What She Left

chapter nine

seven forty-eight p.m., january seventh, two thousand and seventeen
two months before

     She reaches up and brushes the icy crystals off the leaves.

It's windy and gray but not rainy, and she almost wishes it would rain so that this day would not remind her of the one almost sixteen months ago, just like this.

    She blinks and she's watching Marianne shoved against a wall, screaming. Bailey's mouth is filled with blood. She blinks again and sees the gray sky.

     But the sky reminds her of the same clouds she stared at, hearing James screaming, begging, don't hurt them, stop, don't hurt them. Bailey was not hurt. She was physically wounded but- on the inside-

    On the inside, she feels like a dull, motionless gray sky.

But she hadn't felt emotionless today in fifth period biology, while her teacher spit insults at her, asked impossible questions they hadn't learned yet, humiliated her. Every teacher at that school hated her, but only one of them acted on it. Bailey always pretended that she didn't hear the other students betting on how long it would take her to explode and get suspended.

She thought about how, when her classmates had problems at school, they told their mothers and their mothers, fake dyed blonde hair, expensive sunglasses and too many bracelets would come in and have a very overdramatic talk with the principal in which he would promise to talk to said teacher or student and resolve the issue; because they cared about their child, in whatever way. Bailey's mother cares about her in a hands-off way; her children matter to her, but only when it affects her.

Sometimes Bailey thinks that being your mother's golden child would get you some points in that department. But Aleece has never done anything to protect Bailey, Marianne, and James; from the world, from their father; they've always protected each other, protected themselves. They grew up without the shield that most parents build around their kids.

The chair swing in their backyard is extremely old and had come with the house, but Bailey often sits there to avoid going inside. She sits there now, swinging her bag onto the seat next to her.

She doesn't have friends, and it's never really bothered her. But today, as she sits alone on the porch swing, she wonders what it would be like to have a few people gathered around her, laughing, studying together, waving to each other in the school halls, sitting together at lunch.

Bailey's seen it for years when Marianne used to live with them, running with the popular group even when she was a freshman. Marianne was never without friends, or romantic partners, for that matter. There was always a place for Bailey at those parties and overcrowded cars because Marianne was too pretty and too wanted to be denied anything. But Bailey never saw the appeal.

    The swing creaks, one, two, one, two. Her breathing settles to match it.

    When she was seven years old, she almost drowned. She was held under the water but an unrelenting wave, and she remembers that one breath where she went, this is it. All of her senses dulled, her eyes glossed over, her lungs burning, her ears deaf to anything but the sound of the water surrounding her.

Today, she sat in class and reached in her bag, as casually as any student reaching for their pen or notebook. But she reached into that backpack and ran her finger over the glossy, polished barrel of the pistol.

She spent several seconds with her hand right there, feeling like she was drowning, the teacher's voice, the students shuffling; all muffled. She was underwater. She was dying.

She released the pistol and sat back up. The wave crashed over her head and was gone.

Was she too weak to do it? Her father would be ashamed. She should go through with it; go all the way. Her father would be disappointed in her if he returned home and she was just the same, she was just Bailey who stayed under the protection of her mother's favoritism and hid from her destiny; be better, be remembered, be stronger than those foolish people who pretend to be happy and normal. He left the gun to her. He left the legacy to her. There's no one on earth that makes her feel such rage as her father does; but it's her duty.

     She doesn't look up when someone sits on the swing next to her. There's a long, drawn out sigh, and Marianne says, "You okay?"

     Bailey laughs. "Why do you even bother to ask?"

     "That's what sisters do. I think." When Bailey doesn't respond, Marianne continues. "We haven't talked about what you said that night."

    "What's there to talk about?"

     She can picture Marianne's expression just then. "Literally everything."

      Bailey leans back, looking straight ahead. "On my end, there's nothing to talk about. You, however, can talk about whatever you want."

      "I'm worried about you, Bails."

      "No shit."

      "Look-" Marianne puts her hand on Bailey's upper arm. "Look, we can go see Mom's doctor. We can talk to her. It'll help. You'll feel better."

      Bailey finally looks at her sister, her gaze sharp. "Don't treat me like a kid. I know what you want me to do. Talk to a shrink, get some pills, and spend the rest of my life living like Mom, living- or not living- like Drew. I'm not going to do that. I can't. There's no life for me there."

     There were tears in her sister's eyes. "You're so damn selfish."

     "What?" Bailey was caught between surprise and anger.

     "I'm asking you to do this for me," Marianne says. "I lost Drew- we- we all lost Drew, and I can't, I can't do that again, I can't lose you too, to the same thing that I lost him to."

     "Marianne. I'll never be happy like you. I'll never find a relationship like you did. I'll never be anything but what I am now, what Mom is. I still have seventh, eighty years left if I live an average life- and I can't live that long like that."

    When she is silent, Bailey knows that Marianne finally understands. But when she speaks, her voice is shaking. "You'll hurt other people."

     "I won't." It is probably a lie.

    Marianne is crying. "Just promise me one thing."

     Bailey is silent. She doesn't make promises before she knows what they are.

     "You'll tell me before you go. So I get a chance to say goodbye."

      Bailey stands and swings her bag over her shoulder. "I promise." That, she can do. She'll keep this one promise.

     Turning, she pulls open the back door, leaving Marianne crying alone on the swing. That last time she'd seen Marianne cry was a year and a half ago. It chilled her to her bones.

    In her room alone, she puts the safety on he pistol and slides in under her bed. You'll hurt other people.

     I won't.

     She could only keep so many promises.