“Hey, James, I’m an addict and I feel like using...”
chapter
twenty-seven
aubrey
iwasn’t expecting my day to end with a decision to go home.
It had started like any other typical day.
I had gotten up. Gotten dressed. Had a cup of coffee. Made small talk with Renee. I had met Brooks in the library, careful to avoid any reminders of our awkward conversation in my apartment. I had gone to class, eaten lunch, spoken to Maxx on the phone.
And then my mother happened.
My phone rang just after I settled into my evening of homework and required reading.
I answered it without looking at the number on the screen. I assumed it would be Maxx or Renee.
I was the queen of repeat mistakes.
“Aubrey, I’m so glad you picked up.” I paused, in shock to hear my mom’s voice on the other end. We hadn’t spoken since our last phone call weeks before, and by my calculations I shouldn’t hear from her again for at least another two or three months.
Her voice sounded strange. Husky and thick, as though she had been crying. I was instantly on edge.
“Is everything all right?” I asked, thinking something must have happened to my dad. That could be the only reason for her calling me again so soon.
“Yes, everything is fine,” she said, her voice muffled. Then there was silence. Was I supposed to fill in the gap?
I had forgotten how to have a normal conversation with my mother years ago, so I was completely at a loss.
“Is there a reason you’re calling?” I finally asked, going for blunt instead of beating around the bush.
I waited for my mother to chastise me. To tell me that I was being rude and should watch myself. She did neither.
What was going on?
“Your dad and I were going through Jayme’s room this week. Finally cleaning out her clothes and donating them to Goodwill. I... I almost couldn’t do it.”
I frowned. Why was she calling to tell me this? She sounded weak and tired and nothing like the aggressive, antagonistic woman she had become since my younger sister’s death.
I was equally surprised that she and my dad were disturbing the shrine they had built to Jayme. Her room had been left virtually untouched since she had last been in it, over three years before. The only time I had been home after starting college I had found my mother changing the sheets on Jayme’s bed as though she were still sleeping there.
“She told you everything! You had to know what was going on! How could you not tell me? How could you not do anything to help your baby sister? What sort of person are you?”my mother had screamed at me the night before I had left to go back to Longwood. It had been the last time I had slept under the roof of my childhood. The last time I had been in my parents’ company.
I had become so used to my resentful mother it was easy to forget the other sides to her personality that had all but been obliterated.
“I’m sure that was hard,” I ventured slowly, feeling as though I was walking into a trap.
My mother sniffed loudly on the other end, confirming that she was indeed crying.
“We found some things I thought you might like to have. Some pictures and keepsakes I know Jayme would want you to have.”
I swallowed thickly around the lump that had formed in my throat. “Oh, well, you can mail them—” I began, but my mom cut me off.
“Actually, I was wondering whether you’d come down for a visit. I asked you last time we spoke and you never really answered me. But your dad and I would really like to see you. It’s... it’s been too long,” she said in a rush.
The air was sucked out of my lungs. “You want me to come for a visit? Why?” I practically shouted into the phone.
