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some memories are easier to forget than others.
like scars, they can fade with time until they're hardly noticeable— as if they were never even there to begin with. others cling to familiar scents and sights and sensations, etched into the landscape of your brain never to be erased, never to be replaced. no matter how hard you try, certain memories will always come back to you— close in on you like a shadow in the night, jolting you from your peaceful present day.
at least, that's how you feel when you get a call from your hometown about your estranged mother's sudden death— and all of those painful memories from your childhood you worked so hard to forget, constantly pushing them to the back of your mind come crashing down on you in a giant wave of stinging nostalgia. and you feel as though you're drowning in the weight of them.
as soon as you were old enough, and on the cusp of your eighteenth birthday— you'd abandoned your life in a small town in the south to make it big in the city. you wanted to write, wanted your name on big billboards and your books in every store, so you left it all behind as a naive young woman to follow a man who'd promised you a fruitful career and that all of your wildest dreams would come true. back then, you'd have done anything to get out of that tiny town.
and you did, though just barely breaking into your mid-twenties you made a name for yourself as a best-selling author of fiction books. known far and wide, you thought that your career was your way out, but you'd never thought that you'd be dragged back to the hellhole of your childhood hometown either. the place where people cursed your name instead of cheered it, where you were an outsider instead of someone to be loved.
the memories of your bitter mother and piece of shit father ( who'd abandoned you all very early on ) sit at the forefront of your mind as you make the long drive to your old southern home— you would only go back to sell your dead mother's house, see to her funeral arrangements and be back to your new, better life in the city within the week. you couldn't possibly stay any longer, you refused to.
except, the words of your publicist, mina ashido, serve as a haunting reminder that your plan isn't just a quick in and out.
'when you go on this trip and go back home, sit in your feelings. talk to the people you used to know! write something. something refreshing that your fans have never seen before.'
you remember the conversation as clear as day, after having received the news of your mother's passing— your nosey publicist thought it would be a good idea to pester you to consider writing that autobiography. she'd told you that your fans wanted to know the real you, that you were too private for your own good and apparently your science fiction romance novels just weren't cutting it anymore.
you scoff to yourself, alone in your rented jeep, cruising down mountainous dirt roads with nothing but dust and rocks kicked up by your tires, cold air and the clear sky above to keep you company. "the real me, my ass." there was a reason that no one knew anything about you prior to who you are now. why your childhood memories were kept safely behind lock and key. no one needed to know the neglect you faced after your elder brother's death, they could be spared the details on how your mother went bat-shit crazy trying to investigate his accident. what good would it do anyone to know how the town and its people turned against your mother when she couldn't handle her duties, being too consumed with grief to help those that needed her?
