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Chapter Six: Bruises, Betrayal and Watching You Go

October 2001
Alex: 13
Jay: 14

Alex's world came hurtling to a halt as Jay delivered her this news. "Where?" She asked, her voice a devastated whisper.

"Portland, Oregon." Jay said monotonously.

"America?" Alex gasped in stunned disbelief.

Alex quickly scanned back to her geography lessons; she couldn't picture where the hell Oregon was in the United States. Jay learned from her dumbfounded look and tossed her to map of the US and Canada. Melissa had highlighted Oregon on the page for him.

Alex's face fell as she saw how far West Oregon was on the map of the US, but it fell even further when she saw the distance between TO, Canada and OR, America. "But it's miles away." She said breathlessly.

"I know. But I can't stay here on my own, can I?" Jay threw a rhetorical question into the offering.

"I told you! You can stay at my house!" Alex protested tearfully.

"Alex!" Jay raised his voice slightly. "You and I both know thats a stupid plan."

Alex knew deep down he was right, but she didn't want to loose him. She'd just started to try really hard for his attention, now he was leaving the country for six months. Alex scolded herself for being so thoughtless and self-absorbed. His mom had just died, he had no choice but to do what had to be done. "I don't want you to go." She admitted truthfully.

It took Jay a while to respond. Because he was unsure on how to. He thought long and heard about how he was going to reply, but luckily he was saved by the bell at the last minute. Melissa was tapping lightly on the door. She emerged from the other side with Jay's suit in her arms.

"Half an hour til we have to leave, Jay." She informed them. Her voice was soft and patient. Alex guessed she could only have been in her mid-20's.

"OK, I'll be down in a bit." Jay said, hoping she'd leave.

"OK, buddy." She said affectionately.

"So, only half an hour." Alex reviewed poignantly. "And how far is Oregon again?"

"It's like a six and a half hour flight. I told you that already." Jay said impatiently. "And before you ask, the plane isn't gonna crash."

"I wasn't gonna say that." Alex pointed out arrogantly. But now Jay had said it, the idea was stuck in her head. She prayed to God that Jay hadn't just tempted fate with that phrase.

Alex stood at the gateway and watched as Uncle Cory's silver Mitsubishi tanked down to the lights, then turned the corner, out of sight.

Jay's absence devastated Alex. After three measly days a new family moved into the Hogart's trailer in the far corner. All the memories of the family had been erased. Alex took a slow walk past one evening. Through the windows, she could see a collection of cookbooks, a single red flower in a vase and a commemorative plate with Montreal emblazoned on it adorned the windowsills. The flower pot full of cigarette butts was gone. When Jay and his mom occupied the place, there was no such clutter or general homeliness to the place at all.

Alex slowly breezed past and she saw a young blonde woman sat at the table feeding a tiny baby. Alex couldn't tell if this offspring was a boy or a girl or both...

The flight to Oregon sure was long. Jay couldn't sit in one space for too long before getting claustrophobic, panicky and agitated. He'd never needed a cigarette more in his life than he did now.

Cory chatted away enthusiastically to him about hockey, and Tim Horton donuts, and snow, and maple syrup...

Is there nothing more stereotypically Canadian for him to ramble about? Jay wondered to himself, incessantly bored, as Cory carried rabbiting on anxiously. Cory and Melissa had only been married a year and a half, no kids, and Cory had only met Jay once, discluding coming to TO for the funeral. Jay hadn't shown for the wedding, neither had Karen. They married in California, and the Hogart clan really didn't have the money for flights, so they missed it. Melissa had flown her Canadian roots, leaving her older sister and her underachieving son back in a trailer park in Toronto, open to the perils of abuse.

"I always look forward to getting Tim Horton's when I come over to Canada." Cory said enthusiastically. Jay wondered if Cory thought he was still eleven years old, the age he was when he last saw him.

"Yeah, Tim Bits rule!" Jay said, his voice dripping in sarcasm.

Melissa shot him a pleading look. Jay took note, sighed, and continued his conversation with little more interest than before.

- - - - -

Alex sat at home, listening to her mom's drunken slurs. She was screaming at her for skipping school, Alex was yet to explain to her exactly where she was.

"Where the fuck did you think you were gonna go? There's nowhere for you to go!" Emily hollered drunkenly.

"I-" Alex began, but her mom cut her off.

"You were walking the streets! Anything coulda happened to you, you stupid fucking girl!"

"I was at Karen's funeral!" Alex screamed, silencing her mom.

"Karen Hogart?" Emily finally uttered. "I didn't know it was her funeral."

"I told you about it on Saturday!" Alex shouted. It was the truth. She had mentioned it in conversation. Of course, her mom had consumed a truck load of Vodka since then. Her memory had been wiped clean like a slate. "Wouldn't expect you to remember." Alex added quietly.

"What the fuck did you just say, girl?" Emily bellowed, rocking the whole house.

"Nothing." Alex said sheepishly, cowering in her seat on the sofa.

"You're goin' the right way for a slap, Alexandra!"

"Emily, what the hell?" An equally drunken voice crept into the exchange. Nathaniel had just stumbled in to the trailer. Alex could smell the alcohol on him from a mile off, and she wasn't even facing him.

"Alex is mouthing off – again." Emily explained maliciously to Nathaniel. Alex couldn't believe her mom's betrayal. She'd never mouthed off to her mom, more than this one occasion, and on top of that Nathaniel was drunk. A drunk man who wouldn't think twice about physically abusing his own "step-daughter."

"Oh really?" Nathaniel shouted sloppily. He staggered toward her, the mud off his Doc Marten's trailing footprints behind him as he got closer. Alex's heart was in her mouth. A mouthful of abuse was coming her way. A fist was coming her way...

- - - -

Melissa and Cory's place was a gazillion times different to the trailer he resided in back in TO. The walls were actually color, not off-white plasterboard. Photo's, ornaments, plush cushions, flowers, magazines, utensils, candles. The place looked like a home, not a house. Jay walked in through the door and immediately felt out of place. This was a place for sophisticated Hogart family members like his Aunt Mel. Not him, trailer trash.

"There's the guest room, and the spare room. I figured I'd let you choose." Melissa motioned toward the stairs, where he saw four heavy oak doors leading to the next chapter of the house. He jogged up the peach color carpeted stairs, they felt soft underfoot, and stood in the pentagonal hallway, looking at the doors. They all had little signs on them, a small white tile with the room name and a little picture. They looked to Jay to be handmade. He remembered his mom mentioned something about Melissa being into Interior Design. That would explain the house looking like something off the cover of Good Housekeeping magazine.

He grabbed at the handle of the "Guest Room" and poked his head round the corner. A nice size, about the size of the living area and kitchen back at his trailer. The walls were neutral yellow, and there was a bad, TV and wardrobe. He didn't even bother checking out the other room, he moved his stuff in and called this his space.

Inside his duffel bag, he didn't have much clothes. Just a few pairs of jeans, a bunch of t-shirts, boxers, socks and a bath towel. He had a carton of 200 Marlboro Reds to keep him going – he wasn't sure if his new keepers new he smoked – and eight secret cans of Stella Artois lager.

He reached right to the bottom of his bag, along with his aftershave and general tidbits, to retrieve the thing most important to him. He got it out and dusted it off nervously, there was no actual dust on the thing. He opened it out and placed it on the ledge.

Before he went back down to tell Melissa he'd finished unpacking, he turned around to sneak a quick look at the photo of his mom he'd placed on the sill. "Love you, mom." He said quietly to himself as he turned and headed back down the stairs.

- - - - -

"Get to your room right now!" Nathaniel swept Alex off the couch and pushed her toward her room, tugging her hair and kicking the backs of her legs as she staggered along under his iron grip.

He grabbed the cloth of her wife beater and pushed her aside, still maintaining grip, as he opened her door. "Get in there!" He dragged her back and threw her into her bedroom. She fell to the floor as she was discarded. Alex wondered why her mom didn't object to this near enough stranger treating her daughter in such a bad way, but Emily didn't seem bothered by what was going on. He booted her ruthlessly in the shins, as if drilling the message into her, then stalked away, slamming the door sickeningly behind him. The whole room shook again as the vibrations regurgitated around the weak structure.

For the rest of the night Alex sat in her room. In the dark, in silence. Listening to her mom and Nathaniel getting more and more drunk together. The sound of smashing bottles and hooting peels of laughter were Alex's company for the night. She didn't cry. Throughout it all. She thought of Jay, though. She wondered where he was right now, and what he was doing. She wondered if he'd ever get in touch. Probably having too much fun in Oregon, dancing the night away with some skank...

- - - - -

Jay thought of Alex that night. He wondered where she was right now, and what she was doing. He wondered when he'd next get to see her. She was probably having too much fun in Toronto, dancing the night away with some creep...

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