Chapter Two: Hubby

Was it just me, or was my life one endless barrage of disappointments after another? On top of my un-celebration, I was now confined to my room for the foreseeable future. Why? Because someone leaked the dirt to my parents about my little housing plan after grad. And by someone I mean Shayna. Actually, my parents interrogated her parents, who in turn interrogated Shayna. So in the end it really all winds down to my parents after all. So much for my freedom. Wait, what was I talking about? I was eighteen! A legal adult. And here I was, cooped up in the bedroom of my parent's house, grounded. My life was a Greek tragedy. Minus the Greek.

After a wary inspection of the hallway and an even closer inspection of my sanity, I wrenched open my bedroom window and clambered outside onto the slick tiles. The night air hit me like a freight train. I felt almost woozy. The stale air inside had screwed with my head. I felt like a wild animal being released from captivity for the first time. This was what being a teenager should feel like. Scratch that; an adult. And I knew just what to do as soon as I somehow managed to maneuver the roof.

Jared was the first thing on my list. The second my feet connected with the soil I was running. Sprinting down Maine Street. The moonlight chill was deliciously forbidden, curling up my spine. I could feel my heart thudding in stride with my lopes, and for a jarring moment I forgot who I was. Besides the obvious; an idiot. I skittered to a halt. Seriously? What was I thinking? The police station was like a million miles away and I was going to run there in my PJ's. As if.

I high-jacked my mom's SUV. Sure, she'd hear the engine and sure, she'd call the cops, but it wasn't like I had any other choice. Except the normal person thing to do, which was nothing at all. But if my mom was the sort of genius to leave her keys in the glove compartment, then she had it coming. I resisted the uncontrollable urge to rev the engine as her beloved clunker sputtered to life. The stench of gasoline pervaded the car. Lovely. I switched to my high beams (it's not like there was going to be anyone else on our road at night) and pulled out into the street. A light flickered on in the upstairs window. Crap.

I tore out onto the cul-de-sac and skidded away. Howling dogs followed in my wake. I felt like such a badass. That's a good feeling. Though probably not the best to carry with you to a cop shop. It almost made me forget to feel the mandatory "scarred-for-life-humiliation" that went hand-in-hand with driving this piece. But then I remembered that it was night, and the windows were tinted.

My high beams guillotined across the face of the station. I parallel parked (a miraculous feat for yours truly) and jogged up to the double doors. I jiggled the handle. Brilliant. It was locked. I mashed my face up against the glass and squinted around inside.

"Marissa to base, Marissa to base," I hissed into my very real (not) walkie. With another peek-about inside, I concluded,

"There appears to be no alien life forms, chk, over."

"What are you doing?"

I almost died on the spot.

"Huh?"

"What are you doing here, little lady? The station's closed for the night."

"No, um…I know. I was actually looking for my boyfriend? I believe you arrested him."

The security guard-type person uttered a long, throaty laugh.

"We ain't got many criminals in here these days. How old's the kid?"

"Er, twenty-one?"

"Twenty-one, huh? And you?"

"Eighteen," I peeped.

"Hmph." He didn't seem to approve. Wonder why…? "Jared Mathieus. That's his name?"

I nodded too eagerly. "Yeah! I came to bail him out. Here."

The dude took a step away from the handful of bills I'd thrust under his nose. "Your boyfriend got bailed out a couple hours ago."

"A couple hours ago?"

"Yeah, right before closing. Now if you wouldn't mind exiting the premises…?"

"The what?"

"I'm required by law to ask that you exit the premises, ma'am."

"Oh. Yeah, um, sorry…but do you know who bailed him out?"

"Do I look like a cop?"

"Well…"
"I'm not!"

I couldn't figure it out. A couple hours ago? What did that mean? Like, one? Two? Seven? Weren't these people supposed to be professionals? I collapsed back against the warm leather seat. Who would bail Jared out of jail? I knew for a fact that he didn't have any close friends. Well, none that I knew of…I wonder who that chick was? Whitney what's-her-face. It made me boil just to think of her with him. But that wasn't reality. She probably mistook him for someone else. Jared was a little bit neurotic, but he wasn't a psychopath. Far from it. The day I met him, at the beginning of Grade 12, I thought he was just a dropout. He would loiter around the field after school, or in the parking lot, leaning against the door of his slick Camaro and enticing girls with that wicked smile. And then it was my turn.

Equation: Good Girl + Bad Boy = ?

Solution: Who cares, I was too young and naïve to bother.

He was slumped over in a corner booth, fiddling with the lid on his paper coffee cup. I eyed him dubiously from across the room. Why wasn't he at my school picking up girls? Wasn't that, like, his day job?

Despite a lifetime of scruples from two uptight parents, I made a beeline straight for stranger danger. And what do you know? He looked up. And smiled. The smile was what did it. He gestured to the booth across from him, but I wasn't that gullible. Okay, maybe I was. I was practically eating out of his hand by the time the café closed. And then he wanted my number. And then my street address. And soon something so intimate, so personal that I cringed away from the thought. I'd thought about having sex with Jared. We'd even come close once. That is until my parents walked in the door and found us making out on the couch. That was nothing compared to what they could have seen. We'd avoided each other's cribs after that. Jared droned on and on about this pad he had lined up for us in upscale Vancouver, but I had yet to see heads or tails of the elusive condo. Let alone his crib. That's right. Ten months and I had yet to set foot in my boyfriend's life, where he hung his hat or whatever it is old people say. He retaliated with foolproof excuses that I couldn't counter. After all, if a smile was all it took to do me in, I'd say I don't have a very reliable defense mechanism.

I pulled into the driveway around 11 pm., and breathed an audible sigh of relief. The house was steeped in blackness. I killed the engine once I'd idled close enough to the house and stepped out into the gravel.

Crunch crunch.

I practically jumped out of my skin. Knee-highs probably weren't the best sort of shoe to be stealthing around in. With every step, another hideous crunch.

Crunch…crunch…crunch, crunch, crunch.

I bit my lip. This wouldn't do. I wasn't even wearing socks in these. Oh well.

Hopping up and down on one leg, I managed to shimmy out of the left boot. Lovely. Now I just had to stand on one bare foot in the gravel and pray I didn't injure myself in some very preventable way or another.

I was almost out of the second boot when my mother's scream crackled across the yard. Shit.

I stood there in the moonlight, a scared little girl, her bare feet cut and bleeding. I could feel all the blood draining away from my face and seeping into my legs, making them heavy. Lead heavy.

"Mom?" My voice barely made it over a whisper. I managed to clear my throat over the massive lump.

"MOM!" The night waited with me. I could hear the black snags, furling in their branches like leafy caskets around their pocked faces. Only the dead knew true sorrow. And then I heard her. Or I thought it was her. It could have been a cat, snagged on barbwire. It could have been one of those birds that emanate people chattering, laughing, weeping. But it was my mom. She staggered upright off the lawn. I could see her now, haloed in silver, her face white, black eyes.

"Mom?" The scared little girl had never really left. This wasn't my mom. This was a ghost.

"Marissa," she croaked. She dropped her head in hitching motions, so that it looked like she was gesturing to whatever was draped across both arms. I hadn't noticed before. Now that I squinted however, it looked like a giant burlap sack or something. Oh god, please don't let there be a body in there… an irrational voice prayed. But it wasn't a bag.

"Marissa," my mother sobbed.

My feet felt like ice in the open air. I squeezed my eyes shut.

Whatever happens now, you have to be strong, Marissa.

So I opened my eyes and crossed the yard to my grieving mother, and the body of my dead dog, sprawled lifeless in her arms.

"Hubby."

End of Part Two.