things that are more important. I
was so busy with my fears and my paranoia that I messed up all on my own.
I am consciously aware of the two warring sides of my
personality. There's the sensible Abby, who puts up walls to protect her heart,
who killed her baby because she was afraid of being a bad mother, who is
content to be a nurse because it's safe and familiar and carries no risk of
dashed hopes. She's the one who wants to be with Luka, because he's safe and
reliable and he cares for her. She's afraid of showing her emotions, of falling
in love, because then she'll have no power over her feelings or her actions.
It's not the love she fears – that she craves – it's the falling. She is
petrified of loosing her footing and flying through the air, not knowing where
she might land.
Then there's the other Abby. The volatile, passionate
Abby. The one who finds it in herself to laugh and cry and get drunk out of her
mind. The one who suggests road trips, or lets down other people's tyres. The
one who acts totally on impulse and has beautiful hopes and dreams for the rest
of her life. The one who still believes it's possible to be happy. She gets up
and yells in the middle of courtrooms, because she loves someone so deeply she
will do anything to try and help them. She gets angry and sad and carefree and
all the rest of the roller coaster of emotions. She self-destructs in bars and
she hurts everybody around her, but she also takes leaps of faith and lives her
life to the full.
The crazy part of me wants to turn to Carter now and tell
him to get back on the road. She wants to let go completely and travel wherever
the mood takes us. She wants to risk my heart by falling for him and kissing
him and playing the casinos of Las Vegas, because my luck's been that bad so
far, it has to change sometime, right?
But sensible Abby wins over yet again. She knows I have
to head back to Chicago to organise my Mom's funeral and deal with Luka and
decide whether or not I'm going to carry on in the medical programme next
semester. And she's afraid. Afraid that dropping everything and running across
the country with a man (who isn't even the one I'm supposed to be dating) means
I'm crazy. She's afraid it's just the first step in a downward spiral, where I
become more and more like Maggie every day. She sees too many parallels with
the aborted trips to Disneyland and the depressed episodes spent locked up in
motel rooms. Best to stop it now, to return to my normal (safe) life and
pretend like nothing happened.
I leave the bathroom decisively, my uncertainty firmly
quashed. I am making the right decision, there is no other one to be made, we
have to go back.
~~~
I meet John outside the bathroom, pacing back and forth
impatiently waiting for me.
"So, did you see about getting plane tickets?" I ask.
He turns to look at me, his expression half-guilty, half-reluctant.
"I asked at all the desks," he explains. "And the first flight to Chicago I
could get is at ten a.m. tomorrow."
"Not until tomorrow morning?" I exclaim, suddenly
panicking. This can't be happening, I had my mind all made up, we were going to
go back and everything would be fine. Now, though, I feel lost again, unable to
cope with circumstances beyond my control. "Did you go through every airline?
There can't possibly be nothing available? What about in first class? Or
transfers – we could fly somewhere else first then go on to Chicago."
"And the journey would take twice as long and cost twice
as much," John reminds me. "What's the big deal, anyway? We could spend the
night in a motel here, get some sleep, then go back tomorrow. Eighteen more
hours isn't going to change anything."
I glance over at Carter standing next to me, his eyes unwaveringly
following my every movement, his hands stuffed protectively into his pockets, and
I think that eighteen hours could change a lot – too much in fact.
"I'm not sure…" I waver.
"It's just one night, Abby."
The last of my resistance crumbles, heading the way of
the rest of my best-laid plans. "All right, okay. I can handle it," I say as
much to persuade myself as him.
"Good," he nods. "I saw a motel outside the airport, we
can stay there."
"Fine," I reply, walking out with him. We are just
passing through the double-doors of the main exit, mingling with the rest of
the tourists and business people and gamblers, when a sudden thought occurs to
me, hitting me sharply in the stomach. "Are you sure they were no flights left?
You weren't just saying that to make me stay?"
John spins around on me, caught midway between amusement
and offence, his mouth laughing but his eyes hurt. "What? You really think I'd
do that?"
I realise my mistake at once, the certainty of a second
ago now dismissed as impossible, a figment of my paranoid imagination. "I-I'm
sorry. I didn't mean that. In fact, I'm sorry for all of this. For dragging you
into this, for acting like a total bitch."
John wraps an arm around my shoulders, pulling me
slightly into his body. "I'm sorry too – about Maggie. About your Mom."
I say nothing in response, afraid that any further conversation
will unlock the floodgate to all the tears threatening to spill down my cheeks.
Instead I just lean my head against him and carry on walking. The familiar AA
mantra echoes in my head – one step at a time.
To be continued? What do
you think? Is it still worth the effort?