This Road

Four

Four

That night, after I’d gotten ready for bed, I fell asleep the moment my head hit the pillow. It was a little earlier than I would have liked, but I was exhausted and needed sleep. The moment my eyes closed, different colors began swirling around in my imagination, painting an image that soon came into light.
I was back in the van with my family. An old eighties playlist was blasting from my dad’s phone which was plugged into the audio port.
Lindsey was looking down at the screen of her phone as her fingers effortlessly tapped away at the glass. Amelia had her headphones on as she was reading a book.
Sprawled out on my lap was my photography portfolio. I was trying to rearrange the order of my images to try and get them to match up more and look more flawless.
I glanced up in time to watch the image morph into something else. What had, at one moment, been a beautiful spring day driving down a rural road was now a jammed up highway with big, heavy snowflakes falling down onto the road. The next thing I knew, I was on the side of the road, watching as cars and trucks raced past me at high speed. I looked to my right and watched as the family van sped past me, and I cried out after them, shocked that they’d just drive off without me, not even caring or looking my way. So, I ran after them, and somehow I’d been able to keep up with the speed they were traveling at.
Finally, I’d managed to get to them. I stopped and watched them. I wasn’t sure why I’d stopped, or why I couldn’t move. It was as if my feet stayed glued into place. I tried stepping forward, but it was as if ankle weights were weighing down my legs so severely, I could not move.
The next scene seemed to have slowed down. They began to skid off to the left. They kept moving, and they were heading towards a big semi-truck. I screamed out at them. I forced myself to move forward, the closer I got the farther away they seemed. Until finally, the vehicle crashed into the front bumper of the semi. The car flipped upwards at such a high speed, intense rate that it tumbled over the side of the guardrail and began tumbling to the ground below.
I heard my sisters cry out. I heard the sound of their bones breaking. The awful, foreboding feeling sunk deeper down into the pit of my stomach as sheer terror shot through me. I’d managed to make it over to the rail and peered down. They were still falling. I screamed out their names, and then screamed at the horror of being forsaken.

The sound of screaming jolted me out of my sleep, and I realized it was coming from myself. Sweat decorated my forehead and tears streaked my cheeks and my vision. I screamed until my throat went raw, and I forced myself to quiet up. Anxiety crept into me as I dreaded the thought of just having woken everyone up. I gathered the duvet cover to my chest and sobbed big, ugly tears. I wasn’t sure how many more of these I could handle.
The sound of Stella barking followed by an abrupt knock on my door made me jump five feet out of my skin. I clicked on my lamp and took a few shallow deep  breaths. “Come in!”
The door rattled, but didn’t open, and then I remembered that I’d locked it before going to bed. Flinging the covers off me, I stumbled out of the sheets and over to the entrance, twisting the lock and opening the door.
Blake stared back at me with a befuddled expression written across his face. He was shirtless, nothing but a pair of black sweatpants hanging low on his toned body. I was too traumatized to really care about what he was wearing or, wasn’t wearing and what I was wearing, which was a thin tank top and a pair of short shorts. I remembered to breathe, and sucked in a sharp breath. “What’s up? "Stella squeezed past my legs to take a look around in an upright, sudden way. Her ears were perked up as she flicked her head around, sniffing things and trotted over to my window to take a look out. She stood on her hind legs.
Blake eyed me with a hint of worry. “I heard you scream...I’m literally right next door to you.” He flicked his chin to the next door over. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m great,” my mouth said, but the tears gathering in my eyes said something completely different.
“Uh huh.” He folded his arms across his chest making his muscles flex. “Veronica Munroe, out of the last seventeen years I’ve known you, I’ve always been good at spotting when you were lying.” A playful smile lifted the left side of his mouth. “Bad dream?”
I nodded. “Yeah. It was horrible.” My throat and mouth had the consistency of cotton balls.
He thought for a moment. “Want to talk about it?”
I shook my head. He couldn’t know. He shouldn’t need to be a part of my world any more than he already was. It wasn’t fair to them. They’d all already been so kind to take me in and accept me with little question as to why - I could spare them the sob story of how my life ultimately sucked. I’d just be dragging them down with me. The saying “Misery loves company” is hardly accurate for myself. For me it was, “Misery prefers to be alone in her sulking” and that was really the extent of that. Unless you were Taylor or Cami.
Blake gave me a dubious nod before inspecting my eyes. “Are you sure? You look like you could use some comfort or something.” His eyes were so full of concern, love, and comfort that it almost wounded me keeping something like this from him. Was I really looking at the bigger picture by not telling the guys about what had happened, or was I just worrying about myself and about how others would look at me? What people don’t know can’t hurt them. And it had been years since any of the Roth boys reached out to us, so why should they need to know?
Still, I felt my expression crumble as I released a silent sob from my lips, taking a gasp of air the next second. Tears stung  my eyes.
“I’m coming in.” Blake stepped into my bedroom before shutting the door behind him with a soft click. Then he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me close, swaying me back and forth to the rhythm of his own beat. “It’s not just a dream, is it?” He asked slowly.
I shook my head into his chest.
“It goes deeper than a dream,” he said in an analytical, yet thoughtful kind of way. “Something tells me that you’re here for other reasons than having family complications, am I right?” He wasn’t implying anything, or guessing anything - yet- but he was getting warmer.
I paused for a moment before I nodded.
He didn’t say anything after that. He just held me and rocked me back and forth for a bit until he was able to calm me down. Stella whined as she moved over to me, gazing up at me with her comforting dark eyes. She flicked her tail back and forth.
I climbed back into my bed a few minutes after he’d left my room, and turned off my lamp.
Being and feeling completely and utterly hopeless and alone, consumed my thoughts, I drifted back to sleep slowly. These were starting to get old. Stella stayed with me. She jumped up onto my bed before creeping steadily up towards me, turning around a few times before lying down under my arm. I petted her head and she released a heavy sigh.

The next morning I paired a pair of white converse shoes with skinny jeans, a white peasants blouse, and a pair of sparkly studs.
There was a knock at my door before Alison stuck her head into my room and smiled. “Good morin’, Sunshine. iHop, Dennies, or a Waffle house on Corner? It’s a small business.”
“Hey.” I smiled  a tired grin. “Waffle House sounds great.”
“Awesome, We’ll be leaving in ten.”
“I’ll be ready.” Once she closed the door, I ran into the bathroom to finish getting ready for the day.
Once I got out I went over to my makeup bag and selected my eyebrow filler, lip gloss, and mascara. I did a few sweeps of mascara on my lashes and did my eyebrows before I touched the tip of my lip gloss wand to my lips.
I gave one curt nod at my appearance before heading towards the door and shutting off the light.
We took a winding country road to the waffle house. Gold Peak Nevada was every rural countryside dream. It was near the California border, but only about a half hour drive from Las Vegas. Tall trees lined the road, but among the trees one could see green and yellow grass surrounded by patches of dirt. Tumbleweeds were out in the fields. The sun peaked out over the tops of the mountains, beaming little rays of light onto the earth below. The outline of the mountains were incredible, like it was a painting that had been done on a canvas with water-colors and charcoal. I drank up the beauty around me, and for the first time in a few weeks, I felt peace.
A few minutes later we entered the downtown area in the heart of Gold Peak. It was a quaint little town with barber shops, salons, and a few grocery stores. Shops lined the strips, every few hundred feet another store with a different purpose being there. A theatre took up half of one strip, and across the theater was a building with big, bold words flashing on it.  Waffle House on Corner.
Alison pulled broadside into a parking space on the side of the street. She turned off the engine before looking at me with an ecstatic smile. “Ready to try the best breakfast food ever?”
I nodded. “Do they have mango smoothies?”
“I believe they do.”
I loved mango smoothies. They were my favorite thing growing up. When I was little, my dad had been a health nut and got creative with his smoothies. He one time made an Orange-Mango smoothie. He shared some with me and I’d fallen in love instantly. That was one thing that hadn’t changed.
There were times where Jaiden would come over and we’d wait in the kitchen until my dad left for a moment before we’d snatch the blender and pour some of the smoothie into our cups. Then I’d replace the amount we took with some water, and he wouldn’t know the difference.
I missed those moments. Now here I was, with his mom, about to get a mango smoothie. And some pretty, supposedly stellar, waffles. I was kind of excited about this.
We entered into the restaurant which was furnished with faded blue booths against the side of the window and finished wood tables in the center of the floor. Black and white checkered tiles made up the floor and the back room of the cafe had a sign directing customers to the restrooms.
A waitress greeted us at the doors and we slid into a booth. She handed us some menus and told us she’d bring us some water with ice to start us out.
As my eyes scanned the menu, Alison cleared her throat. “So, I heard you had a nightmare last night.”
I peered at her over the top of the menu. “Was I really that loud?”
A barely there smile. “I actually jumped up and was on my way to your room until I saw that Blake was already on it. I didn’t want you feeling like it was overkill for you so I told everyone to go back to bed and that everything was okay.
My eyes went wide. “Everyone?”
She chuckled. “Only those of us who sleep upstairs. Jaiden and Danny sleep in the basement, so they were the only ones who slept through it.”
I released a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. So Jaiden missed out on some of my episode. That brought me a bit of comfort, at least. But not enough because, from what I could tell, Carter had a bit of a problem with watching his mouth. The last thing I needed was for him to blurt to everyone, and I meant everyone, that the new girl in the household had a manic break of some sort. I rested my forehead on my fingers.
Alison grabbed my hand. “It’s okay, Sweetheart, it’s okay. Kaleb has them every once in a while too.”
Kaleb was also ten. That just made things worse.
“Do you need to talk about it?” Her eyes held my gaze firmly, worry etched on the corners.
I shrugged. “I keep having nightmares of car accidents happening.”
Her gaze softened. “Do you dream about your family?”
I nod, my eyes trained down. “I watch them go up. And then I wake up in a cold sweat.”
“Have they been going on for a while?” She asked.
Again I nodded. “I’ve been dreaming since the day they died. But each night it’s different. One night I could be dreaming about them being alive and well, the next night I could dream about seeing them go over the guard rail. I didn’t even seen the accident, but I guess I didn’t need to for my imagination to complete the image.” The dreams that would occur of my family still being alive made me so happy, but the moment I’d wake up, my heart would shatter. A long day ahead of me would consist of misery.
She frowned. “I wish I could take away all of your pain. I know what it’s like to lose my best friend, but I have no idea what it must be like to have your family...gone. I am so sorry you have to go through this.” Her eyes seemed to have reached the very center of my core. I pressed my lips together, trying to remain composed. “You are not alone. You are not meant to get through this trial by yourself. You will never be alone.”
I clenched my eyes shut and nodded, my eyes beginning to water. I wasn’t alone. I didn’t have to expect myself to heal completely in one sitting. It was just not realistic. I knew this was not something I was ever going to completely heal from.
Sometimes in life, I think we expect ourselves to be alright the next day, next week, next month, but that’s not reality. When our souls have been damaged, and when we feel defeated, hopeless, tired, or in despair, we deserve to have an amount of time to let our hearts mend themselves. That may take weeks, or months. And, in reality, the pain will always remain, in some way, but we can remind ourselves that we have those around us to lift us up and realize that our struggles aren't as strange to others as we might have thought.
After some time looking at the menu and placing our orders, the waitress came back around with our trays of food. I took one sip of the mango smoothie and instantly thought I was in heaven. It tasted so good and reminded me a lot of the ones Dad would make.
As we sat silently and chewed, enjoying one another’s company, an older woman came in with a younger girl, and the waitress led them to a table. I glanced up at the girl as she passed, and instantly froze in my seat. My heart began to drum in my chest. I thought I was going into cardiac arrest. My breathing was shallow as I stared at her.
Amelia.
“Oh my gosh,” I whispered as I kept my gaze on her. I was about to get up and run to her.
Alison looked confused. “What?”
“It’s Mia,” I told her, my throat tightening. “She’s alive.”
I stood up as the girl turned around.
My heart sank. It wasn’t my baby sister. Just someone who looked so much like her. Amelia was gone.
I sank back down into the booth. My throat tightened. I tried swallowing it down.
Alison leaned in to me. “Let’s get out of here, Baby.”
I nodded before getting up.


We stopped by three clothing shops after that.
Alison was practically throwing clothing at me from left and right. Everything from sundresses, to sun hats, to overalls. “I’ve never been given the opportunity to go clothing shopping for a daughter,” she said before handing me a plaid shirt. “This is kind of a dream come true.” Quickly she caught herself. “I’m not saying that you’re my daughter, but I’m just saying that doing this makes me feel like I have a daughter.”
I gave her a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry about it. I’m happy to make you happy.”
I stepped into the dressing room and changed into a purple plaid polyester flannel and a pair of riding boots. I put on the white cowboy hat with the silver bullhorns on the front and looked into the mirror at my reflection. I looked like a cowgirl.
I smiled at my reflection before stepping out of the stall to show Alison. The look of pure joy spread across her cheeks like a wildfire. “Oh, Ronnie. That is such a cute outfit. We have to get it for you.”
I gave a shy smile. “Are you sure you want to?”
She put her hands on her hips all business-like. “Now don’t go asking me that ridiculous question. I wouldn’t have brought ya here if I hadn’t wanted to.”
I nodded in understanding.
“You should try these overalls shorts on,” she tossed me a pair of cute, acid-bleached overalls that looked to come up to mid-thigh. I stepped back into the changing room and put it on over my white peasants blouse.
Once  more I showed Alison. She scrunched her nose up at me. “They’re cute on you. If you used another top under it though, I think it’d look better.
As we finished up and checked out, I realized that I was walking out of here with nearly an entirely new wardrobe. It was a thrill, yet I didn’t want it to seem like I was trying too hard to blend in. After all, I was still me; Veronica Grace Munroe, from Graffington, Vermont, Orphaned now because her family was killed in an accident. I was out of place, not knowing a thing about farm culture or how to survive the next few years, completely on my own with no family.
Like I was cursed to roam this earth by myself until I died, because I hadn’t gone on the ski trip. I probably wouldn’t have survived. Now I was having nightmares about my family, and they were nonstop. Every time I dreamed, it hurt. So, an orphaned seventeen - almost eighteen - year old with no family, no friends in this new place, aside from the Roth family, and no way to get my life back to the way it used to be before all of this.
Yup, I was still me.
This was my life.
There was nothing I could do about it to change the circumstances even though every part of me screamed at my mind to try.