Truly Madly Deeply

Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO

After packing up everything I own, I pull together my last shred of self-respect before gently closing the refurbished hatchback door shut. Uncle Jimmy scored one from the pick-n-pull and kindly put it on for me. The bumper still looks like a pretzel, but at least the hatch shuts, if I close it just right.

“A new start is about to begin.” Mom holds out my loved oversized teddy bear, the last gift my father had given me on my tenth birthday. “You’ll see.”

I inhale sharply and manage a smile. “Yeah,” I hope so.

I’d run out of time, and becoming the snack shack wench to a bunch of demanding hormonal brace-wearing teens on sugar highs, telling me to “hurry up,” is my lot in life. I’d gone from the prestige of a bank job, to this. If only I hadn’t spent all of my savings to move out with a lying, two-timing bitch like Allie, I would have run away. Fill up my car and drive somewhere no one knew me, and start over.

And as if on cue, Hannah joins Mom’s side with a lollipop in her mouth, and her smug smile. She will have Mom’s undivided attention now—well, when she isn’t worshiping the bottle.

“Have fun.” She flashes a toothy grin.

I smirk, withholding my comment to “prepare yourself.” Her day will come. Mom gave me a hug, lingering longer than normal.

“I wish things were different, I really do.”

“Yeah,” me, too, Mom. I crawl into the front seat and stare at the cherry Slurpee stain on the floorboard. Even in leaving, I can’t escape memories of him.

Please, dear God, don’t let this be another disaster.

Maybe this is my miracle, because living with my mother in this dreadful city continually reminds me of my failures, twisting the dagger in my heart over and over again.

With another sigh and a slight wave, I back out of the driveway and put in my earphones and tune to my Spotify mix of non-romantic hits starting with “You Oughta Know”. How did I arrive at this desperate place in my life? If only someone warned me of the train wreck, I would have never befriended Allie or let Gage’s sooty Go-Go-Gadget lashes seduce me. Yet every time I close my eyes, I see them slamming each other on the floor. They can rot in hell for all I care. That’s the trouble; I do care. Way. Too. Much.

Merging onto highway 80, I head south for San Francisco. In three hours, I’ll be at Redwood Springs, but until then, I only have my music and my thoughts to keep me company. Shoot me now.

I tuck my cell phone into the center console and work up a pep talk. Redwood Springs was practically a second home and had a special place in my heart after being a camper several times as a kid. The lack of cell reception, but it isn’t like that matters, along with the creed I’d signed in triplicate is abundantly clear: no phones around the campers and no alcohol. Not that I particularly enjoy drinking, but the loss of my phone could be a struggle. Not for personal phone calls mind you, considering the two people I trusted most in the world betrayed me, and since then my phone has been relatively silent. No. In order to keep my brain from anxiety-ridden implosion, I’d taken up habitual reading (non-love stories) on my Kindle, Netflix (no romance allowed), and Candy Crush—all from my phone. Yet inevitably drawn in with morbid curiosity, I’d end up on Facebook and watch my heart be slashed once again.

No matter how hard I tried not to, I’d still scour the pages of friends in common looking for my ex and her, occasionally finding pictures of the two, lip locked with arms draped over one another in relationship bliss. Only a permanent Internet time out would curb my stalking and do me some good.

Upon hitting Highway 580, the painful memories that had happened merely six weeks ago drive like an anvil through my heart and the tears fall. I’d been so stupid. Mom had said, after I’d cried for the thousandth time, that the time needed to heal would last as long as I’d invested in the relationship. She most likely said it so I’d stop stalking Gage and move on, but two years? Oh, goody. I will have to endure twenty-three months of torture until I’m free. Maybe three months absence of him will make the biggest dent on my aching heart and I will return sane. But to where? I’d all but been kicked out.

Thinking back to when we’d met, which was during my senior year in high school, had been bliss. He’d already graduated and been a friend of a friend, hanging with “the group”. We’d hit it off right away, flirting with one another at parties, but the night we watched Paranormal Activity sealed everything. I’d buried my face into his shoulder more than enough times, and he responded by holding my hand under the blanket. Later we kissed. We were inseparable after that.

The warning bells should have smacked me against the face when Gage no longer wanted to hang out with the group. Rather, he wanted me all to himself. Soon after, the fighting began.

He’d made it clear he knew everything, so whatever wisdom I’d gleaned from the world, if any, twisted around in my blonde brain and came out wrong. All I was good for was my boobs, and a tight ass, which he couldn’t keep his hands off. Of all my weaknesses that involved Gage, that was the one place where I held firm. Call me a prude or whatever, but I’d made a promise to my self-respect that I’d wait until marriage. So when Allie breezed into my life again, I was anxious for a friend and a distraction.

Allie doesn’t hide she’s a slut. She only likes bad boys who want a sugar mama while they treat her like trash. That should have been a warning. Why I took her under my wing to begin with must stem from my need to fix people. Girlfriend needed help in choosing men. Heck, we both did.

I should have known she’d make a play first chance she got. To her, my boyfriend was perfect. From the emerald ring he’d given me for my birthday, to our fabulous fast food dates and the occasional bouquets of flowers. What did I have to complain about? Maybe the fact I’d put up with his visions of grandeur every semester as he enrolled in classes to become a lawyer, only to find he’d quit a month later from the inability to get his ass out of bed.

My second mistake was believing Gage wasn’t attracted to her. Though finding Allie at his place occasionally as she stopped by “to look for me” after work didn’t faze me since I practically lived at his mother’s house anyway. Now I know the mistake. Remembering that day zings a painful jolt of jealousy prompting the memory of my third mistake. I should have never paid her part of the deposit and rent.

I gaze into the rear view mirror and wipe away the trails of mascara. I hate that I’m such a baby over this, and the pain never stops carving so deep in my soul it physically hurts. What if it never goes away? I don’t think I could chance anyone doing this to me again. Would I end up like Mom? How is the risk worth this?

Halfway to the camp, I run through a drive-through and pick up an iced tea and waffle on a salad or fries—settling on a salad. The only good thing about the break-up is that I have dropped twenty pounds. Since Gage’s kitchen is just as dysfunctional as his mother, and typically piled high with weeks of dirty dishes, fast food became our main source of sustenance. Those calories had crept up on my ass, adding more than the typical freshman fifteen, and I hadn’t even gone away to college. Another stupid Gage mistake.

I already know camp food will make a mark on my waistline. Hopefully all the extra activity and a salad each meal will help me keep off what I’ve already lost, that is if I can stay away from the ice cream in the snack shack—especially the Drumsticks.

As my car chugs up the mountain peaks of Highway 17, I roll down the window and suck in the sea breeze. The redwoods and salty air filter through my car and into my lungs. Heaven. I have so many awesome memories of Camp Redwood Springs—first time being away from home for an extended period of time where no one knew my home life, first crush, first hand-holding, and where I’d learned to kiss. I’d wanted nothing more than to be a counselor one day. Alas, humiliating as it is, snack shack girl will have to do. Peace settles onto me. Yes. Maybe this is a good decision after all.

Then my car sputters and white smoke rolls out from under the hood. I pull over to the side of the road, and open it up. Things sizzle and smoke. I quickly rethink my decision as I lean against the side of the car.

This is a total mistake.