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Chapter 2
Maybe Jude had always been broken and dark inside.
Maybe someone who had been whole and good would never have left her family, and not tremble in years of repressed anxiety, a guilty body sitting in a hot taxi seat, wanting to deceive herself back to her temporary room back in New Mexico, instead of bracing herself for the reckoning that laid before her. She could ask the ashy grey haired taxi driver to turn back now, his overwhelming smell of men's cologne made her want to hurl her guts, but she could suffer the ride back to the airport, she could suffer for an eternity, anything other than seeing their faces.
"We're here."
Too late now.
The Taxi pulled up to the dirt curb, in front of an rusty mailbox, and an equally ancient cul-de-sac house. Jude spied the peeling paint with an ache in her belly, and her nostalgia spiked with the sound of Sue's wind chimes singing in the sea breeze, the cold familiar chill ran it's hands through her raven hair, sending goosebumps up her sweater covered arms, "That will be two-fifties mam."
Judith frowned, mam? She wasn't that old, "keep the change," she slipped him a few bills and they ruffled in his creased hands. It wasn't her money anyways.
"You are very generous, I am sure your family is dying to see you," he commented, but she didn't think so.
She shouldn't be here, she wasn't supposed to be here, and three years ago Harry Clearwater had thrown her ungrateful ass on the street.
She rightly deserved it, but the memory still felt raw. Like a wound that refused to heal, because she kept picking at it like a junkie with her needle wounds. No, not that like that. Jude had never used drugs socially, even privately, but she did have her fair share of experiences of needles and scientific men caped in white coats, scribbling their notes on clipboards they only got to read. Those memories would best be remembered another time. She had work to do.
Jude put on a mask of confidence as she stepped out, walking to the rear of the Taxi, taking her two meager bags from the taxi driver that had pulled them quickly from the trunk, the last things she needed, "thanks," the words felt hollow in her throat.
"Sure, have a good one," was his the driver's final reply as he took her her generous tip before abandoning her, leaving her alone, in this place, with her memories of it, made her have a little hyperventilation, "It's okay Jude," she breathed through her nose and mouth.
She controlled the sneaky anxiety with Susan's calming words, Jude threw her bags over her shoulders to knock some sense into herself. Her possessions she decided to bring felt like bricks, but she had carried heavier things with her every day, and so she instead focused on the painfully familiar front door.
"Shit," she muttered in the cold January wind, it still lapped against her long raven hair, hanging too far down around her elbows, it needed to be cut, "let's do this."
Judith became numb as her feet carried her past the cracked stone path, up the creaky front stairs, and to just a few inches away from the door into the Clearwater home, it looked so much older, and now she was close enough to knock on the off-white door. She should knock, do it quickly, loudly, but her tight fist shook in the air before it, making it near impossible. She didn't remember being so nervous, she had not felt this way at the airport, not in the taxi, but here in La Push.
Her mind went blank to who she was, and what she was thinking of coming here.
Jude closed her ridiculously long dark eyelashes, they caught the sweat or mist that dripped down her forehead, "come on Jude, don't freeze now," her silver eyes opened and to anyone they would appear like leashed lightening, emotions tormenting only the insides of her, and she willed calm into her racing mind and heart.
She whispered to herself, coaching, "You are Jude Clearwater. You are here for family. You are here for forgiveness," she swallowed the saliva building up in her mouth, "and to forgive. You stay as long as you are needed, and if you cause trouble, you leave. If you cause trouble, you need let them go. You can do this. Do it Jude."
She lifted her hand.
She put it down. Maybe she should, oh hell with it, "Hello," she called and knocked. She felt the anticipation in her bones. She had dreamed of this.
"Hello!" She called again louder. Judith knocked repeatedly.
There was no response.
Great. Good. Whatever. This was the part where she should leave, tell herself at least she tried, write a note, leave it on the door… no,
that was the coward's way, don't write a note for them, she needed talk to the Ateara's, Black's, go around town asking left and right for her family, where they were, if they were alright, and if they would be willing to see her. She knew how it would look like. Desperation. She felt desperate. Here she was, the prodigal son in the Bible, returning home at last. Judith knew the parable well. Harry had read it enough times after dinner, near the fireplace when the sky poured down, and among the people she trusted and felt most safe with. Except she was not his son, but his wayward daughter.
Yet, she had remembered the passage even now. The parable of the prodigal son was a tale of stubbornness, wickedness, and a son seeking forgiveness from his father after spending his inheritance unwisely and in sin. It was about second chances, and she knew how well Harry and Sue thought about second chances.
She had already used up her second chances. This would be mercy.
Judith leaned against the house, sank to her bum, curled her knees up to her chest, and waited for someone to show up.
In through her nose, out through her nose, over and over she calmed herself. She waited for hours, all far worse than the last, because they were leading to what she feared most. Jude closed her eyes again, seeing the flashes of memories that haunted her still. This place was so familiar, it hurt to remember, and she tried in vain to forget the last time she had stayed in one place.
"Where have you been?"
"It is none of your business where I have been," Jude snapped with her childish immortal strength. Her usual bitchy seventeen-year-old self was at an all time low. The boyfriend of those years, Conner Whitney, a Forks paleface, had dropped her like she was nothing, her grades were in the gutter, and to top it off the voices and apparitions were not leaving her alone.
"I am your father," Harry said like it meant anything at all, "if you cannot even respect this family, how can you expect me to respect you?"
These conversations were normal, Jude scowled the same way she always had, "I am your daughter, I am family, you have to respect me."
He had not miraculously forgotten, and yet he still did not agree, "You are not acting like a part of this family," her father's face wavered, "do you even know what it means to be a part of this family? Do you know that when you act this way, you send the wrong message of what this family stands for? What did we teach you to stand for? Do you remember?"
Jude rolled her eyes until they went into her head, "I apparently don't, because you tell me all the time how I don't know jackshit," she said smartly, "all you care about is the family, the tribe, and how we look to the rest of our neighbors," Jude felt deeply hurt by that fact, "Well here it is, I don't care." She did, "They can gossip all about how I am the crazy kid, wild child, who gives a fuck, they need their own lives." She was tired of bringing this family down, and it would be so much easier just to prove their tribe gossip right and leave before they saw the true failure she could become. Judith played with that thought.
"Judith please, be good to us," her mother pleaded, "you need to stop this, this is not healthy. Are you having the visions again? Maybe we should go see Doctor Williams-"
"No," Judith was done with doctors, and she got up to go back to her room, "I am fine. I can cope."
Her father thundered after her, so loud, he might as well broadcast it to the entire tribe, "Car Racing, breaking and entering, vandalism. Sue do you hear this, can this be a daughter of mine, come back here Jude, we aren't finished," Jude did, and her father was overbearingly upset, "what are we going to do about this, I have had it, this is going to the be the last time, damn it, this is going to be it," Harry Clearwater sunk back into his chair, a hand over his heart, "this daughter of mine is going to send me to an early grave."
Jude watched him closely. His saggy face, bloated belly, and tired eyes made Jude feel as if she was truly bringing him to the brink. This was hell. It was as if everyone wanted her to reach insanity before she even began her life. The pressure was too much.
The pressure cut right through her, rushing out, "You make me feel like I am killing you dad! How dramatic can you be! This is my life! You don't get to own me, and tell me what the hell I do with it!"
"Don't speak to him like that," her Mother screamed in her face, done with remaining in the shadows, it was like her mother was waiting to erupt too, "he is the only one that helps me with you! It is so hard being your mother, I cannot believe the spirits made me your mother!"
"I wished they never made me your daughter!"
"You're a selfish bitch," her mother had never cursed at her, it was unnatural, it was unacceptable, "selfish bitch!"
Jude felt such rage as she had never felt before, and before she knew it her hand landed right against her mother's cheek, following all the way through, and the slap of palm against flesh was unmistakable. It was deafening. The sound chilled the bone and Leah gasped, she must have felt it too.
The rage left quicker than it had come, only leaving Jude in heart-wrenching guilt, "Mom, I am sorry," Jude tried saying, but Harry Clearwater stood to his feet, no longer calm, and to her surprise struck her too, harder than she had done to her mother.
He did not flinch from his own attack, "get out of this house! You ungrateful brat! I don't want to see you! I don't ever want to see you again! Don't ever come back!"
Jude held her burning face, Leah eyes flicked between them all, her mother was sobbing endlessly, and her father, his face was unchanged, if not more disappointed than before.
There was nothing she can do to right this wrong, she had to leave, "I am sorry you feel this way," Jude whispered, more to herself.
Her father looked away from her cold answer, and he wouldn't look at her. Jude couldn't blame him. She had never felt so guilty in her entire life. Jude couldn't even look at her mother whom sunk into the couch seat so Leah could wrap her arms around her, didn't even want to see the pain she gave her parents on a daily basis. What her younger sister must be feeling right now.
But, they were right about her, everyone was right, she was wrong, she was bad, and she was wicked for trying to stick in their lives when they wanted nothing to do with her, "I will be at Conners' if you need me," Jude kicked the screen door unknowingly for the last time and got lost. No one needed to see her tears. She shut her eyes, refusing to hear the voices, ignore the reaching white hands, and how she wished they would just disappear.
Jude stopped in her clumsy tracks, the darkening forest was like a nightmare. A bad dream that had swallowed her and refused to let her go. She was stupid for leaving at this time of the day. She had nowhere to go. Harry had thrown her out, Conner was done with her, and her opinion of herself was falling faster than a cannonball off the La Push cliffs.
Her spine shivered in twilight of the forest.
Someone was watching her. Judith screamed when a dark shadow flew out of the woods, rushing up to her face, and flaring it's canines in malicious intent. Not again! She lifted her hands up but only air hit her. It did her not harm, not this time, but a haunting didn't need to touch you to make you fear for your life. They always attacked when she was low.
The anti-schizophrenic drugs were not helping, and they made her immobile as ghostly beings preened their faces at her. All her life she had suffered their presence. Imaginary Friends. Apparitions. Hallucinations. Her mind had become a madhouse.
She thought there was no way to get rid of them. That was before she had the guts to leave this small rainy gloom she called home.
"Jude?"
She opened her eyes.
