Page 4 of All of Him
I collapsed onto my butt, not caring about stretching, though I’d regret it in the morning. The view of the sunset on my parents’ old property was stunning. The pink-and-orange ombre had saved me more than once since arriving at the house three weeks before even though it reminded me of my less than stellar childhood.
My brother, Garrett, and I had watched so many sunsets from the same back porch while growing up. It was where he’d told me he wasn’t happy and where he’d told me he was leaving to live in Ireland because he couldn’t deal with Mom and Dad anymore. It was also where I’d received his phone call and accepted to join him six years before.
But there I was, almost two years out of college and very much damaged. I sat there alone, having no one. I’d left every friend on the other side of the Atlantic. For the second time in my life, a new start had been necessary. I just wished it were due to desire rather than tragedy.
Garrett was gone. And I blamed myself.
We’d been inseparable, suffering through the same bleak childhood and bonding fully through it. He was the anchor that held me down, kept me from spiraling into my parents’ likeness. He’d guided me, led me to a place I couldn’t have landed on my own, and I’d repaid him by letting him die. My therapist had repeated to me that I needed to forgive myself, but that didn’t stop the feeling of a branding iron on my psyche every fucking day.
On the anniversary of the accident that had killed Garrett, I had been working a shitty office job in Dublin that I hated with every fiber of my being. Though it wasn’t clear if it was the job itself or the depression that made me hate it so much. I got a call from a police officer that my dad had predictably OD’d and my mom was going to prison for cooking the stuff. They asked if I wanted to post her bail, and I’d bet money they weren’t expecting me to laugh.
It was the first laugh I’d let out in a year.
Instead, I packed my shit, left the country I’d grown to love, and started over. Again. I paid off my parents’ property taxes with Garrett’s life insurance that had been sitting since the accident. Then, I told the police to not let my mother contact me. After everything that had happened with Garrett, after losing what I considered the only thing that was important to me, I didn’t have enough energy to miss the parents who never gave me the time of day.
I had a small service for my dad. A handful of family members I hadn’t seen in ten years came to watch me spread the ashes over the pond on their property. I shed a single tear, though it was entirely for my brother, not the family member we were mourning.
I’d never had a problem with mental illness before the accident. I wasn’t a happy kid per se, but I was fine, content with what I had. That night must have been the spark that ignited the fuel that my parents had poured into me years before.
Garrett and I hadn’t been abused or neglected. We had everything we ever needed, material-wise. We had clean clothes, food, and a TV to share. We had bikes to ride and a huge property to play on. What we didn’t have were parents who were present. It had almost seemed as if the food in the fridge just appeared.
I took a few steps into the kitchen, the late summer air cooling just enough to send me inside. I tried to stretch my legs as I walked, lifting my foot to my hand behind me, before grabbing a water. The kitchen was a disaster, as was the rest of the house. With all the bullshit that had happened in it over the years, it needed to be redone. I needed all of the ghosts out.
Piece by piece, random things were ripped up. I tugged bathroom wallpaper off while brushing my teeth in the mornings and rolled back all the rugs little by little. The problem was that I had no idea what I was doing. I needed help, but I didn’t know anyone. I figured with enough YouTube tutorials, I could make it look like a house on Fixer Upper. By the way I’d fucked up painting the brick fireplace though, it was clear that I was wrong.
There were a few acres of land that sat along the main road on the far edge of the property that realtors had been trying to buy for years. My paranoid parents had refused to sell, but I was willing to shed a tenth of the property to afford a contractor to help me fix up the house itself. I just needed to find a guy. And I wasn’t exactly up for meeting people.
Grocery trips and formal interviews had been okay. I took some anxiety medication to help out, but it wasn’t the greatest experience. Still, I booked a decent-paying job and was on my way to daily conversation.
Then, Amanda came out of nowhere.
That girl was incredibly beautiful, and I felt like the dirt underneath her fingernails. I’d given up on haircuts and dressing like an actual human, but fate threw me a bone anyway. Who was I kidding though? I didn’t deserve a girl at all, let alone a girl like that.
She seemed to have every part of herself in one pretty box. And I wasn’t referring to her tall, thin figure or her long, wavy auburn hair. I was referring to her confidence. She knew what she was doing—that was obvious. She was sure of who she was, carrying herself so high. The only crack in her facade was at the sight of me. I wasn’t sure if she had been thrown off by my disastrous appearance or my lack of enthusiasm, but my presence had seemed to startle her.
I stepped into the bathroom, peeling off clothes as I went. After turning on the hot water, I looked at myself in the mirror, the skeleton that was still left.Somemuscle and weight had returned, but nowhere near as much as I’d had. I looked like I’d been starving myself, though the only thing starving me was the depression. There had been days of not eating, and I’d only dragged myself to a clinic after nearly passing out from low blood sugar.
The scar on my face was fading, but I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to not wear concealer on it. It had taken a few deliveries of product to actually find a color that worked. I wasn’t about to walk into the mall and ask for a color match. I rinsed the little bit of makeup that I hadn’t sweated off on my run and groaned at the redness.
It’s only from the workout, I told myself.
Covering up the scar was to deter stares, but also to keep me from seeing it so brightly in the mirror. Without fail, my scars reminded me of the worst night of my life. Looking down at my torso, that night would shoot right back to my recent memory. Every imperfection from the accident mocked me in the mirror. I dipped my chin and clenched my eyes shut, gripping the counter with all my might.
The rain on the windshield.
The screaming, then crying, then silence.
The car holding my arm down, making me unable to help.
Garrett’s last breath.
My eyes opened, and I gasped, somehow able to keep myself from having a full-blown panic attack. Gripping the arm that was throbbing from the memory, I took a deep breath and concentrated on the silence of the house.
It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t your fault.
3
Amanda
