Girl Almighty » Lydia Martin

before

     Winston Cavanaugh knew she should have seen this coming, she knew with every ounce of her being that her mother was never really happy here anyways. Always complaining about how this life in Takilma, Oregon wasn't what she wanted, how all she ever wanted was her moment in the limelight. All she ever wanted was the world, and the man who was supposed to be a breadwinner father, just couldn't give it to her. The shock after the phone call shouldn't have come, but it did.

     She was standing outside of the school, and the rain came pouring down from the smoke-gray clouds as her cell phone trembled in her pocket. Her father, Marlowe, choked out the words. "Winston...she's gone."

     All the abandoned Cavanaugh girl could do was nod, of course she was devastated, but she also knew too well that this was expected. She knew in that her father's tone of voice, that as much as he hated it, he knew it too. She ended the call, without a second glance, even though the urge of calling her mother was almost agonizing.

     All she wanted was to feel the warmth of Nick's arm over her shoulders, pulling her into his sweatshirt that always seemed to smell of autumn and axe. But he was gone too; another boyfriend slipping Winnie Cavanaugh another note in fourth period telling her that it wasn't 'meant to be'.

     All she felt was the heavy cloud of drowsy sadness settling in over her dizzied head.

     All she felt was the rain beating down on her back like a thousand knives.

⧑⧑⧑

     Taping up the last package was like putting the last of the life the Cavanaugh's once knew into a brown cardboard box, and putting it into the cabin of Marlowe's rusted blue pick-up. The duo left the house at seven A.M, but if Winnie could have helped the situation the two would have stayed there for as long as it took to heal. If she could have helped it they would have stayed in Takilma, Oregon forever. But here they sit, in the old leather seats of Marlowe's pick-up, driving into the fog, out of Takilma, into nothingness.

     Marlowe keeps his eyes straight ahead, both his hands resting on the leather wheel. "Win, I know it's hard, but what business do we have there without Claire?"

     Winnie stays quiet. Why should she say anything? He knows that Takilma is all they've ever known, the only thing they've ever loved. The Cavanaugh's diner, The Eight Mile Inn, is there, Winnie's school, her friends, her father's position as deputy. The Cavanaugh's everything is there. But in Winston's clouded eyes, Marlowe just doesn't seem to see that.

     "Come on, Win. Talk to me."

     "We didn't have to leave."

      "There's no reason we should stay."

       She gazes out the car window, into the fog that slowly turns to cornfield. The golden brown of the crops looks like the strands of Claire Cavanaugh's hair. All Winston wants is to inhale her familiar maple syrup scent. All she wants from her mother is a goodbye.

      The cornfields disappear behind brick walled shops, and the pure air is polluted with smoke as the old pick-up travels alongside Mercedes Benz and BMWs. Winnie Cavanaugh was never one to blend into the formalities sheltered comfortably in Takilma.

      She was always the one covered in blacks and greys, a beanie covering her matted hair that she tends to dye every other weekend. Winnie Cavanaugh was always the mysterious punk who ran Takilma Valley High School by day and wasted by night. But what the Cavanaugh girl knows for certain that not one TVHS attendee would have guessed that the Winnie Cavanaugh would be the girl whose mother left in the dead of night, the girl whose father's own cowardice drove them from Takilma for good.

      However, the reality is that no matter how many people gossip about the trio's disappearance from Takilma, and no matter how many road signs and cornfields and rest stops Winnie and Marlowe pass...none of that will let the thought of going back to the sleepy town with the destructive memories penetrate the iron walls the two have built simultaneously in their subconscious.

      Winston Cavanaugh is also certain that no matter how reluctant she pretends to be as her father drags her to the front doorstep of the Whittemore's modern three-story home; she knows that the boy who answers to the doorbell, half naked and hair tangled, is one smirking face that will ultimately change her world forever.

      The boy, Jackson, purses his lips, smirking as she leans against the side of the house. "Watch the paint job, Oregon."