“I have a meeting I have to get to anyway. Have to finalize for the brewery campaign.” I finally find the file.
Sam laughs. “It kills me you do this shit because outside of here, you just would never guess. You’d think you work somewhere more dirty and nitty gritty.” With that, she’s out the door.
If only you knew, Sam.
I sit in my car, staring at the house I grew up in, but never felt like home.I hate this place.
Normally Sam and I drive here together, but she was out tending to her art studio. So, we opted to meet one another here.
So, I wait in the truck because I have a bet waiting, and I know I won’t hear the end of it if I go in without her. Things are always easier with Sam by my side.
I reach for the flowers in my passenger seat as she pulls upin her purple jeep wrangler. I may not have much in common with my mother, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love her. It’s my ritual to bring her and Sam flowers each dinner, and each dinner my mother beams at the sight of me and the bouquet before her.
She always switches out the previous dying one with the newest, freshest one. There will come a day when she has to sit and watch the flowers die to ash, knowing she won’t get another one. Questions will press her mind, the loudest beingwho will protect me now?even if she doesn’t want to admit it.
She’s just a product of her generation, her environment, her grooming. Just as we all are. She’s the soft spoken, timid, spineless type of delicate woman with no voice. The submissive wife she was groomed to be by her upbringing.
A bang on my window jolts me from my thoughts. Looking over, I see Sam standing there. With her face pressing against the window, her flaring nostrils create perspiration on my truck window as her face squishes against it.
“You coming or what loser?”
SUNNY
I nestle myself into the mattress on the floor of my new apartment with a hot mug of tea in my hands. I’d found the bags of tea shoved into my backpack — a reminder that my parents sent me off with a small part of home.
Despite my weary body, I can’t help but thinkIt was a good day.I’d just gotten off a video call with my parents, considering they are the only contact in the new phone. Their words of encouragement have my frantic heart only slightly calmed.
I look around the empty studio, save for the string lights I set up, and the few necessary items I picked up. My brand newscrubs sit folded next to my bed with my pre-packed backpack for work.
All I had coming into the city was that backpack I filled before Ryan was able to wake up. If he ever did. His absence when the police arrived tells me he did. Yet that voice still pesters.Murderer.Blood loss like that should be considered fatal.
I cashed out my entire savings, which was enough, but not nearly so, that way he couldn’t track me via card trail. Over and over my mind plays over each detail, hopeful there is no flaw in my plan.
I try to imagine the day I’ll have tomorrow, wondering how the hospital and coworkers will be. I’m in need of the distraction. My paranoid thoughts have me checking the windows and locks numerous times before settling down. Even then, I still glance at them every few minutes.
The exhaustion that weighs on me grants me new hope that I’ll be able to sleep through the night. I haven’t been able to since the day I left. I can’t shake the feeling that he can be around every corner, waiting for his chance to get back at me. If he’s alive, he’s angry because I did the one thing he was always afraid I’d do.
I left.
Despite the anxiety that seems to be a part of me now, I actually have a small, genuine smile because for a minute, I finally feel a little fragment of myself again.
Like Sunny.
It’s a contradicting feeling — being free yet shackled. I glance around the empty apartment. There isn’t much here, but if I’m being honest, it’s more than I’ve had in a long time.
TYLER
Sam and I are greeted at the door by our mother’s big smile and sparkling amber eyes. “Hello my sweeties!” She chimes with her arms open for a hug.
“Hey mom.” Sam gives her a one-handed hug. Waltzing into the house, she beelines for the alcohol cart in the living room.
We always have drinks first in the living room, followed by dinner at seven. Ironic that alcohol still remains in this house when there’s arecoveringalcoholic living in it.
“Hi, mom.” I wrap my mother in my arms, kissing her cheek, engulfing her in my broad, tall frame.
“Oh, my Tyler, sweetie. Are you okay? You look tired.” She cups my jaw.
“It was just a long day. Doesn’t helpsomeonewoke me up earlier than anticipated.” I peer at my sister, who already has a drink in hand.
