Hours later, I found myself walking in our neighborhood, back to my very warm and happy and peaceful home. The strange and infuriating girl was right. The library did have a backdoor (strange, really) and when I opened it, a narrow path and a metal door at the end greeted me. Later, I learned that the metal door was another at the gym’s locker room. I guessed that the hidden doors are used by Molina (head staff janitress of Ravenwood) whenever she’s working.
But really, that wasn’t the thing that I bothered me as I slowly track down our house. I was thinking about the party that the girl mentioned. Only one thing popped inside my brain: Death Wicke. The most cliché thing I’ve heard my whole life. As far as I can remember, that tradition that Nathan Hearth invented just ended last month, so why would there be a party at this time? Stupid parties and stupid Hearths.
I shrugged off the thought and focused on where I was going. Unfortunately, just like in Ravenwood, I’m treated like someone that came from outer space here. Our neighbors avoided me and Sally, which was really odd. Back when I was little, all droopy and all, I had this vague memory of Sally actually bring happiness. Her memory was like a faint, gentle smile, that was, of course, nowhere to be found. I also had this memory of me actually having a neighbor friend, playing in the mud while Sally was talking to my friend’s guardian.
Not only the memory told me that Sally was actually welcomed here on Friar Avenue. I had a lot of friends and had a lot of neighbors bringing some fruits and food whenever it’s Thanksgiving. Sally told me all that, whenever she’s drunk. She’d tell me how her life was so good and fun and peaceful, but, of course, her story would finish about me getting out between her legs, squealing and squalling like an annoying kid, and destroying her life.
I’m kind of proud of it.
I never really wondered what happened to Sally or something, or why did she think of me that way. I find the idea of knowing tiring. Like, why should I bother when it won’t even change a thing in the present? Even if I know, she’d still be that drunkard that has nothing to do with her life but to go to bars and hook-up with a random man for that’s her way of filling the emptiness. It’s what she always told me. Again and again and again until it was deafening.
“Hey, Sam.” Someone called, dragging my name longer.
I spun around and saw Benjamin Perez. I stopped walking and just waited for him to come to me. Benjamin is the only person that I can talk to in this neighborhood. He lives in a van and was always wearing pajamas. He’s my age, but based on his stories, he stopped studying a year ago. I asked him why, and he just said, ‘Walking barefoot is fun’.
I studied him, he’s in his usual choice of clothes (or he really has no choice, so he ends up wearing pajamas all the time). Benjamin has a black tousled hair, and he did nothing about it. He says it suits him. And, actually, it does. It suits his sleepy eyes and all that stressed but attractive look on his face.
For his age, Benjamin was a little lanky, but he has some muscles that he always flexed on me. He has this pale, blue eyes that always seemed to be smiling, but his lips are always set into a hard line.
Benjamin was a kind person, and a little weird, too.
As always, he was walking barefoot and wore his black pajamas. He smiled at me, “Hey, Sam.” He said.
I snorted. “Hey, Benjamin,” I said. “Macaroni for dinner today?” I asked as soon as I saw a piece of macaroni on the sleeve of his black pajamas.
“Yeah.” He said, smiling sheepishly.
I started to walk, and so did he. Most of the time, whenever Benjamin comes out of his van and talks to me, we’ll just chat about some several weird things until I reach my house. And Benjamin will walk back to his van, barefoot. No one complained about it, so it always happened.
“I saw Sally earlier.” Said Benjamin, looking down on me because he was too tall. “She had this… What do you call this? Right, grocery bags. And all that. It’s fresh in the eyes.”
I wanted to laugh. Sally, doing groceries. Ridiculous.
“You must have mistaken her for someone else. Sally doesn’t even come home anymore. Not that I need her to, though.”
Benjamin hummed in thought then grinned at me mysteriously. Like he knows something that he wants me to know by myself. The thing is, Benjamin’s smile is the last ‘normal’ thing I will see today, so stared at him. I know that when I got home, I’ll probably be stuck in there, doing things that I don’t find interesting. Oh, and overthinking.
“Will you come back to school?” I asked out of nowhere.
His grin disappeared. “No, I won’t.”
“Why?”
“I just don’t want to.”
I didn’t press it any further, because his tone held firmness. Besides, I really don’t want to know. I just felt awkward that he’s always the one bringing up topics whenever he walks me home if you call it like that.
We passed some streets and took some turns before finally reaching to m block. Benjamin walked from Frair Avenue to here, wearing nothing but black pajamas and was barefoot. He just keeps talking, not running out of topic. He doesn’t care if I would react or not, he’ll just keep words at me like I’m a target, which was pretty fine for me because I have nothing to say myself.
“Say, Sam,” he stared another topic. I stopped and looked at him, raising my eyebrows. He grinned at me, “Are you free tomorrow? I am officially inviting you to the Grand and royal bowling alley at Rowen Street. Wanna come?”
I stared at him weirdly, fighting a grin myself. A few months ago, Benjamin promised me that he’ll treat me somewhere nice. I never gave it much thought, considering both of our situations. Somewhere nice doesn’t really get along well with our existence.
“You’re kidding,” I said.
He raised an eyebrow to me. “Really, now?” He said and I just chuckled. He stopped on his tracks and said, “I’m serious, you know.”
“When?” I asked, smiling thinly.
He scratched his chin. Right, as usual, the rest didn’t think about it. Then, he grinned at me. “Maybe this weekend? Fowl’s Bowl got the best nachos.”
I wanted to ask him why, of all places, he picked Fowl’s Bowl. It was a bowling alley, where little people come. When I was a kid, I remember going there with my dad, laughing, and telling jokes at each other. Mostly dissing jokes. It was buzzing with people back then, but whenever I see it on my way to Ravenhigh, it was empty, and then I’ll see the two remaining staff playing and smoking cigarettes inside the place. But I guess, that’s exactly why Benjamin wanted to be there. It was empty.
“Okay,” I said, giving him a playful punch on his arm. “I’m surprised, actually. I thought this day will never come.”
“Surprise!” He said then, spreading his arms, giving me a goofy grin. “It’s because I was kind of bored inside my trailer, I have nothing to do but to stare at my TV all day long, then I remembered you.”
I stared at him, fighting a small smile to etch its way on my lips. He was the first person to ask me to actually live my life a little. “Thanks, Benji.”
When we finally reached my place, Benjamin and I bid our goodbyes and part ways. As I walk up the porch, I can feel the eyes of my neighbors behind my back. It was always like this. Like I’am about to commit some crime that will affect them all. It’s not that I mind, at least here, they’re aware of me and actually afraid of me, not like in Ravenwood High. When I finally opened the doors, the smell of old woods and dust greeted me.
I stood by the door, staring at the uncared furniture and the dusty corners of the living room. I don’t know why Sally told me to never touch the living room or try to rearrange them. Basically, the only decent place here in this house is my room. Even without Sally, I never really felt that this house is all for me. I can feel her presence almost everywhere here, especially in the living room. That’s why I spend my whole day just inside my room, feeling like that ten-year old girl that was afraid of her mother.
It’s funny to think that just this morning, I saw her again. Her drunken and aggressive state, but right now, she’s gone again. I groaned at the thought. I’m pretty sure that the food here are gone and the extra money I accidentally left on the kitchen counter are the same.
“I wish you were here,” I muttered under my breath, staring at the frame where dad and I are laughing. I can’t remember the moment, but I’m pretty sure it’s nice. “Mum has been acting like an idiot. And I’m being questioned for a potential murder. How uncool is that, dad?”
Ever since my dad died, my lie just went downhill. Also, my mum’s. When he left us, my mom and I became the freaks of the neighborhood. Mum couldn’t handle it and started fitting herself in Ravenwood by, of course, sleeping with different man. I hated her for it. Instead of taking care of me, she’d go out every night without any word to say. Once, twice, thrice...until she rarely came back. Then, I accepted the fact that the mother I knew died.
Mum locked every door here except my room and hers. The basement is also locked, and I had a feeling that it was where she kept all my father’s things. Back in the days when my father’s death was fresh, I’d always here Sally in the basement. With things clamping with each other and her anguished screams like she hated to be there, to be around my father’s memory. I have got to admit that it was kind of weird.
But all his things are in the past now. Right now, all I have is myself, really. And I doubt that the old Sally I know would just come back out of nowhere and assure me about useless things like before.
Sighing, I continued to my room. I stared at my sanctuary. My room is filled with the picture I took with my retro camera. It was a gift from my father. And some unfinished artworks that’s hanging on the walls. A small couch on the corner and a bookshelf. From the window, I can see the view of Ravenwood and big, old tree of the local cemetery. The tree was a daily reminder of my father’s death. I used to by under its shade when I was a kid, talking to my father’s grave.
There should be many things I can do but I found myself staring at the ceiling later that night, thinking about what happened in the day. There’s till this part of me that couldn’t believe that I’m one of the accused culprit of Diane’s death even though the whole town knows that she wasn’t dead. There are nobody that was found. Plus, why would I involve myself with the likes of Diana Segui? She barely even looked at me when she was still around even we literally just bumped with each other once.
But everyone in Ravenwood knows that her disappearance is a mystery. What girl would just literally disappear without any trace left behind her?
“Great,” I muttered to myself. “Now I have to give a damn about something totally useless.”
Something played inside my head, the last memory of my father. It was a cold night, and he and Sally are arguing about something that I couldn’t understand. In that time, all I’m aware of is that Sally didn’t want my father going out. She was screaming at him, cursing and telling him how dangerous it could be. My father was the usual, silent and understanding. He just waited for Sally to finish and held his hand, saying, “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”
And that was enough.
He came up to me, with his warm eyes and a gentle smile. He stared, caressed my face but didn’t say anything. And that was it. The two days after that, my father was dead.
As I grew up with the constant pain of having Sally as a mother, I told everyone that my father didn’t die just because of some accident. It was something deeper than that, but no one listened to me, not even Sally. Told her that it has something to do with whatever he came to that night.
Years after, I still worked on it, figuring out what really happened to my father. A car accident would have been very impossible because one, my father doesn’t even have a car and two, that car he was found in was a total random car. No plate numbers and no belongings inside it. Just it and my father’s body. I figured that maybe Sally knew something, but she wouldn’t speak up, not even if I beg on my knees. I keep telling myself that if she didn’t know anything about my father’s death, she wouldn’t try to stop him going that night.
“It was all inside your head,” she told me once, flicking her cigarettes and giving me that Oh, I’m so tired of you. Get lost look. “There are no evidence about whatever you’re saying. The cops will just think that you’ve gone crazy. I don’t want some kid ruining my reputation!”
And I decided that maybe she was right. And if ever she was wrong, what could possibly change? After that, I stopped questioning my father’s friends, stopped bugging the police and stopped suspecting every family that my father has involved himself into. I accepted the fact that he was dead, and it was because of the accident. But looking back now, that was probably the dumbest decision I’ve made my whole life.
When the morning came, I decided to skip school. I got the feeling that Detective Rowen would not stop bugging me like I did with the cops years ago about my father’s death. I know that avoiding him and basically everyone’s existence would just make the whole situation worse, but I wanted Detective Rowen to stop questioning me things that clearly seemed impossible.
That was the second dumbest decision I made in my life.
Not long after I woke up, I big clang and the sound of bottles breaking boomed from downstairs. I immediately knew where it came from and what caused it. Suddenly, I feel like I wanted the ground to just swallow me whole and somehow hide me from my own mother. Never have I ever though that she will come back. I thought that the nightmare of her will leave in the morning.
Anger and panic surged inside me, like a bucket of negative energy being poured in me. I wanted to hide, wanted to lock every door inside this house and just wait for my mother to leave the house.
“Samirah...”
I heard my mother say weakly, and I immediately knew that she’s drunk. Her voice was cracking, muttering about the lack of food and how untidy the house is. Nothing changed with her dialogue the last time she was with me.
“Samirah!” She repeated, and this time, I can hear her heavy footsteps pounding on the stairs. I had a debate with myself if I should meet her halfway or duty myself in the bed. “I’ve heard rumors. What’s with those rumors about you being a potential murderer, huh? Is that how I raised you?”
I decided to act on the former. Swallowing my own fears, I left my room, and outside, I saw the familiar, beautiful but nasty face of my mother. She was beautiful because Charlie wouldn’t just fall for her over nothing, but there’s this burning cruelty inside her eyes and behind her smile. She was grinning at me, her make-up all smudged and her clothes in a messy formation. There was small little red marks on her neck down to her slightly exposed chest. Anger burned in me.
“Ah, there you are.” She said, crazed.
“It isn’t true,” I managed to say despite the urge to push her down the stairs and leave her bedridden for some days. “The rumors that you were saying. It’s not true.”
She tried to take a step towards me, and warning signals flared inside my brain. I immediately stepped back, raising both of my arms for defense if ever, but she staggered, tripping on her own feet.
“You’re not going to fool me, Samirah,” She said, still on the floor. “I’ve had my suspicions. Of course, you’re like your father. It’s in your blood. A monster… A monster... I shouldn’t have married that monster. He was inside me. I let a monster inside me.”
I couldn’t say anything. It sounded wrong in all levels.
She laughed in disdain, the same laugh I’ve heard for years whenever she uses her hand on me. “But it’s okay now, it’s okay now. All I have to do is to get rid of you.”
“You’re drunk.” I managed to say the most stupid thing in history. Of course, she was drunk, and she forever will be. There was this pang on my chest when she said that. She always say it to me every day of my life. All I have to do is to get rid of you. “You don’t mean those words. You loved him. You loved me.”
The trace of her laugh disappeared as she snap her head to me, her eyes trying to burn wholes on my body. That look was the most familiar to me, I can remember it almost every day. It was the same look I learned to hate. Just how many times she looked at me like I’m some kind of abomination? I couldn’t even remember. Probably my life right after Charlie died.
“Why would I love such monsters?” she whispered to herself. She’s not talking to me. “I should have listened to my mother, I should have listened to the rumors.”
For a moment, she looked like she’s back from her drunken state. How many times have I heard these words coming from her? And how many times did I deny it? I should have been hurt, but looking at Sally now and the woman she became, I was just angry. But there’s this part of me whispering to me that maybe she didn’t mean the things that she said, maybe she’s just so drunk to vent her anger at me.
But it’s all true. I can’t even convince myself with that thought. She’s hopeless.
Rumors, she say. She should have listened to the rumors. I didn’t have the slightest idea of what she was talking about because for one, all the rumors here in Ravenwood was all about serial killers, river monsters and some crazy ghost that will haunt you late in the night.
I don’t see the connection about her failed parenting and the rumors. I should have left her all along, should have forgotten that she was not my mother. It was what she always told anyways, but I never really had the heart to just leave her alone, knowing that she’s in that kind of state. Never really felt the courage to stand up for myself and say, “Hey, I’ve had it enough with you. I’m leaving. Try to get your dignity back or something.”
“If I hadn’t met him, if I didn’t let you live... This would not happen. If I did what I was supposed to do long ago...” She mumbled something way out of my understanding because most the time I meet my psychotic mother, I try to lower myself in her level for mastering the art of not making sense.
“It’s not too late,” I mumbled my over used choice of words. Because what can I say with her rumblings, agree that she should have just stuck around her hometown, not meet my father and not have me? Yes. But I can’t.
She looked at me, her eyes hazy but still flaring like she’s thinking of a thousand of how to kill me without me dying. Did that make sense? Of course not, because nothing in my life makes sense. Also in your life, but here we are. Anyway, because my mother is going crazy every single time I had the chance to see her, she started laughing. A slurred, rough laugh that travelled all across the house.
It was the same hollow sound that I always find terrifying when I was kid. Whenever I wait for her to come home, every single time hoping that she’s in a better mood, but I think that ever since my dad died, better mood actually became a word that doesn’t exactly go well with her. Everytime, and I mean, everytime, she would look at me with a murderous glare, scream and laugh like a lunatic.
Sighing, I took a stepped forward towards her, in attempt to get her up. She can’t possibly spend the whole night right in front of my door, drunk and helpless. As soon as I reached for her, she slapped my hand away with a glare. Fortunately, she said nothing and just tried to get up on her feet herself, which is actually pretty impossible. One look at her and you’ll know that her mind basically left her body. There were drool marks on the side of her face, her eyes bloodshot and rolling upwards like she’s in a daze.
As soon as she dropped on the floor again, face down, she let out a loud, final groan then had her daylights knocked out of her. I couldn’t believe that the woman in front of me, wasted and miserable, was my own mother. Cursing under her breath for the last time, she gagged and commuted on the floor, containing nothing but brownish fluid that obviously looked like uncirculated alcohol. With one last hazy laughter, she fell asleep, leaving me with all the mess she made.
I gritted my teeth, suppressing the feelings of anger and annoyance inside of me. I want to leave her alone like that, or perhaps throw her out of the house. Any way to get rid of her. Instead, I sighed, braced myself together for incoming slaps or punches if ever she goes back to consciousness, for her alcoholic stench and carried her towards her and dad’s room. It was not the first time I enter my parents’ room, but a sudden feeling of loneliness hit me like a wrecking ball. Being in here, it seemed like the fact that my father is gone became clearer to me, like it was the first time I realized that he’s dead.
Almost hatefully, I plopped her on the bed that looked like it has been years since it was dusted, and that may be true.
“What a great day,” I mumbled to myself.
As I was about to leave the room, something caught my eye. It was a chest box that my father owns, and the last time I was here, I did not see it. I glanced at Sally. Did she take it out? A rush of memories came back to me, my father’s secretive smile as he say, “You can’t open it. Bad spirits will escape if you did.” I was too dumb back then to actually believe what he said.
I glanced again at Sally, making sure that she’s not awake and completely knocked out. Who knows if she’ll go god-fucking-zilla the moment I touch that box? She hated it when I nose around Charlie’s belongings ever since he died, she told me that it gives her memories. She hates remembering him. Maybe she really is just miserable to the point of wanting to forget or she just hates him. Never really got why, but that doesn’t matter right now. Making sure that she was asleep, I hesitantly reached for the box, not knowing if I really should open it or not.
“Well, here goes nothing, I guess,” I mumbled like an idiot. It was just a stupid box.
It took me seconds to open it, but I feel like everything was in slow motion. The jewel decorated lid was cranky and old, with rusts on its edge, but the inside looked as clean the moment it was made. I furrowed my eyebrows, seeing nothing in the box but a simple ring made out of black steel. It was just there, lying and untouched. I never saw Charlie wear it before. Checking if Sally was awake, I picked it up gingerly and raised it to my eyes. Nothing looks out of place or weird or anything. Just a ring. With circular and triangular carvings on its onyx edges. Underneath it was words and numbers, too faded for me to understand.
Is this really the thing that Charlie wanted to hide? A ring? I was hoping I would get a note or something, like those in the movies and novels. Apparently, my life really is just mundane and boring as ever. I decided to keep it, because, for one, it was the only thing that connects me with Charlie now, given that my stupid mother either burned his things or kept it hidden away in the attic. Closing the simple-looking box, I put it exactly where it was, to make it look like I never touched it, and left the room with Sally unaware of what I did that will afterwards, maybe, destroy us all.
I’m kidding. Just making things sound like I’m a main character here or something. In the end of the day, I’ll always be the girl who has nothing to do in her life, die and no one will even remember anything about it.
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