The Games We Play At Night

Part One

The Uber takes a left turn and my stomach sinks. My heartbeat turns into a soft ache in my chest. This is not how you're supposed to feel when you come home. It's been nine-and-a-half months and it looks exactly the same. Of course, I know that isn't true.

Everything's changed.

This street, my street, is surrounded by perfectly manicured lawns. Thick carpets of grass are bordered by picket fences and expertly-snipped rose bushes. The playful shouts of neighborhood kids travel from backyards and I can almost picture them, running joyously after one another in a friendly game of tag. In a few hours they'll see the streetlights come on, the beacon that signals it's time to go home.

I know because I used to be them.

This is where I grew up, in Beckridge—a picture-perfect, postcard town in the heartland of America. Beckridge is the Mayberry of the 21st century, where all the neighbors know each other, doors are kept unlocked, and you graduate with the same kids you went to Kindergarten with. I used to feel lucky growing up here.

When I look around now, all I see are lies.

The attention to detail doesn't help, in fact, it's the opposite. It's like the entire town is trying to bury their secrets in middle-class charm and now they're drowning in it. Suffocating.

Some things can't be masked.

It's like at a funeral, when they try to disguise the dead with heavy make-up and a shrine of flowers, but all it does is melt together with the decay in the air, forming something unnatural. That nauseating combination of florals on top of powder on top of formaldehyde. It's been ten months, but the smell is as crisp in my mind as the perfume I'm wearing.

The car continues its crawl down the wide street and I count the second speed-limit sign. There's four between the turn and my house—a trick my Dad taught me when I was little because all the houses on our street looked the same. 

The slow pace and the afternoon sunlight make the cab feel too warm and fuzzy. I stifle a yawn. I'm in a perpetual state of exhaustion and have been since I left the comforts of home for the crowded dorms at the state university. Apparently, lack of sleep will do that to you, or so I've been told by the school's head counselor. I've gotten used to the dark circles and constant yawns. It's the nightmares that I can't seem to shake. The ones that linger, long into the daytime.

My only relief comes in the form of a little white pill. A quick fix, my doctor called it. Just pop one down and you'll sleep like a baby. But, maybe that's the problem.

Maybe I don't want to sleep.

The car comes to a stop and the driver mutters something over his shoulder. Just like that we've arrived and I'm suddenly aware of how unready I am. The driver gets out and I follow. He hastily unloads my bags from the trunk while I shuffle onto the sidewalk. He places the bags at my feet and gives a polite nod. I mumble my thanks and watch him scamper back into the driver's seat and drive away.

Once he's gone, I inspect the residence at 402 Cunningham Street.

It looks the same as always—off-white siding with navy-blue shutters. The front door inlaid with a stained-glass window. Mom's rhododendron bushes on either side of the steps, nearing the end of bloom. Solar-lights lining the walkway. Even our mailbox is the same—blue with our last name stenciled in white.

The only thing I don't recognize is the uncertainty radiating down to my toes. It shouldn't come as a surprise, really. I've been away for the better part of a year.

And they say absence makes the heart grow fonder.

It seems after everything that's happened, I'm the thing that's changed.