A Life, Forward: A Rowan Slone Novel Read online

  Trina’s fingers, hot and moist, grazed my hand. Her long nails were painted hot pink. “He wants to see you, Ro. I think he’s sorry for, well, you know, everything. He asked me where you were staying.”

  I yanked my hand away.

  “You didn’t tell him, did you?” Jess demanded. “It’s none of his damned business.”

  “God, Jess. Take a pill.” She snarled her lip then turned back to me. “Can’t we go somewhere else and talk? You know, alone?”

  My senses came whooshing back to me with the ferocity of gale force winds. “No!” My voice so loud it echoed off the tiled walls. The elderly woman sitting nearby peered at me from behind thick glasses. “No. You and I do not need to talk alone. And I don’t need to see Dad. Don’t tell him where I am. Don’t encourage him to call me, see me, nothing. I have a new family and that’s that.”

  Even as I said those last words I knew they weren’t true. The Andersons weren’t my family. But neither were Trina, Gran, Mom, and Dad. I was really without anyone. A sort of eighteen-year-old orphan.

  I sat on my hands to keep from shoving her out of the booth. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?” I narrowed my eyes, willing imaginary knives to shoot out of them.

  Her mouth fell open. Her head kept flipping back and forth between me and Jess in disbelief. Since I had moved out of the house, I went to great lengths to avoid Trina. She was as dangerous as a pit bull puppy—cute on the outside, deadly on the inside. I didn’t answer her texts or return her calls even though she and Gran both contacted me at least once a week. There was nothing between us. When your sister accuses your boyfriend of rape and getting her pregnant, and your Gran knows you didn’t kill your baby brother but lets you take the blame anyway, there were really no ties left.

  “You’re such a bitch, Ro. God. I just wanted to come and see you. Maybe try to work things out. If Dad is back to stay, you could come home. We could be a family again.”

  An ugly guffaw burst out of my mouth. “You do realize our mom is in jail for the murder of our baby brother?”

  She shrugged and for the first time since she sat down I saw a crack in her chipper façade.

  “Well…” She pulled a napkin between her fingers and started shredding it. “I mean, why not? She’ll be given parole sometime, I’m sure. We can be there waiting for her.”

  I would never go back to that home. Never. I would never return to that family. Ever. I’d be a homeless bum begging for loose change on the streets of New York City before I returned there.

  I whipped my hands from under my thighs, rage coloring my vision red, and shoved her. Hard. She fell off the bench and onto the floor. The elderly lady gasped and threw a hand over her mouth.

  “Ouch!” Trina’s cheeks reddened.

  “Get out of here, and don’t mention being a family again.” I scooted to the edge of the bench, clenching my fists. “Not now. Not ever. Got it?”

  “Rowan.” Trina scrambled to her feet and threw her hands on her hips. “You can’t deny who you are or where you came from. You’re a Slone, like it or not. Your mom is a murderer and your father is a bully. But they’re part of you. You’ll never escape where you came from.”

  I lunged at her, but she jumped back. “Get out!” I shouted.

  We stared at each other, neither blinking, until she finally huffed and turned. She walked past Chelsea who looked like this was the most excitement she’d seen in weeks. She threw open the door sending the bells clanging, walked out of the diner, and down the sidewalk. It wasn’t until she passed out of view that I slumped down in the seat, my body numb and shaking at the same time.

  Jess said nothing. I said nothing. After a few quiet moments, she pulled her plate over and took a huge bite of the eggs. They had to be cold by now, but she didn’t seem to mind.

  “I don’t know what to say,” she confessed between mouthfuls of food. “I wish she would just disappear.”

  Watching her shovel food into her mouth was a welcome respite from the thoughts in my head and the turmoil inside me. “I don’t know what to say either. I’m not sure what to think.”

  After she polished off the eggs, she grabbed the muffin and ripped the paper off shoving a huge piece in her mouth. Her red lipstick had long since come off and her lips were pale, almost white with the loss of color.

  “I don’t like this,” she stated.

  “I know.” I sighed. “I wonder why he’s back?” My question trailed off into a whisper as Jess used the side of her fork to scrape food off the plate.

  My dad was a hard man. He’d spent years in the Army, more years as a prison guard, and even more years than that hating my mother. He hated me and Trina, too. Dad didn’t want to marry Mom, but she’d gotten pregnant in high school. He had resented us all ever since.

  My childhood was shaped by images of heavy black boots, pressed gray uniforms, and accusing, stern eyes that followed me with thinly veiled resentment—if they bothered to look at me at all. Jack Slone did not love us. Trina was delusional to think he’d come back for any good reason. Maybe he came back to kill us like my mom had killed Aidan.

  I shuddered and turned in the booth to look out the windows, expecting a tall, straight-backed, dark-haired man to walk by. What would I do if he did? Run? Stay and fight? Was there a chance he wanted to make amends?

  But the sidewalk stayed empty and I turned back to Jess, suddenly exhausted. My mind felt like a painting, all reds, oranges, blacks, and browns that had a bucket of water dumped over it. My thoughts were the streams of paint that flowed down the wall, misshapen, uneven, ugly.

  Jess began eating my oatmeal. The only words that took root in the image of the painting massacre were, “You’re acting really weird.”

  “I’m just hungry.” She took a gulp of soda.

  Several seconds passed as she shoveled food into her mouth. “I don’t want to think about—” I cleared my throat. “Her right now. Or him. I need a distraction. So spill it.”

  “I’m pregnant.”

  Well, there you have it.

  “YOU’RE PREGNANT?”

  She spooned the rest of the oatmeal into her mouth. “I know. I can’t believe it either.” Little crumbs from the muffin peppered her lips.

  “You’re pregnant?”

  “Yup. Knocked up. Bun in the oven.” She chewed a piece of the ice she hadn’t wanted. “Preggers.” She went through every phrase she could think of: “Pickle-eating freak show. Waddling duck mama.” She clapped really loud and squealed. “Here’s a good one! Is that a baby in there or are you just happy to see me?”

  “That’s not funny. At least not that last one.” I took a deep breath and refocused. “Are you sure? I mean, how?”

  “Come on, Ro. You’re smart. You know how these things work.”

  “Don’t be a smartass. Did you not think to use, you know, something?”

  She picked up a piece of toast, and took several seconds to swipe a large glob of butter over the top and followed that with strawberry jam. “I took one of those tests you pee on. Got it all over my hand.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “It was pretty disgusting.” I didn’t point out that the question remained unanswered. Clearly, the answer was obvious. “The test said that I’m pregnant. I need to go to the clinic next week and I guess, you know, have someone confirm it. Or something. You’ll come with me won’t you?”

  She didn’t have to ask. Of course I would go with her.

  “Is that why your roots are showing when I’ve never seen them before?” Jess’ hair had been blue, red, black, and even rainbow-hued for Prom last year. But I’d never seen it blonde.

  “Yeah. Well, I guess so. I mean, I was watching some show the other day, even before I found out about, well, this.” She motioned toward her stomach. “And it talked about all the things that could harm a baby. Hair dye is one of them.”

  Hair dye? What about being a teenage mom? Brochures covered an entire shelf in my guidance counselor�
��s office at school with pictures of smiling, content teens and enormous, swollen bellies.

  “So you’re going to keep it?”

  “Yeah, sure. Why not?” She finally fell back against the seat, shoving the fork to the side. “I mean, Paul and I will raise it together. You know. Be a family.”

  For the next hour, I didn’t think of Mike, Trina, or my dad. I thought about Jess and that life was a holy mess.

  JESS HAD to get to work after we left the diner. We walked the few blocks down to the bookstore. It had a brick façade with one large window that in no way added light to the musty, dark interior.

  She hugged me tight. “Call ya later,” she said over her shoulder as she walked away.

  “’Kay,” I answered. Her boots pounded against the broken concrete as she moved toward the door. What would she look like with a swollen stomach? With a baby? I couldn’t stop the frown that spread across my face. And since she turned around right before she walked into the bookstore, I couldn’t hide it.

  After Jess went inside, I checked my watch. It was noon and I hadn’t heard from Mike, but hopefully he was back home. I hurried to my car, pushing Jess’ problems and my own, to the back of my mind. If there was one thing that would brighten this day it was seeing Mike.

  The closer I got to the Anderson’s the more butterflies beat a steady rhythm in my chest—like they did every time I saw him. He stood several inches taller than me and had dark, short hair with gorgeous green eyes surrounded by thick, black lashes.

  It had taken awhile for me to let him get close, to let him love me. Coming from a past like mine had left me with a lot of baggage—physical and emotional scars. But he had managed to make me feel loved like no one else ever had. For the first time in my life, someone made me feel special.

  When I pulled into the Anderson’s driveway and saw his car, a smile spread across my face so bright it warmed my heavy heart. I was able to push the morning’s events to the back of my mind and focus on seeing Mike and spending the rest of the day with him. I hadn’t seen him that morning and he was leaving tomorrow, but we’d have the afternoon and that would be enough. Anything was enough. I skipped toward the house, avoiding any patches of ice.

  When I walked in, I was hit with a blast of male voices. Mike’s friends from his high school soccer team were over. I hadn’t spent a lot of time with them, but enough to know their voices. Mike must’ve picked them up while he was out. Of course they would be home from college, too. I stopped in the foyer and shut the door with a soft click.

  Snow from my boots was melting into brown water on the rug. I bit my lip to keep from pouting. Would I have any time with Mike other than in the middle of the night? And when I thought of him leaving tomorrow, I wanted to cry.

  I yanked off my boots and fell back against the door. Levi rose to his feet and padded over to me. He sat on his haunches, his head level with my hip. He wouldn’t move until he knew I was okay. But as I leaned there, I wasn’t sure how long that would take.

  Was this it? My mind screamed. Is this all I had? Living with a family that was not my own. Hating the family I had. Having a boyfriend I never got to see. A father who may or may not be back to finish the job? Was this it?

  I darted up the stairs and slid into my bedroom without making any noise. Scout meowed and ran her soft head over my cheek when I lay down on the bed.

  Tears were not welcome, but my heart hurt. My fingers shook, itched for something. I hadn’t cut since the day I moved in with the Andersons, and I didn’t plan to start now. But the desire was so strong I could taste it, almost like I was sucking on the cool steel of a razor blade.

  After several long, slow inhales, followed by long, slow exhales, the shaking in my fingers subsided enough. I opened the drawer on the nightstand and pulled out a journal Mrs. Anderson gave me for Christmas. I hadn’t had it long, but it was proving to be a distraction for my restless yearning.

  The journal was made of distressed brown leather with a smooth, blank cover except for the bottom right corner where my name was engraved. I turned to a new sheet of paper that was blaringly white in its emptiness. I laid the point of the pen against the pristine surface creating a small black dot. Then I wrote.

  My outside is smooth,

  With only a glimpse of pain.

  But underneath,

  I am raw.

  Terrified,

  Streaming crimson tears.

  Where will I go from here?

  With all my fears…

  Fears…

  Fears…

  I stopped before I wrote the word fears again. If I allowed myself, I would fill the entire journal with that loaded word until it consumed every page.

  Why couldn’t I just walk into Mike’s house and go sit with him and his friends? Why did I have to pout and run away before anyone could see me? Why did I have to have the parents I did? The family I did?

  I tossed the journal back into the drawer and went to the mirror that hung on the wall behind the dresser. I pulled the ponytail holder from my hair and let my hair fall around my shoulders in a brown curtain. My skin was pale and I pinched my cheeks to make them pink then bit my lips and watched them redden. I pulled out a gray sweater to help cover the looseness of my clothes.

  Go downstairs, Rowan. Join the group. More laughter burst through the silence, wafting up the stairs. Be a part of something for once.

  I ran a brush through my hair. Just as I resolved to go downstairs, the front door slammed with a loud bang. It must be his parents leaving.

  When I looked out the window at the end of the hallway, I saw Mike walking past my car and going to the driver’s seat of his car. He got in and his friends piled in around him. Without so much as a glance back at the house, or at my car, Mike pulled out of the driveway. Right behind him were his parents, pulling away in their sedan.

  I went downstairs, Scout on my heels, to make sure the dogs at least were still here. Scout hopped onto the back of a chair and stared out the window. Levi watched me from the couch where he lay near a snoring Delilah. On the side table was a note in Mike’s scratchy handwriting. We went to the grocery store. Having a small party tonight. Invite Jess. 7:00. Love you.

  So this was what I got for running away. I got another dose of how it felt to be completely alone in the world.

  THE THREADS that bound my life together had always been loosely tied. Since I’d moved in with the Andersons, they’d woven tighter, helping me feel stronger. But now I could feel the threads starting to unravel until I feared I would unwind string by string, and end up like one of those old-fashioned dolls whose stitches were made of thick, black yarn. If I wasn’t careful there would be nothing left, nothing but fabric, cotton stuffing, and those haunting black button eyes.

  When Aidan died, I had been the one watching him. He was two months old and I was ten. Mom and Dad had gotten into another ear-splitting fight. He left. She, in her obese, lumbering walk, carried her huge body down the hall and locked the door to her bedroom. When Aidan started to cry there was no one to get him. Except me.

  I had left Trina sitting on the couch, made him a bottle, changed his diaper, and rocked him until he was sleepy. When I laid him back in his crib, he cried out but then went to sleep. Because it was cold out, I put a blanket over his legs and hips.

  The next morning he was dead. They said he died from SIDS—sudden infant death syndrome caused by being overheated from the blanket. What I didn’t learn until last May was my mother had killed him, jealous that my father loved my brother more than her.

  Aidan’s death set the tone for the next seven years of my life. Guilt had settled into my bones and ate away at me day by long day. My family blamed me. I blamed me.

  But I had finally broken free, as free as someone with scars like mine can be, and moved on, moved away. It wasn’t me who’d killed Aidan. It was Mom. Now I was in a good place, here at the Anderson’s home. So why did I feel utterly and completely alone?

  Did my dad know that i
t was Mom who was responsible? That she had smothered him in his sleep? Would it change anything if he did know?

  My heart felt heavy, like it was weighted with a ten-ton boulder. The world beneath my feet was shaking more and more each day, threatening to knock me over. I had come so far from the razor-wielding girl I was last year. But things felt like they were slipping, and I wasn’t sure how much more I could take.

  “I don’t want to be that girl,” I whispered. “I don’t want to be that girl.” The girl with all the problems. The girl who whines, cries, pleads with life to be better. I want to be the girl who survives, who finds a way to be happy, who finds her place.

  The air inside the house was stifling, so heavy it pushed against my shoulders, shoving me down, beating me down so far until I wasn’t sure that girl existed.

  I hadn’t cried since I’d moved in with the Andersons. It had been one thing that I wouldn’t allow, couldn’t allow. If I cried, it was like the beginnings of a crack; like opening a door and inviting a demon in. If I cried, I wouldn’t be able to stop and where would that leave me? Back on the bathroom floor with Dad’s rusty razor in my hand, slicing through the pain one line at a time.

  “No!” I cried. “Don’t go back there. Don’t go back there.” I rocked back and forth, trying to sooth myself like I used to soothe Aidan. “Calm down, Rowan. It’s okay.”

  Levi pushed his large, warm body beside mine and nudged at my arm until I fell into his solid warmth. He let me snuggle until calm eased into my mind.

  I grabbed my coat and left. There was only one place capable of soothing my soul, and I had to go there.

  BEAUTY MOUNTAIN was where Mike and I had our first kiss last year, where our relationship had truly started. It was a high mountain peak outside of town. You could only reach it by a narrow, dirt road that wove straight up a mountainside.

  It was cold but had stopped snowing. My old car sputtered and spewed and coughed, but made the climb at a slow, steady pace. There were no other cars and the thick, heavy forest blanketing either side obscured the afternoon sky.