I pushed out again with more enthusiasm as I felt the tears prickle against my eyes. I needed to be in my car and away from there before they started. The moment I was out of the kitchen, the life force that was Roller Freeze took over. The excited chatter and laughter of the teens as they relaxed after school wrapped itself around me, insulating me from the overwhelming emotions that had threatened to break free only seconds earlier.
“Hey. You! Where’s my chili cheese fries?” Joey shouted from his car. I’d gone to high school with him and we had a mutual hate thing going on. He was a slimy greaseball asshole, and with one look at my face he’d have known something was up. The opportunity to turn my bad day into an astronomically shitty one probably tipped the scale for him.
I kept moving toward my car, parked under the live oak that was the only thing between Roller Freeze and acres upon acres of farmland, the whir of the wheels drowning out my heavy breaths as I fought back hysterics. I could fix this. I could make this work. I could work all day at Rusty’s before going to the food mart, or I could start earlier at the food mart and maybe pick up some overtime. It wasn’t the end of the world. Not yet, anyway.
I wished I believed my own words, because the sense of dread I'd been feeling all day spread out from my stomach anddidn’t stop there. When I eventually fell in behind the steering wheel, I clawed at the skates on my feet and dropped them in the foot-well behind me, my head banging against the steering wheel as the tears finally came.
Half of it was self-pity, the other half anger and frustration at myself. I was stronger than I was behaving. Circumstances had changed; I just had to adapt and change with them.
Gripping the wheel at ten and two, I lifted my head slowly and stared out at the Roller Freeze, letting my chin rest on top of it. Just beyond the restaurant was the interstate, and beyond that was freedom. How many nights had I spent sitting in that very spot and staring at the headlights rushing by as the traffic passed? My ex, Jacob, had sat with me on the hood of his car, reading off every stop we’d hit on our way out of there—the towns, the sights, the distance between us and Babylon; he’d mapped it all out.
I’d had so many dreams, and although I hadn’t let go of all of them, there were a few that had to be pushed aside. A few I would be too old to do when I actually had the time and money. My first priority was Tate right now. He wasn’t going to take this well at all. He would blame himself like he had when I had to take on three jobs. I couldn’t let him know yet, but what I could do was food shop and wash his damn jeans for him now that I had some extra time on my hands.
Starting up the engine, I took one last look at the lanes of traffic heading toward the unknown and smiled. I hoped Mrs. Bridgefort was ready to fight for that tub of ice cream because, tonight, I needed it more than she did.
After doing a food shop and spending more than I probably should have, I went home and started the laundry. This inevitably snowballed and I found myself starting to scrub every surface within my reach. My music was so loud, it swept me into its embrace and moved me around to its beat on auto-pilot until there was nothing more to do, other than Tate’s room, which was a hell no. I wasn’t up-to-date on my tetanus shot.
Tate knew that something was wrong the moment he walked through the door. His eyes bounced from surface to surface, his eyebrows rising higher with each one they found clear, disinfected and sterilized. They didn’t stop until they came across me, standing outside the bathroom with rubber gloves up to my elbows and my hair clinging to my sweaty forehead, looking like some deranged surgeon from the horror movies he liked so much.
“Okay, what happened?”
My mouth opened, closed, then opened again, but there were no words. I should have stopped at laundry and watched some shitty daytime talk shows.
“Ayda, you only clean like this when something bad has happened.”
Point made.
“No, I don’t.”
“Liar. Spill it.”
Standing with my mouth open, I finally realized that the kid knew me better than I knew myself most days. Flapping my hands about until the gloves fell to the floor, I bent to pick them up, nodded to the couch and made my way over to him.
“Tate,” I started, pacing back and forth in front of the couch, the words formulating in my head with each stepI took. “I don’t want you worrying about this. I’ll find a solution, but the Roller Freeze let me go.”
“What? Why? You were the only one who actually did something there.”
I stopped pacing and let my head fall back on my shoulders, studying the ceiling. At least someone noticed. “Apparently that’s where I went wrong, kid. That and I actually wore clothes that didn’t show my coochy. Go figure, right?”
“That’s bullshit.”
“Tate. Please. Make me feel like I’m doing something right and stop swearing in front of me.”
“Sorry, A. I just hate that it’s gotta be like this. I hate that you have no life because you’re working so much. I can quit football—”
“Stop!” I put up my hands and dropped my head, shaking it almost violently. “This is exactly why I didn’t want to tell you. This is for me to worry about, not you. I can pick up extra shifts at Rusty’s and the food mart until I find something else. We’re going to be just fine.”
“No, Ayda. The royalwedoesn’t work here.Youcan’t do this anymore.Youdon’t take days off anymore. I never see you, you’re never at the games, and you’re tired all the time. I can help you.”
“You wanna know how you can help?” I asked, pushing my hair back and ignoring the tight feeling in my fingers as I balled them. “Help by keeping your grades up and getting a scholarship. That’s what I need you to do, Tate. That’s it.”
My brother threw himself against the couch with such force that it moved against the wooden floor with a scream of complaint. He folded his thick arms over his chest and staredin my direction in an attempt to intimidate me. He seemed to forget I changed his diapers fifteen years ago. He didn’t scare me.
Huffing out a breath, he dropped the feigned anger and scrubbed his face with both hands, looking up at me from between them. “I feel guilty all the time.”
“Don’t.”
“Like it’s ever that easy? Ayda, this isn’t living. You know that, right?”
