Teenage Crime

Chapter 2

She eventually went home. Leighton had gone out looking for her. She found her sitting on that bench in Audubon Park, just staring. She'd been there for three days. She was still wearing her short, red dress. She was still wearing her $2000 heels. Her mascara was still running down her face. She didn't even look like herself. She looked like she'd been to hell and back.

In all reality, she had.

Leighton took her home, and made her eat something and take a shower.

"Aspyn?" She said, walking into her room.

"What?" She heard her sister reply, gruff and angry, just like she'd sounded on the phone.

She didn't know what happened with her and her dad, all she knew was her father had come home crying and repeating, the whole time, "I've lost her, I've lost her." She woke up the next morning with a note next to her bed that read,

Went to stay at Grandma's in Baton Rouge

Don't know when I'll be back

Don't try to find Aspyn until I call you

I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet

I love you, Dad

She knew she wasn't supposed to go out and try to find Aspyn, and she had waited two days, but by the third day she just couldn't handle it anymore. She knew she'd be mad at her. But she couldn't bear to think about her out there, probably with some man getting high.

So she looked for her. She wasn't that hard to find. Although it seemed as though she was completely different. Not only in the way she looked, but in the way she acted. Aspyn knew she'd been acting differently since eighth grade, but this type of persona was different.

She spoke no words, she displayed no emotion. Her eyes had no life, her limbs all looked limp.

It made Leighton want to cry.

So, when she walked into her room, after practically force-feeding her, she knew she would have issues telling Aspyn what her father had told her to tell her. He had called earlier that morning, saying he'd decided what he was going to do with her.

"Um, dad called me this morning." Leighton spitted out, feeling tears come to her eyes. She saw Aspyn look up.

"I don't want to talk to him."

"Well you won't have to. He bought you a ticket to North Carolina. You're going to go live with one of his college roommate's families for senior year. You're leaving in August."

Aspyn's stomach dropped. Moving? Are they fucking kidding me? But she felt no anger. Much like the past three days, she felt nothing. This absence of feeling was becoming the new norm for her.

The same could not be said for Leighton.

"Whatever."

And that was Leighton's breaking point. That was her teetering ledge between sanity and insanity. She broke down, keeled over onto the floor and started sobbing. Aspyn looked up, and was struck by what she saw. Her sister, her perfect sister, on the ground shaking. What was she supposed to do? This wasn't what it was supposed to be like. Aspyn was the emotional, high strung one. Leighton was supposed to be the one who always kept her cool; Aspyn didn't think she'd ever even see her cry.

"Um, Leighton, are you okay?"

Leighton looked up at her sister, now standing in front of her, looking at her with a confused expression.

"I'm, I'm sorry." She said, standing up and dusting off her pants. Aspyn nodded slowly and walked back to her bed.

That's all she's gonna say, Leighton thought, She's not going to give me any explanations? Nothing?

"Aspyn, why? Why do you do what you do? Why do you feed off of upsetting people? Why can't you just follow the rules? Why?" Leighton whimpered, afraid of the response she might get.

Aspyn took a moment to process this. Why do I do that?, she thought.

"Because if I didn't, nobody would care. I'm not good at stuff like you, Leighton. If I didn't break the rules and piss people off nobody would care about me. And I can't handle the thought of that."

"No! That's not true! You were an amazing dancer, you were great at singing, you play every instrument! You just quit. Why did you quit, Aspyn? Why did you quit?"

There was an uncomfortable silence for a few moments. Aspyn closed her eyes, and took a deep breath in.

"It wasn't good enough. It wasn't good enough for dad, it wasn't enough for mom, it wasn't enough for my teachers. Nothing was ever enough. Hell, even before I was smoking pot and drinking I was getting D's. I've always been in your shadow. Do you know what dad told me on that car ride back from the police station? He told me he never thought I'd amount to much. And you know what, maybe he's right. I wasn't put on this earth to accomplish some prodigious purpose. I mean lets face it, I was born to die."

Leighton opened her mouth to talk, but couldn't find the right way to articulate what she was feeling. So, she nodded and left.

Two hours later, Leighton left the house to see her boyfriend on the other side of town. She'd told Leighton she'd be back in the morning. Aspyn did what she always did whenever she had the house to herself; invite half her grade over for a one-night bender.

Although even in a house full of people, with boys falling over her, Aspyn had never felt so alone.