This Road

One

One

I watched the housing realtor from my bedroom window as she trampled through the snow with a man who was holding a For Sale sign in his arms. She found a decent spot on the ground, the spot where my sisters and I would set up the Volleyball net every summer for the last eight years we lived here so we could work on our spikes, and pointed down to the spot before moving away. As if she actually had a say in where to put it. I didn’t think he’d needed help, but she made herself useful to him - or tried - anyway.
He only stared at her before shaking his head, as if he were annoyed that she was trying to put in her two cents of advice at all.
Normally the sign placer and the realtor wouldn’t be in the same place at the same time, but the realtor had actually been a close friend to my mom, and she’d came to the door a few moments ago to personally check up on me and warn me that this was going to be happening today, to prepare me.
The sign placer set the sign into the selected spot before hammering it down into the ground with a big tool.
It was official.
My life was officially over.
I closed my blinds before letting my eyes take a sweep around my bedroom. My teal blue walls were stripped of band posters, certificates, and pictures that once cluttered them, leaving the surface bare, with nothing but the printing of the dreamcatcher and tree branches I’d begged my dad to let me get. I liked wall art. I liked all art. My two main forms of expression though were photography and songwriting. It was a way for me to relax. My photography was meant for people to look at and admire, but my music was only meant for me. I’d never shown anyone my songs. Not even my two best friends, Taylor and Cami. These days were filled with lots of sad songs, if I was even motivated to write anything at this point. Depression settled in like a rainstorm. My friends were always trying to distract me from the tragedy.
It never worked. The house became the definition of what a ghost town was. It was too quiet for me. Took abandoned. Too lonely. Sometimes I would swear that I heard the giggle of Amelia’s voice or Dad’s obscene random statements at times. But I think it was just the remainder of their energy clearing itself away. My friends had never known of my house to feel so abandoned, either. They were always around. Always commented on how noisy my dad was when he was watching the football game. Or how loud Lindsey would blast her sound speaker. We’d go bust through her bedroom door and interrupt her and her friends. She’d yell at us to get out, especially since Taylor was almost always with us.
I’d known Taylor since we were six. He sat on my chest as he force-fed me a slug. Then I’d thrown it up in his face, and he stood there in shock before we’d both burst into laughter. We’d been inseparable ever since. Taylor was tall, standing at six-foot-three. Compared to my five-foot-six, that was tall. He had medium ash-brown hair. His skin tone had a bit of a bronze to it, and some light freckles dotted his nose and face. His vibrant blue eyes could pierce someone’s very core if he was angry. Thankfully though, that rarely ever happened out in public because he was a kickboxer, and would always take his anger out on a punching bag. He was a very Zen person. Not only was he a very Zen person, but he was a very strong, and a very fit Zen person.
Then there was Cami who lived down the street from me. I’d seen her at school before we moved into the house we were in now or, at least, used to be in until tomorrow. She and I hadn’t really been friends though. Not until my family moved in. Her mom forced her to bring cookies to us, and when I’d been the one who answered the door to her knocking, she smiled, relief coming over her features at the fact that it was someone she was slightly familiar with.
Cami and I were pretty much on opposite ends of the spectrum. While we both had similar heights, builds, and athletic body types, we looked different. Cami had the pretty, golden blonde hair that fell to her shoulder blades and the sea blue eyes that sent every guy drooling over her. She was five-foot-four, had fair skin, and was the captain of the Cheerleading squad. Yet, she could easily be considered the sweetest person on the planet and always remembered to include other people. If she wasn’t my best friend, I’d probably hate her even though that was practically impossible for people to do to begin with.
She was an extrovert. Very bubbly and approachable. She was also a good listener. She loved reading, but would go to a hot party any day over a good book. She also played the piano like a pro, and could sing.
While I was similar, I was different. I had light amber brown, loosely curled hair that fell below my breast bone, natural honey blonde streaks that cascaded through the strands, and green eyes that would turn hazel in the sunlight. My tan skin had a warm hue beneath it, and I had a few faint freckles that dotted my cheeks. It was ironic, really, especially in the winter time. Vermont was very cold at this time, yet the snow always seemed to reflect the sun, even on the cloudiest of days, and somehow I’d always managed to end up with sunburn.
I loved reading, and I wasn’t a super big partier. Small gatherings were fun. But nothing really any more than twenty people. I liked interacting with others, but I wasn’t as outgoing as Cami was. I was more laid back, but if I knew someone, I’d go talk to them, or I’d make myself available for people to come to talk with me if they wanted to. I’d only really go to parties for the footage. Think of it as cliche, but parties were some of the really good places to go if an artist wanted some good footage, depending on the type of party. And on days where I wasn’t reading, doing my photography, or working out, I was either working on my serves for V-ball or writing my music. I was on the Volleyball team for Fall and on the Basketball team for Winter.
At least, I’d used to be.
I clenched my eyes shut as my insides churned from pain and grief. My heart shattered with every living breath I took.
School was supposed to have started back up that past Wednesday, but with the way the snow storm blew in, school had been canceled till the following Monday so they could clear out the streets. I would be long gone by then. It was Friday. Tomorrow Mom’s best friend, Alison, whom she’d met in college, would be coming to move me out and to their house in Nevada, for the remainder of my Senior year. Mom had signed papers years ago stating that if anything were to ever happen to her and Dad, the guardianship would be transferred to Alison and her family, indefinitely. I hadn’t thought there would ever be anything for my sisters and me to worry about.
I was right about my sisters not needing to dread anything happening.
They were dead.
It was just me now. My muscles ached. My stomach clenched and unclenched painfully.
I’d never been to Nevada, and now I was moving there, having no clue what it was like or how hot it would be. The town was relatively close to the border of California, so I was expecting dryland with lots of cows and horses. A very different life for sure.
Before my family died, I’d been frustrated with Lindsey for borrowing my favorite pair of earrings for a date, without asking my permission. Lindsey had been about two years younger than me and had dark blonde hair and the same green eyes as I did. She had been on the Junior Varsity cheer squad and felt like the luckiest girl in the world to be going out with Jake Porter, the Captain of the Football team. I could have handled things better, but I hadn’t.
And Amelia, my brown eyed, strawberry blonde haired little sister who had been thirteen, almost fourteen, picked up my camera to move it off her chair at the table, and dropped it, breaking it. I had been so mad at her, I swore to never forgive her.
That was two days before they’d died. I had wished I could take everything back. I still did. It had been my fault she had to move it. I should have been more responsible with my things. I shouldn’t have gotten mad at her. It hadn’t been her fault. I had been able to replace it with not too much of an issue, thankfully, since it’d had a two year warranty on it. That was one day before they’d died. Even after I’d had my new camera in hand I’d still been mad at Amelia.
I wished I could turn back time and be a better sister. Never too busy for my family. I wished I hadn’t stuffed earbuds in my ears and, instead, played games on road trips with my family we’d take every summer. I wished I’d have been there more. More open, more forgiving, more there. But I hadn’t been, and there was nothing that could be done about that at this point.
They were gone. What killed me was that I’d never even said goodbye. They weren’t even able to find Amelia’s body. She was somewhere out there, rotting away in a ditch or something because they hadn’t been able to locate where her body had probably been launched.

Tears clouded my vision. I let them fall. I sunk onto my bed and cried into my hands before crawling under my covers with a box of tissues.
A soft knock sounded on my bedroom door before a soft creek opened. “Ronnie?” Taylor’s soft, yet deep voice called out to me softly. Shortly before everything happened, I’d given them keys to let themselves in just in case something was wrong, or they needed a place to crash in case something happened or they got locked out or something in the middle of the night. Or, if they needed to get to me.
I was by myself then, until Alison could come and whisk me away, into the place where the wild things roamed. Taylor and Cami had been there for me through every moment of my life. They were like family. Correction- they were family, and that would never change. They were more of a family than I was sure Alison and her clan would ever be. I was just grateful that they weren’t legally adopting me. I didn’t want to be adopted. I had family. They were alive and well, yet they had lives of their own and Mom hadn’t trusted half of her siblings to take care of her kids. I never knew why.
“I’m here,” I said, my voice layered with thick emotion. I didn’t open my eyes. But I felt him approach me. My bed dipped and soon he was lying next to me. He pulled me close and held me. My body shook with tears as I sobbed into his chest.
A moment later another tap sounded at the door. “Cookies and Cream ice cream?” I heard Cami call out softly. “Every day’s a good day to have your favorite ice cream. Especially after a tragedy like this.”
The moment I got the call from the first responders about what happened, I called Cami first, sobs escaping my lips and my head racing. Once her phone went to voicemail, I left a hysterical message, begging her to call me back as soon as she could before I dialed Taylor. The phone rang twice before his tired voice sounded on the other side. “Hey Ronnie, what’s up?”
My sobs had coursed through the speaker as I tried to steady my shakiness, but I couldn’t get words out. I couldn’t speak, or think, or breathe. I’d felt like I was suffocating. Like someone had actually slit my throat, blocking off all oxygen.
He hadn’t even asked questions. “I’ll be there in five minutes.” Taylor had lived in the same house since he was four a few blocks over from where we moved to. Before that we had lived across town. I had been so happy when I’d found out we’d be moving closer to him.
And sure enough, five minutes later he knocked on my bedroom door before entering. I’d sat there, tears staining my face, looking into the abyss of nothingness. Everything had been a blur that day. I remembered him sitting next to me, asking me, begging me to tell him what was wrong. I remembered vaguely telling him what had happened. And just like that, my emotions had shut off.  I felt nothing. I had become numb, as if I was living my life through a kaleidoscope.
A few hours later Cami broke through my bedroom door in a huff, still in her silk Victoria’s Secret pj’s she’d bought on sale. One look at me brought her to tears. Explaining things to her had been too painful, so Taylor explained, and her face crumbled as she sat next to me. We cried together, even though I couldn’t feel anything. Yet the tears had still been coming. My friends had gotten me through that day. Every painful moment. Cami had only run home to get dressed and ready for the day before she came back with a picnic basket full of a day’s worth of food as well as her night bag. Her pillow and quilted blanket had been tucked neatly beneath her arm before she’d dropped everything onto my bed. “I’m staying for the night too. There’s no way I’m leaving you on your own to fight through this.” She’d folded her arms in a defiant way, the way she normally did when she was expecting retaliation. I’d just shrugged and said, “Okay. Good to know.” Truth was, I hadn’t wanted to be alone. The house had felt eerily haunting that day. Abandoned. Lonely.
So, they’d stayed throughout the day. I’d promised to help Taylor bake cookies for his grandmother that day, and he had held me to it, hoping that it would distract me a little bit from what had happened.
But of course it didn’t. Even when I was focused on something and helping someone, I’d felt the weight of undeniable grief weigh me down. I had been in denial. I had tried pushing all my emotions away. No, this had all been a bad dream, and eventually I’d wake up from it.
I was still trying to wake up.
Cami slid under the covers next to me as she handed me and Taylor a spoon. She brought a big gallon of my favorite ice cream onto my bed before displaying a bag full of napkins.
Prying the lid off the ice cream, she waited patiently. “You get the first spoonful.”
I gave a weak smile before I shoveled a big spoonful into my mouth. Taylor brought his spoon in next before Cami swatted at his hand. “Ladies first,” she noted before scooping a spoonful into her own mouth.
He rolled his eyes. “I’m always the last one.”
“It’s because you’re a dude.”
He cocked his head to one side. “What if I just had one day to be a lady then? Would I get special privileges that girls seem to get at times?” Clearly he was joking.
“You’d have to dress the part.” Cami shoveled another spoonful into her mouth.
“Gross,” Taylor winced, and made Cami snort. “Never mind, I’ll pass. It’s not all too terrible being a guy.”
“Cool,” she said. “More ice cream for me.”
“Hey,” Taylor reached his spoon over, fighting Cami’s away from the container, “You wish.”
I scooped a bite into my mouth, letting the cold deliciousness slide down my throat. I wasn’t saying anything. It was fun, having a sense of normalcy around here before things changed again, more than they already had. I was trying to pass this setting off as a post-heartbreak I’d gone through. I’d had one boyfriend my whole life, and that lasted for two weeks before he got creepy. That was some relationship. I wasn’t even heartbroken, because it hadn’t lasted long enough to actually break me.
The post-breakup mindset wasn’t working in my favor.
“We need something to wash this down,” Cami said.
Taylor smirked. “Hot chocolate, anyone? "He reached into his coat pocket, pulling out two packs. “Sorry, Camille, but there’s not enough here. One for me, and one for Ronnie.”
Cami stuck out her lower lip. “Well that’s an ass-wipe move. You knew I’d be here too. I brought three spoons. Consider your ice cream privileges revoked.” She made a grab for the utensil in Taylor’s hand, but he lifted away his arm, releasing a laugh. “Geez, woman, I’m kidding.” He pulled out another packet and flashed it at her. “I got you. Such little faith in my humanity. I’m a gentleman.”
Cami smirked before lifting her middle finger at him. Taylor blinked. “I don’t need that. I already have one, and it’s a lot bigger than that dinky little thing.”
I felt my jaw drop before flinging a pillow in his face, releasing a laugh at Cami’s surprised expression. She put her finger away.
He got up and moved to the door. “Whipped cream on top, anyone? Marshmallows?”
Cami leaned her head onto my shoulder. “Ron?”
I pressed my lips together. “Whatever is fine.”
“Translation for yes, for the both of us,” she pointed her finger at him.
He sighed. “One whipped cream coming right up.” 
He proceeded to move out of the room as she threw a pillow at him before following him out to the hall. “You’re such a jerk!” She threw her shoe at him. And missed. Obviously.
His answer rang back. “Ha! You missed!”
Cami stormed back into my room before collapsing onto my bed again. “Anything you want to talk about? How are you feeling? How are you handling things?”
I shook my head. “I don’t need a therapist, Camille, thanks though.”
She gave a gentle smile. “I know you don’t, but I think talking would be good. You’ve been in denial for a bit. It’s like, things happened in reverse for you. You accepted what had happened and it destroyed you, but then you turned around and said you didn’t believe they were gone. That they’d be coming home any minute. Walking through that door. You are no longer wanting to accept what happened.”
I shook my head. “Nobody wants to accept a tragedy.”
“That’s not the point.” she sighed. “Veronica, The point is. Not accepting what happened is hurting you in more ways than what’s good. I know all of it is still fresh. Believe me, when my brother died at war, I was living in denial. The more I fought the reality, the more broken I was becoming. The more frantic, bitter, and shattered I became. Until finally my health snapped and the truth came whirling into my life and I lost it. Let’s not forget the time I spent a month in the mental hospital that one summer because of it. I just-” she paused for a moment, and her eyes glazed over, “- I just don’t want the same thing happening to you.”
Her twenty year old brother had been a soldier in the US army and had been deployed overseas to fight in Afghanistan when we were fifteen. No more than four months later two men in Military uniforms showed up at her front door to deliver the news that Corporal Justin H. Beckham, her older brother, was killed on the front line while fighting for the freedom and safety of his country. I couldn’t remember a lot about what had happened that day, or how events unfolded, or even the explanations of what went down. But I’d remembered Cami’s heartbroken cries out for her brother. How she’d wanted him home that moment, that she didn’t believe he was really gone. “He probably sent these two clowns to prank us,” she’d said. But I’d known that her brother was never the type to sink that low. He may have been a pain in the ass for his sister to deal with at times, but he’d been a good person. He was her best friend, besides Taylor and myself. They were close. Really close.
She’d denied it for months, wondering out loud when he was going to call, or write, or post something on social media. Something, anything to believe he was still alive. Even his funeral didn’t intimidate her. She hadn’t believed that he was the one in the coffin. She hadn’t believed that the Military ceremony for his funeral was for him. She hadn’t believed that anything had been real. She’d thought she was dreaming. But the more she fought the reality, the worse it wore her down, and the more hysterical she had been the moment she woke up and realized the truth. He was gone. At that point he’d been gone for a couple months.
Everything that unfolded that day when she finally accepted everything was like a nightmare come true. I hadn’t seen Cami in the way she’d been that day. It was like she had no humanity. She was hysterical, breaking everything in plain sight, sobbing uncontrollably. Her hair hadn’t been brushed and her mascara was running down her cheeks. She stumbled out the door in a haze, one shoe on her foot and one earring missing from her ears. Her knuckles had been bleeding and there were scratch marks on her face. Bruises lined her arms. At first I’d thought that she’d been abused. But the moment I found out she’d finally realized that he wasn’t coming back, ever, I knew she’d done it to herself. The ambulance was called as her mom ran out the door after her, trying to get her to calm down. I remembered Cami thrashing around in her mom’s arms, crying out for her brother, insulting herself for her denial and for not accepting things, stating how she didn’t want to live anymore, and that she wanted to kill those bastards who did this to her brother. She had been angry at the military for sending him overseas just to let him get killed and threatened vengeance upon them.
The ambulance had shown up, and the medics injected her with some sort of fluid that made her calm down enough to get her onto a stretcher. They’d strapped her in before wheeling her into the back. Next thing, they were gone.
If anyone knew what things were like, it was her.
“I can’t. Not yet.”
She nodded. “I know. But hopefully soon. I want you to be alright.”
A few minutes later, Taylor came back up to my room carrying three mugs, whipped cream and marshmallows overflowing. He handed one to me. “For you, Madam,” and he turned to hand one to Cami. “And to you, Good Sir.”
“Gee, thanks,” she bit as she took it from him. She paused. “Oh, waiter, you didn’t apply the cream the way I wanted it to be. Cream goes underneath the marshmallows in my world, not the other way around. I want a refund.”
He snorted. “What you see is what you get. But if you're going to complain, I’ll just drink it.”
She turned her body away, shielding her mug. “In your dreams.”
We sat there as the two of them went off about different things, trying to distract me, or make me smile. A few times it worked, but then the reminder of moving away from my friends broke my heart. I didn’t have a choice though. Lindsey was supposed to get the house after my parents passed away in the future because I hadn’t wanted it. Now I was regretting it. Because that meant I had to leave. During the year that was supposed to be the time of my life. Away from everything I’d ever known. Away from my two best friends.
Saying goodbye to my family during the funeral three days after the accident had been pain unlike anything I’d ever experienced. Now I was going to be leaving the last few people I loved, behind. I bit my lower lip. “I’m really going to miss you guys.”
They stopped bickering over a tv show and turned to me. Cami’s eyes glazed over again. “Ugh, Ronnie, we’re going to miss you too! I wish you could just move in with us.”
I nodded. “Me too. Maybe after college starts, when the holidays roll around.” I inhaled a sharp breath as I realized that future holidays with my family were over. No, they couldn’t be. My family would come home. This was just a bad dream. I was sure of it.
Taylor rubbed my back. “This has been so unfair to you, and I’m so sorry.”
I nodded, trying to hold on to myself. So was I.