How To Live

Chapter Four

I have always had blonde hair. Not the beautiful natural blonde that Tommy inherited from my Mother, but a chemical blonde that I got put in my hair every month because it made me look more like his sister. When we were little we used to be mistaken for twins, having just a year between us in age. But when I got older my hair darkened and Tommy's lightened so I took to dying it because I liked the attention of being Tommy Stanton's blonde haired blue-eyed twin.

Now the peroxide is itchy and the colour doesn't feel like it fits me anymore, so I dig around inside the bathroom cupboard and find a box of my Mothers old dye. The bathroom is a mess and for a moment I panic, worried about what I've done until I look in the mirror, at the wide eyes that stare back at me, eyes that are identical to my brothers but now belong to a face that is truly me. I know hair colour can't change who you are, but this dull brown reflects how I am feeling inside. I don't sparkle anymore and I don't shine.

This is the Ashton that lived in Tommy's shadow, the girl who needs to find herself now that she no longer has anything to hide behind. Now is the time for me to be spontaneous and courageous and everything I never was, because those things belonged to Tommy. Now is the time to stop being the Mayors perfect daughter and start being me.

I have never snuck out of the house before, but I wish I had.

My heart is thumping inside of my chest and the adrenaline rush that overcomes my body is the best feeling I've had since Tommy died. When I climb out of my second story window and scale down the drainpipe, my mind is thinking of nothing but getting out. Out of the silent prison that is my home, out of the dark abyss that Tommy isn't here to light anymore.

In reality, I'm sure I could have walked straight out of the front door and no one would have stopped me, but where is the fun and adventure in that?

I run across the front lawn in the dark and quietly pull up the garage door. Tommy's jeep sits there, dusty and waiting. It hasn't been driven since the day he died and Mom demands we keep it shut away in the garage so she doesn't have to look at it.

I stick the key in the ignition and the engine roars to life, like a dormant beast that can't wait to roam the neighbourhoods of Bolton once more.

Tommy loved this car to bits. He and Dad bought it when it was nothing but a heap of junk the summer before Tommy got his driving permit. They worked on it every night after dinner and I was the first person Tommy took for a ride when he finally passed his test.

I back it out of the garage slowly and jump out to close the door after me, this way if Dad happens to come home at all tonight, he won't notice that it's missing.

I pull out of our drive and take off down the street, cranking the stereo and rolling down the windows to let in the cool summer breeze. Tommy showed me how to drive his car, but even when I got my own permit he never let me drive it alone. Right now, if I look straight ahead, down the middle of the road I can almost convince myself that he is sitting there in the passenger seat right beside me. That his out of tune vocals are singing along to radio in time with mine.

I had intended to head straight to the party, but when I drive past the small blue cottage that Henry Garston used to live in, my uplifting mood changes.

I wonder how his family is coping with the loss of their son. I wonder how they are dealing with the fact that he died as a murderer. I wonder how they find the courage to show their faces in public or look people in the eye knowing their son has destroyed the lives of so many people.

Through these dark thoughts my mind makes other plans and I subconsciously find myself heading towards the seven eleven down of Barrington Street, where Tommy and I used to buy slushies and rent a movie every Friday night. It was a tradition that was totally lame, but it was ours, and right now I could use a happy pick me up of some kind.