Ignite (19 page)

             
I’d called just in the nick of time. Her landlord had done all he could to keep the house with all her possessions intact, but he was losing money and needed to have it cleared out.

             
Too lost for words at that point, I’d simply answered yes when he asked me to do it. I was forwarded the landlord’s number. After I’d gotten off the phone, I broke the news to Daniel and Lexi who were beyond stunned themselves. I didn’t need sympathy, not when it was suddenly so hard for me to evoke any kind of emotion at the loss of my mother who I hadn’t seen and barely, if at all, spoken to in years.

             
When they’d offered to come out with me, I adamantly told them it was something I needed to do on my own. I wasn’t prepared to have those close to me see the life I left behind. I liked keeping that part of me buried in the past.

             
After calling the landlord, I was given two weeks to clear the house. Daniel handed me the keys to his SUV, and I packed a suit case and decided to start the journey the next morning. There was no way I was going to delay this. In and out was my objective, and maybe somewhere in the entire process I would be able to feel
something
. Currently, the news was indigestible. So surreal, as if I was outside of my body, watching me; doe eyed and lost, like a child in search of direction.  

             
I should have just told the landlord to toss everything in that house in the landfill. What would I possibly want to have in it, after all? Only I knew that would be a callous and uncaring act. My mother had been a shitty parent to me, but I had to respect the situation and not run from it because it was the easy way out.

             
On the other hand, I knew the difficulty in emptying that house wasn’t the sole reason why I didn’t want to return. It was everything that Gosnells stood for: my childhood, memories, Lucinda… and Jaxon. I’d done my research. The town had tripled in size the last three years due to the mining boom about an hour out of town that brought in a flood of workers and families looking to situate themselves in an established town where moms and kids weren’t far from their fathers and husbands. The population was exceeding fifty thousand. Gosnells was becoming a small city and not just an agricultural town anymore.

             
Still. I knew there was a big possibility I might bump into people I’d grown up with; people who were tied to him. And Lucinda wasn’t even a block away from my mother’s place. The thought of seeing her made my chest constrict painfully. It would be a downright nightmare. I took off. Buried my past and her along with it. How would I explain myself?

             
All that thought did was lead me to the painful reminder of what happened five years ago. After I’d left Jaxon without so much as a goodbye, I’d showed up at Lexi’s doorstep and hysterically bared my soul to her. I told her everything because I couldn’t hold it in anymore.

             
“Did he ever lay a hand on you?” was her first question after I’d revealed my dark side.

             
“Never. It was all me, Lexi. All of it.”

             
“You can stay here, but I don’t know for how long.”

             
“He’ll know where to find me.”

             
“Then where are you going to go?”

             
“Probably stay the night at a hotel, and then take the Greyhound bus out of the city. I’ve got a good chunk of money tucked aside.”

             
“And go where?”

             
I shrugged, the weight of the world pressed on my heart. “I don’t care. Away.”

             
She’d been silent for a while, deep in thought. I knew her too well, and when I saw the stiffening of her shoulders, I knew something was up.

             
“What’s wrong?” I’d asked.

             
Her eyes glistened as she looked up at me. “Trevon and I broke up three days ago.”

             
“What? Why haven’t you told me?”

             
“Because he’s been trying to make it work out between us and sometimes I get tempted to move on and forgive. Then I remember what he did. Caught him texting some girl, and she’d been sending him nude photos. Told him that I was through with him, and that I wanted him gone. But he’s on the lease, too, and he’s playing the stubborn asshole. Won’t go.” With a sigh, she bit her lip and that tough look I knew so well to be Lexi returned as she straightened herself and relaxed her shoulders. “If you’re going to go, then I’m going with you.”

             
Snapping myself back to reality, I parked in the gas station just outside of Gosnells. The pain and the tightness in my chest had me gripping the steering wheel with all my might. I was having an anxiety attack, and it didn’t help when I looked back on that summer Lexi and I took off. Four weeks we jumped on buses and made our way to nowhere in particular. It was sometimes eventful, but most of the time we were running away and locked up inside our heads, talking to strangers as a way to distract ourselves from the pain and the thinking. I’d convinced myself the spontaneous trip was therapy, and that I’d healed from the evil inside of me. Every morning I woke up in some grubby motel room wishing I had Jaxon with me, and knowing damn well I’d made the biggest mistake of my life. So I turned it around and we headed back to Winthrop.

             
Twenty eight days I’d been gone, and I’d prepared the speech of my life. It was the kind of speech that would have me on my hands and knees begging Jaxon to take me back. I hadn’t anticipated that I’d rock up to the apartment complex and see a different couple through the apartment window from across the street. Then it was confirmed when I buzzed up to the apartment. They’d been moved in for two and a half weeks, they said, and had no idea who this Jaxon I was asking about was.

             
I dragged Lexi to a phone booth, and by then I was panting up a storm. When I tried calling his number, it was out of service. When I tried calling my own, it was cut off too. I didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but I was seriously losing my shit at this point.

             
“I’m going to call Jaxon’s mom, and you’re going to ask about him,” I told Lexi.

             
“Why won’t you talk to her?” she retorted, and though she had a point, I couldn’t bring myself to talk to Lucinda at that time. I was too much of a coward. So much uncertainty had run through my mind. What if he told his mom not to give me any information about him because he was angry as hell that I’d walked out and didn’t ever want to see me again? She’d be hopeless information. And how would I explain myself to her? I’d have to reveal how evil I was to him, how badly I treated him – no way, she would hate me forever once she knew.

             
“Just do it,” I demanded.

             
Sighing in irritation, Lexi whipped the phone out of my hand and put it to her ear. She looked at me and raised her eyebrows. “Well, dial the fucking number then!” As I began dialling, she asked, “What should I ask her exactly? Why he left the apartment or…?”

             
“Yeah, and where he is, and his phone number too.”

             
My heart was pounding fast as hell when I heard the tiny, barely audible voice of Lucinda through the ear piece. “Hi, I was wondering if I could talk to Jaxon,” said Lexi. “I’m just a friend of his from Winthrop. I’ve been gone a little while and came back to his apartment and he’s not living there… Oh, right. Do you know where he is then? No, I didn’t know about that. Do you know the name of the work place? Oh…” Her face fell and she looked at me with pressed lips as she listened. “Would you happen to have his phone number? Tried calling that too but couldn’t get a hold of him… Okay, no that’s alright. I gotta go. Thank you very much. Bye.”

             
The second she hung up, I grabbed her hand and squeezed. “Well?”

             
“She said he’s moved away.”

             
“Where?”

             
Lexi paused and then sighed, looking away from my eyes. “She… She said he’s taken some job overseas. A long term one.”

             
I scrunched my eyebrows in confusion. “What? Where overseas?”

             
“She said he didn’t want to disclose that information to anyone, so she couldn’t say. But that it was a really good job, and he’s expected to be gone for a long time.”

             
“What’s the job?”

             
“I don’t know. She was being really vague, like she didn’t want to talk about it. He doesn’t have a number either. She said he just wants to focus on his work, but that he’s doing really well and he’s very happy, and that she’d let him know I called. Then she asked for my name and I just told her I had to go.” When she saw the look on my face, she brought me in for a hug. “I’m sorry, Sara. Maybe you should give her a call too.”

             
“She already told you everything I needed to know,” I whispered, closing my eyes as tightly as possible, as if that could prevent the tears from falling.

             
Just like now, in the car, with my head down and my shoulders slumped.
He’s doing really well and he’s very happy.
That knowledge was akin to someone taking a hammer to my heart and beating it to shreds. My leaving had given him a good job overseas somewhere, and he was happy. The break-up had been the right thing to do after all. It’d given him purpose to excel in other things in life, and the fact I’d been so miserable and he’d been so happy in that month I’d been gone just confirmed to me how toxic I’d been. It must have hit him like a truck. He would have woken up the next morning and not have heard me bitch and moan about something he’d done wrong. He wouldn’t have had to get up, count to ten to calm his patience down, and then try to thaw the ice that was my personality. God, he’d tried so hard in our relationship. He deserved so much better.

             
Five years was a long time, and in that time I’d come so far. Therapy and anger management were just some of the things I’d undergone to change. I’d also taken up meditation, and yoga. At one point I took an art class with Lexi, but I butchered that skill after three classes and never returned. My therapist continued to press me to try more things. Nothing held my interest for long, but I was still at it years later. Lexi and I were currently in cooking class, so our baking skills had dramatically improved and we’d been indulging in many forbidden treats – and eating was a kind of therapy too.

             
I was lucky, or so Dr Shipton said. I’d caught my problem early on, and the taming of my inner beast was easier than it would have been had I let it sit there and simmer any longer. There were triggers to the anger. Though Lucinda had given me that speech on independency, the only reason it’d sunk in so far was because of witnessing my mother’s hopeless relationship with my devil of a father. She had done nothing for herself, and even after he’d left, she’d depended on me to take care of her addiction. Witnessing that kind of dependency in a figure that was meant to guide me through life had impacted me more than I thought possible.

             
But she’s dead now. She’s dead. Dead.
The word still hadn’t sunk in. My mother wasn’t alive anymore. She’d died horrifically, and had I had a fucking phone I’d have made it to her funeral. I suppressed the guilt because it wasn’t really my fault. The last time I’d contacted her was through a text, letting her know my number had changed. She’d never called me from the time I left home. We were strangers, and always were. I knew nothing of the woman that died. Never did either. Memories reminded me she’d left me to fend for myself.

             
“Get a grip of yourself,” I mumbled. “Get this fucking done and go back home.” Back to the familiarity of Lexi and Daniel – that was my present bliss.

             
I started the car and followed the directions of the GPS. God, Daniel’s car was the sexiest thing I’d ever driven.

             
What was supposed to be a three hour drive had taken me five, but after that last stop, I got my shit together and rode all the way into town. When I saw the sign of Gosnells, I internally shuddered and then the nostalgia flooded in when I drove past a familiar farm. I couldn’t stop looking around the place. The other farms were gone and replaced by large suburban developments still in the works. There were signs out front of every developing area, and one that said, “Maple Springs can be your future home. Low interest rates, buy now!”

             
If it hadn’t been for the GPS tracking my whereabouts, I would have been completely lost. Gosnells was on steroids; new streets, so many shops, and so many people. When I drove through the centre of town, I marvelled at one of the major shopping centres. It’d been extended and refurbished; no longer looking like an old derelict warehouse I used to buy groceries from with Lucinda.

             
Fuck, when her name sprang up, I cautiously looked around the streets as if she would sprout out in front of me at any second. I panicked knowing I was in the same vicinity as her. I was not ready to face up to her, and deep inside I knew I never would be.