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"How long can I stay In a place that can't contain me?"
TEENAGE REBELLION —𝗝𝗼𝗵𝗻 𝗕.
JAYLENE ROSEWOOD feared death to a dangerous extent, the thought alone sending her into a downward spiral, skin crawling with revolting nausea consuming her whole.
Optimism wasn't her specialty, not when the unshakable sense that death would approach her at a young age circled in the back of her mind, not once granting her the state of tranquility . . . not until she found herself in the presence of a crowd she should've strayed far from.
The night of the incident played in a loop in the months she spent at a rehabilitation facility located miles away from the outer banks, the place that stopped feeling like home after the death of her father. It wasn't the fact that she nearly succumbed to her dangerous coping mechanism, no, it was the look on her mother's face that kept her up at night—the evident disappointment mixed with concern about the similarities binding the sixteen-year-old to her deceased father.
Addiction wasn't unfamiliar to the family, not in the slightest. Henderson Rosewood had everything a man could dream of, he'd been born into a wealthy family, one whose money went back decades. He had a family, one who filled a place in his heart that money never could. Metaphorically speaking, he sat on a throne on the social hierarchy, his success granting him opportunities that others could never achieve, not without the connections he had access to. Most importantly, he had a bottle in his hand at all times, Jaylene remembered it well, his breath reeking of the poisonous substance as he tucked her in at night, occasionally stumbling over his own feet when Marleen worked late.
He stopped drinking, or at least minimized the amount he consumed as his children got older. Whether it was the fact that his father set him straight after a drunken mistake nearly ended his life or an epiphany occurred, Henderson almost dropped the habit entirely. He was fine, or so he'd fooled everyone into believing so.
The autopsy report revealed high levels of Xanax, OxyContin, Vicodin, and traces of liquor present in his body when they found him rotting in a motel room. Similar to what would've been revealed had Jaylene Rosewood not been found by her frantic younger sister before the drugs in her system could deprive her of life.
Ironically, death, the very thing she feared more than anything, seemed less scary than the thought of falling back into her old life as though nothing had happened. She couldn't even make up some story as to why she'd gone M.I.A. for the last four months, not when articles had already surfaced online depicting the tragedy that could've been, one that mirrored the motel room scene that occurred one year prior.
